- Vortex Jazz Club
The Vortex Jazz Club is a
London venue that primarily features live contemporaryjazz .The Vortex started as a jazz club in 1987 and was located in Church Street,
Stoke Newington . However following the acquisition of that building by property developers, the club relocated in 2005 to the Dalston Culture House in Gillett Street, N16, where it is at the heart of the newly-createdGillett Square , one of mayorKen Livingstone 's 100 public spaces for London. The Square opened on 10 November 2006 with a performance byAndy Sheppard 's Saxophone Massive, comprised of 200 saxophonists. The street in front of the club was renamed Bailey Place in December 2007, after guitaristDerek Bailey .Many respected jazz musicians have played at the Vortex, ranging from
Last Amendment ,F-IRE Collective ,Derek Bailey ,Kenny Wheeler ,Evan Parker ,John Etheridge ,Tim Berne , andDjango Bates to name but a few. The first release on the club's own record label is by thePortico Quartet .The club was started by ex-taxi driver
David Mossman in the late eighties, and through his open-minded booking policy it became perhaps the only venue which consistently was able to put on contemporary jazz nightly, justifying the epithet "London's listening jazz club". The new venue in Dalston continues this approach and attitude.The club was nominated as a venue of the year by the
Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group in 2006 and 2007.The original club developed such an affinity with its locality that local residents established the Occupied Vortex Social Centre at the club's original site for two months in early 2007 in protest at the proposed demolition of the building for the construction of a
Starbucks and upmarket apartments.ee also
*
List of jazz clubs External links
* [http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/index.html Vortex Club website]
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