Jazzwise triumphs at annual Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Quiz
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Jazzwise magazine came out on top last night at the Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Quiz, held annually at the world famous jazz club in London’s Soho, after being runners up for the past four years since the quiz launched in 2011.
Featuring 13 strong teams drawn from all quarters of the UK jazz world, including musicians, concert and jazz club promoters, journalists, jazz radio broadcasters, record labels, PR companies and jazz advocacy associations, the quiz was hosted and compared by Simon Cooke, Ronnie Scott’s managing director, with questions set by the club’s management team and the club’s musical director, pianist and Ronnie Scott’s All Stars band leader, James Pearson.
Now in its fifth year the quiz has garnered a reputation as a tough nut to crack with seven rounds of up to a dozen questions each, including a live music round of TV themes improvised in the style of certain jazz pianists by James Pearson, as well as a photographic round and a brain-meltdown teaser based on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs series of the past 40 years.
In what proved to be a close contest, with several teams shaking their heads in disbelief at brow-furrowingly difficult questions, or kicking themselves and fellow teamsters for being talked out of the correct answer, the Jazzwise pack managed a final big push to get the ball over the line and hoist the Jack Massarik Trophy ahead of the Vortex Club in second place and concert promoters Serious in third place. The trophy is named after well-known jazz writer and long-standing Ronnie Scott’s club visitor Jack Massarik who died last year. Jazzwise sends big congratulations to the runners up and all the other contestants in what undoubtedly is a memory-taxing event that makes Mastermind seem like a walk in the park.
Commenting on the win, Jazzwise editor Jon Newey, thanked the team and Ronnie Scott’s staff for a splendid, if exhausting evening, mentioning with considerable relief afterwards: “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. The no-show of our regular columnist, the Colonel – described by close associates as the font of all knowledge – because of the bad weather cancellation of the Isle of Wight Ferry, was a huge hurdle to overcome, but somehow we got there”.
– Photo by Ben Amure (Pictured left-to-right: Mike Hobart, Peter Quinn, Peter Vacher, Jon Newey, Selwyn Harris and Mike Flynn)