Klooks Kleek

Klooks Kleek was a jazz and rhythm n’ blues club at the Railway Hotel, West Hampstead, North West London. Named after a 1956 album by jazz drummer Kenny Clarke entitled Klook’s Clique (Savoy Records 12006), the club opened on 11 January 1961 with special guest Don Rendell (tenor sax) and closed nine years later on 28 January 1970 after a session by drummer Keef Hartley’s group.

There were over 1200 sessions at Klook’s Kleek, around 300 of them featuring jazz and the remainder rhythm ‘n’ blues. Zoot Money, Ten Years After, John Mayall and Graham Bond recorded live albums at KK. The UK Blues boom of the early 1960s brought to the club many living legends.

Klook’s Kleek founder Dick Jordan was a jazz enthusiast and aspiring trombonist who had made previous attempts to establish a jazz club in the inner suburbs of North-West London. KK proved to be third time lucky Don Rendell played the club a record 20 times, followed by the hugely popular Dick Morrissey, Tubby Hayes, the best-known jazzer of the time, played KK seven times. The only non-British jazz came from the Polish Modern Jazz Quartet led by Zbigniew Namyslowski who returned by popular acclaim three weeks later. The policy of featuring top British jazz soloists made the club viable as long as the 18- to 25-year-olds remained interested in jazz. The promoters – in 1962 Dick Jordan had invited childhood friend Geoff Williams to partner him at KK – also believed in making their punters part of the club, rather than just a crowd of fee-payers. So there were competitions and coach outings which helped ensure loyalty to the club. But jazz at KK ceased on 11 November 1964.

An attempt to revive jazz nights in “Dopey Dick’s” on the same premises lasted for 18 months from April 1967. With earlier performance restrictions removed several American jazz “royalty” appeared, including saxists Ben Webster, Roland Kirk, Sonny Rollins and Zoot Sims. Drummer Max Roach, also appeared. British artistes included pianist Stan Tracey, and the man responsible for bringing the Americans to his own famous club in Soho, Ronnie Scott. The last-ever jazz session, on 29 October 1968, featured organist Jimmy McGriff.

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