Old Compton Street & Ronnie Scott's: The Midnight Pulse of Jazz

Why is it significant?

Stand on the lively corner of Frith Street and Old Compton Street, bathed in the red neon glow reflecting off vintage coffee house windows.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand on the lively corner of Frith Street and Old Compton Street, bathed in the red neon glow reflecting off vintage coffee house windows. A few paces up Frith Street stands the understated entrance of Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, universally revered as one of the most prestigious temples of live music in the world since British saxophonist Ronnie Scott first opened its doors in nineteen fifty-nine.

Every legendary icon of twentieth-century music has graced this intimate basement stage, from Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald to Chet Baker and Nina Simone. It was here, in nineteen seventy, that rock virtuoso Jimi Hendrix gave his final public performance on earth, jamming with Eric Burdon and War just forty-eight hours before his tragic death.

Look directly across the street at number twenty-two: in eighteen twenty-six, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird transmitted the world's very first moving television image inside a dusty attic workshop, proving that revolutionary technological breakthroughs often happen in the humblest bohemian rooms.

Continue west through Old Compton Street, turning north onto Broadwick Street toward a monument that changed medical history forever.