Salena Jones' room - news items

“With the assured air of a woman who has played the world for the last 3 decades Salena Jones comes to the stage in sparkling black jacket, chic hair framing her face.

Clicking her fingers, she swings into a perfect arrangement of Porter’s “I Love Paris”. She follows with Harburg’s “April In Paris”, a fabulous arrangement of “Norwegian Wood” and “Lover”. Her young trio of Martin Kaine on drums, Jerome Davies on double bass and Matt O’Regan on piano frame her voice perfectly.

Tonight though, she isn’t singing at just any venue. She’s in the first week of launching her own club. In the time-honoured tradition of singers of all genres, The Salena Jones Supper Club is her place, and a new platform for jazz and live performance in London.

Salena has created the perfect music supper ambience in a basement around the corner from Shepherds Bush Green. Down in the club the treacle walls are a subtle dusky pink. The low stage is positioned at one end of the warm, rectangular room, and can easily be seen from the bar.

Elegant chairs and candlelit tables with linen napkins and sparkling cutlery speak of attention to detail. Large framed photographs decorate the walls, there’s Salena looking wonderfully glamorous in sequins and sparkle, and jazz icons like Sinatra and Sonny Rollins. The club can seat around 100 for supper, which is intimate without being claustrophobic.

The bar long and tiled, and the staff attentive, young, black clad and friendly. The PA is good, the sound at perfect volume, and the baby grand piano, sponsored by the Japanese company Kawai, is excellent.

So why open a club? And why here? It transpires that it has long been Salena’s ambition to host her own room, and as Tony Puxley, her manager, points out, the last two decades have seen opportunities for jazz and cabaret singers increasingly diminish in this country. The risk is huge, but the room is designed to spotlight attention on the more mainstream artists, particularly focussing on jazz although there has also been a string quartet and there are plans afoot to host more ethnic-based music as well as being a singer’s showcase.

Salena and Tony plan to attract their audience by giving them atmosphere, good music and good food, and with their excellent chef Peter Biggs and booking policy that all seems an auspicious beginning.

I saw Salena play some years ago at a jazz festival which I think was in Holland Park though she can’t remember it. Wherever it was I remember her very well. She looked like a star, and I recall her complete professionalism and total swingability.

She’s been a central figure on the British jazz scene and from her base here she has conquered the world. Show business was (of course) in her blood. Her mother was a performer and dancer and the young Salena began to sing in church and school before making her debut on life’s larger stages. Her career began at Manhattan’s legendary Harlem Apollo, when she won a singing competition with Weill’s “September Song”. She began making demonstration records for artists like Peggy Lee, Brenda Lee and Lena Horne, before getting her own recording contract, subsequently playing in jazz clubs and cabaret all over the US before taking off for Europe in the early sixties.

Glamorous and beautiful, with her distinctive voice and relaxed style, by then she had met and sung with a breathtaking array of great jazz names. Her photo album shows her arm in arm with everyone from Betty Carter to one of my favourite r’and’b singers, La Verne Baker. Wanting to get out of the States and expand her horizons Salena bought a one way ticket to Madrid where, having sung one song at the “Whiskey and Jazz Club” she was immediately engaged to sing nightly with Dexter Gordon! But London called, and she arrived here with her dollars strapped around her waist and found a bedsit in Earls Court. She got a short run at Ronnie Scott`s and found her contract extended for seven consecutive weeks, still a record for this legendary jazz club. Since then she’s played everywhere, from Beijing to Turkey as well as Canada, Europe, the US and Asia. She’s often worked with the BBC Big Band, and has been appearing in Japan annually since 1978, where she is a well loved and highly respected artiste. (So much so she considered relocating there at one point).

Her recording career has reflected her ability to both choose exciting repertoire and also to move beyond the jazz boundaries. She has recorded collections of Porter, Lennon and McCartney and Jobim as well as Hollywood and Broadway musical numbers. She’s sold over 1,000,000 albums and made 36 albums, and sung with Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughn, Mark Murphy and Dudley Moore (of whom Salena says “he was a brilliant pianist”) amongst others. She’s been described as “one of the world’s finest singers” and her Jobim collection has been hugely praised. Her career continues to go from strength to strength and can be followed at her web site on www.salenajones.co.uk

Hosting her own club then, in a way, seems hardly a surprising move. Since the club opening there has been a deluge of artistes calling, hoping for bookings, due to the sadly decreasing number of venues for performers. Consider the size of London and its population and compare it to New York, and it is found sadly wanting. There is without doubt a demand for more venues like this, but Londoners have to support their live performance spaces.

Word of mouth will undoubtedly bring people through the doors and I am certain once experienced, that word will spread. And that`s because there is something wonderful about real supper clubs. To sit, relax and eat well and watch a class trio and a fabulous singer is one of life’s treats. At last, there is another supper club with class and style.