Return To Ronnie's - Gilles Peterson Interview

  Back in the 1990s, however, he was one of a select group of people to be banned from Ronnie Scott's. As the club celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, Gilles spoke to Leo Hornak about what the club means to him, and his thoughts on the three nights of music he curated (in association with Time Out magazine) during September.

“For the Saturday, I thought I’d go for something that would make Ronnie potentially turn in his grave.” Gilles Peterson is discussing his decision to put Bugge Wesselftoft and Berlin producer Henrik Schwarz on stage at Frith street: “We'll be bringing the laptops into Ronnie’s, ha!”.

Gilles is all smiles, but there is still a wary undertone when he discusses his contribution to the club's 50th anniversary celebrations.  Just as Ronnie Scott's the club has plenty of history, so Ronnie the man and Gilles had history of a different kind. It seems difficult to imagine now, but at one point Gilles and other DJs were considered a threat to jazz itself in Soho.

“We were all banned-  it was part and parcel of getting your apprenticeship, really.” he explains. “I was banned from the club because I was sort of an associate of Straight No Chaser magazine. The guys at Chaser were  regarded as not necessarily completely, um,  pro-Ronnie’s.” He pauses. “It was a strange couple of years. I just didn’t go to gigs there. Maybe as a show of strength with my fellow workers.”

Today it is difficult to imagine Gilles Peterson as an outsider. For as long as I can remember, his DJ sets, compilations, record labels and radio shows have dominated the scene, offering a wonderful sequence of  musical non-sequiturs: Eddie Palmieri to Roni Size; Alice Coltrane to Terry Callier; Sun Ra to Jamiroquai; Amp Fiddler to Joe Harriott. If it is difficult to love everything Gilles champions (I'm not the only one who doesn't share his love for string sections), it is impossible to deny the energy and creativity of his projects. Perhaps the Soho old guard were right about one thing though: Gilles and his fellow workers were embarking on something much more ambitious than the odd club night and some vinyl reissues. At Straight No Chaser, or at the Jazz Cafe, or on Gilles' labels like Talkin' Loud, there was an effort to see jazz in a new light, often at odds with the way the Coltrane generation had understood it. Still spiritual and experimental, but less preoccupied with improvising soloists, and more interested in links with other  forms of black music. And usually more focussed on the dancefloor than the concert hall hush of Ronnie's.

That was many years ago, of course. In fact, as Gilles tells me, he has been making his peace with Frith Street for some time. "I used to tell everyone on my label: " 'Go and see Sun Ra [at Ronnie's]!'. If you were on Talkin' Loud or Acid Jazz, and you'd signed the contract- you had to go. It was kind of the entry exam to my labels. For me it was very important they could see the presentation values of Sun Ra: the fact that it was more than just the music". Since 2002, Gilles has also been drawing new audiences to the kind of artists who originally played at Ronnie's. First there were the fantastic Impressed compilations, highlighting some of the most beautfiul and original British jazz of the 1960s and 70s; then there were the Jazz Brittanica concerts at the Barbican, which gave a live platform to some of the same musicians, and paired them with younger artists. The same spirit has spilled over into some of Gilles' programming at Ronnie's. The first night was an unlikely collaboration between young remixer/producer Benedic Lamdin, better known as Nostalgia 77, and two of the world's great free improvising musicians: Keith Tippett and Julie Tippetts.

"To me its not a new division" he explains when asked about that gig. "Its all improvised music, you know?  I also needed to do something to show the diversity of what I'd like to see at a place like Ronnie's". The other nights are certainly diverse. Tony Allen, perhaps the world's greatest living drummer, on the same bill as Britain's finest hiphop artist Roots Manuva; British electronica collective Mount Kimbie paired with Henrik and Bugge. Gilles sounds almost surprised that he has got away with it all so easily. "Yeah, we’re going from Keith Tippett to Bugge Wesselftoft, via hip hop and Africa! And then we were quite fortunate to pick the Mercury winner without realising it...".  Speech Debelle, who won the Mercury prize a few days before her appearance at Ronnie's, is unmistakably a Peterson artist: her music sits somewhere between spoken word and neo-soul, all played with live instruments, and delivered in a London accent.  

It doesn't seem likely that Gilles will ever have a regular spot at the club, however successful this series of gigs has been. Nor would he probably want to. "To me Ronnie Scotts is a jazz club, in the traditional sense. If was to go to there, I wouldn’t expect to be hearing electronic music.  I don’t know if even I would be particularly happy if I was to walk in there, hoping to hear some classic jazz quartet, and hear a couple of Europeans with laptops.  But then again - Ronnie’s does that all year round. Isn't it interesting to experiment?"

Feature: Leo Hornak

Photograph: Richard Kaby