The Ealing Jazz Club at 42 A The Broadway, Ealing

Ealing

Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located west of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village...

 W5, opened in January 1959. Situated in a basement below an Aerated Bread Company tea shop

Aerated Bread Company

The Aerated Bread Company Ltd was founded in the United Kingdom in 1862 by Dr. John Dauglish. Its aim was to mass produce healthy, additive-free breads using a new bread leavening technology invented by the company's founder...

, (now an Estate Agents) opposite Ealing Broadway station

Ealing Broadway station

Ealing Broadway is an east-west National Rail and London Underground station in Ealing in west London. The station is located in Haven Green , at the termination of The Broadway, and is in Travelcard Zone 3.-Services:...

. It was reached by descending the narrow steps of the ally that leads to Haven Place, between the tea shop and what at the time was a jewellers.

On 17 March 1962, known as The Ealing Club, it became London’s first regular R&B venue with a performance by the seminal Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...

 and Cyril Davies

Cyril Davies

Cyril Davies was one of the first British blues harmonica players and blues musician.-Biography:Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive, Willowbank, Denham, Buckinghamshire, near London, he was the son of William Albert Davies, a labourer, and his wife Margaret Mary...

 band Blues Incorporated

Blues Incorporated

Blues Incorporated were a British R&B band in the early 1960s, led by Alexis Korner and featuring at various times Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Terry Cox, Ginger Baker, Long John Baldry, Ronnie Jones, Danny Thompson, Graham Bond, Cyril Davies, Malcolm Cecil and Dick Heckstall-Smith.-History:Korner ...

.

“The club held only 200 when you packed them all in” Korner recalled, “and there was only about 100 people in all of London that were into the blues and all of them showed up at the club that first night”.

The club is also noteworthy as the place where on 7 April 1962, Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...

 introduced Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....

 and Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...

 to Brian Jones

Brian Jones

Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....

, and the nucleus of The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

 first came together.

Other regular musicians at the Saturday night sessions included Jack Bruce

Jack Bruce

John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...

, Ginger Baker

Ginger Baker

Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...

, Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts

Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...

, Graham Bond

Graham Bond

Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s....

, Long John Baldry

Long John Baldry

John William "Long John" Baldry was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He sang with many British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No...

, Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

, Dick Heckstall-Smith

Dick Heckstall-Smith

Dick Heckstall-Smith was an English jazz and blues saxophonist. He played with some of the most important English blues-rock and jazz fusion bands of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:...

 and Paul Jones

Paul Jones (singer)

Paul Jones is an English singer, actor, harmonica player, and radio personality and television presenter.-Career:As P. P...

. Manfred Mann

Manfred Mann

Manfred Mann was a British beat, rhythm and blues and pop band of the 1960s, named after their South African keyboardist, Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band...

 (originally the Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers) also played there. The Who

The Who

The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...

 played there early on in their career, when they were known as The Detours. Eric Burdon (lead singer of The Animals

The Animals

The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...

) and Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

 also frequented and sang on stage at the club.

Sometimes referred to as the Ealing Blues Club, the venue is now a nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

 called The Red Room, formerly known as Club Azur. A one-time manager of the Ealing Club was Fery Asgari.

In 2011, a community group of Ealing residents, musicians and music fans known as The Ealing Club initiated a campaign to bring back live music to the venue and highlight its important contribution in the development of British blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

. The group's first three events were held on the nights of 18-20 July 2011, with proceeds going towards the installation of an English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 blue plaque

Blue plaque

A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....

.

The nearest rail

National Rail

National Rail is a title used by the Association of Train Operating Companies as a generic term to define the passenger rail services operated in Great Britain...

 and tube

London Underground

The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...

 station to the club is Ealing Broadway.

External links

• The Ealing Club celebratory website. Accessed 2011-07-01
• Daily Telegraph article on The Sixties, which mentions the meeting of Jagger and Richards at the club, and performances there by Blues Incorporated. Accessed 2011-07-25