Massive acts sign up for Blue Note London's opening gigs — tickets on sale imminently
Move over, Ronnie Scott's?
Last year we heard a Blue Note Jazz club was opening in London, and it’s finally… almost here.
The Blue Note London opens in Covent Garden this September. And, wow, it is not messing about with its first set of acts.
Blue Note London’s grand opening gigs will see Robert Glasper play two sets, at 7:30pm and 9pm, on both 23rd and 24th September. Presale tickets are available from 10am on 13th August, while general sale begins 24 hours later.
A multi-Grammy winning, world-famous jazz pianist, we have no doubt the 250-capacity venue’s tickets will be gone in no time.
But there are arguably some even bigger names ahead. Our first-week top pick is Yussef Dayes, who again will play 7pm and 9:30pm sets, on 27th September.
He is followed by two nights from Jamie Cullum, who plays two sets a night on 28th and 29th September. Cullum will also return in October, on the 8th and 9th, for another set of concerts, should you miss him the first time around.
Space for new names
The calendar is already filling up for the rest of the year, with upcoming shows from Brand New Heavies, a whole string of Robert Glasper performances, and six sets from Cory Henry.
We don’t yet have any ticket price information for these shows, but given the stature of some of the names and the limited space available, we can’t imagine they’ll be that cheap.
Blue Note London will have two performance spaces. There’s the main room, which has capacity for 250, plus a second area with room for just 100, although that part won’t be open until later in the year.
The plan is for it to host performances for emerging artists and, from our digging around, there don’t appear to be listings online for this second space just yet.
Blue Note London’s entire first wave of tickets — not just the Robert Glasper opening night ones — go on sale next week, so take a look at the schedule before you miss a presale window.
This will be Blue Note’s first London venue, but it has been around since the early 1980s, starting out in New York’s Greenwich Village.
“Our hope is that Blue Note London becomes more than a venue – it becomes a home for musicians, a gathering place for the community and an integral part of London’s cultural landscape,” says Tsion Bensusan, co-owner of Blue Note’s parent company.
“London has always been one of the world’s great music capitals, with an extraordinary jazz heritage and an incredibly diverse creative community.”
Blue Note London is found at 42-29 St Martin’s Lane, nearby Charing Cross Station. While you can book tickets separately, a “founding member” membership costs £295 a year, granting six tickets a year and access to the earliest presale windows.
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