UPDATE 21 Feb: This good news from the organisers of Jazz at the Parakeet: Quoting from their re-named Instagram page: “HI EVERYONE! Since receiving the message from the Parakeet that we couldn’t continue after the end of February, we’ve been working hard to find a new home. We’re super excited to announce that @bullandgatenw5 has opened their beautiful upstairs room for our weekly Monday night jazz concerts starting in March! This means we’ll be saying goodbye to the gorgeous room at the Parakeet this Monday with @jamesallsopp, and then we’ll be starting at the Bull and Gate from March 3rd! The lineup for March will be published on our website very soon, and we need your support now more than ever – so please come out and join us!.
(Links to website and re-named instagram below.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Peter Freeman, one of London’s most loyal and consistent attenders of jazz gigs, is reporting sad news. There has been a musician-led gig at the Oxford, re-named the Parakeet, ever since Loop Collective members started it in 2004.
Peter Freeman writes on Facebook: “Mr Dave O’Higgins playing at the Parakeet (The Oxford) tonight in part of Monkin’ Around with Mr Luke Fowler, Mr Billy Pod and Mr Sean Fyfe, all Monk’s music with some really good lesser known tunes. Wonderful night, the bad news is next week is the last gig at this venue – turning the upstairs into a restaurant, so James Allsopp will bring the curtain down on this brilliant space for the music , a new local venue is being sought, sad day. 17/2 25.”
The Bull&Gate is at 389 Kentish Town Road NW5, a few doors from the O2 Forum
One Response
Though I can’t get there, it is very good news that a new venue has been found. So many London gigs have been lost – I still miss the old Thursday night sessions that the London Jazz Centre put on at the Seven Dials in Covent Garden, back in the 1970s, so many great names, now, sadly, nearly all gone. Anything that encourages audiences with so many fine players still around, who are not ashamed of the word “jazz”, is to be applauded.