Jazz breaking news: Geronimo Inns issues reassurances about jazz at The Bull’s Head
Monday, July 15, 2013
Following the recent news that Don Fleming is to retire after running legendary London jazz venue The Bull’s Head since 1982, new landlords Geronimo Inns have issued a statement of reassurance, explaining that they intend to retain live jazz seven days a week, as a key part of pub’s activities.
According to the statement by Geronimo Inns’ MD Ed Turner – posted in full below – it appears the Young & Co Brewery-owned chain intends to improve and expand the existing live music offering at the venue, following a 3-4 month period of closure for the refurbishments to take place. This is also in response to the ‘Save the Music Room at the Bull’s Head’ petition, which has received over 3,000 signatures, all highlighting the importance of the music room remaining an integral part of London’s live jazz landscape.
Statement from Geronimo Inns:
“Geronimo Inns are delighted to be taking over The Bull’s Head in Barnes. The pub has an amazingly rich history as an integral part of the community and more importantly as a legendary music venue for over 50 years. There has been much speculation about the plans for the pub and whether Geronimo Inns intend to maintain the pub’s musical heritage. So to be very straight; we have, and still do remain fully committed to hosting live music at The Bull’s Head seven days a week.
We have a track record with running live music pubs, including the Half Moon in Putney and the Elgin in Ladbroke Grove and we have a team dedicated to carrying on the great work overseen by Dan Fleming for the last 30 years. Dan has agreed to help advise us with music planning and music quality, and we are pleased to confirm that we have already booked artists including Salena Jones, Buddy Greco, Alan Price, The Humphrey Lyttelton Band and Stan Tracey to perform in 2013.
A public meeting, held at the beginning of June attended by 120 local residents, musicians and live music lovers, were told that Geronimo Inns will be creating a delicious pub that can further support the live music scene in Barnes and we are not looking to create a ‘gastropub that has music as an incidental offer’, but a pub for the community of Barnes with music very much at it’s heart.
It is true that we want to create a new music room at the venue however we will only do this if it is as good as or better than the existing room in terms of the musical experience. Geronimo Inns have sought planning permission to add to the current layout of the venue to enable us to improve the experience for fans attending shows; this includes, new loos, (including facilities for disabled customers) a first floor dining/function room and an extension to the stables to create a music room of a similar size to the current one with its own bar and loos. With help from those who have been instrumental in creating the sound in the current music room, we will at least match, and preferably improve, on the current acoustics.
In October 2011, we took over the Half Moon in Putney, another legendary music venue. There had been similar concerns then about the future of the live music. In fact, the changes we introduced to the pub have made it more popular with locals and we have increased the number of artists performing and fans attending shows. In the last twelve months 35,000 music fans have passed through the doors, and they are now able to use the pub to eat, drink and socialise far more than before. Geronimo Inns are aware of the ‘Save The Bulls Head’ campaigns and wanted to take this opportunity to re-iterate our position and calm any concerns about our intentions. We will not run The Bull’s Head without live music as it is an integral part of the pub and to Barnes and we are committed to, and are aware of our duty to building on this tradition.”
Ed Turner
MD Geronimo Inns
The Bull’s Head Jazz Club was originally started by Albert Tolley in 1959 and grew to be an important venue for both UK and international names. Don Fleming took over in 1982 and in 2005 the music room was refurbished with support from Yamaha Music. In 2009 the club celebrated its 50th birthday and, alongside Ronnie Scott’s, is the world’s longest continuously running jazz club with a roster of names that have performed there running from Tubby Hayes, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Dick Morrissey (pictured above) and Humphrey Lyttelton to Guy Barker, Stan Tracey, Mark Lockheart, Charlie Watts and Peter King as well as rock names such as Jeff Beck, Mick Jagger and the late Gary Moore.