Slowing Down by George Melly

glasses and bottles flew through the air. John, if it were he, left at once, but glancing back, took in that Cool-hand Higgins, who was sitting at the bar sipping a half pint, didn’t move a muscle but observed the whole fracas like an entomologist might a war between red and black ants.
    So what was Jack L. Higgins doing in Ronnie Scott’s office?
    He had for some years prior to this unexpected appearance managed a marina, but now, snorting like the war-horse in the Old Testament ‘Ha! Ha! Amongst the trumpets’, felt a need to return to the music business. Pete King, perhaps not unaware that that branch of the business was not the jewel in the Scott crown, had, when Jack applied, taken him on.
    Pete had told Jack that we were coming in to see him about something and Jack, having looked at the snow-blinding almost empty date-sheet, predicted we were going to resign. Pete said he couldn’t believe that , but Jack said he was sure.
    He had then taken the no-doubt-reluctant Chips into another office with a telephone and, although, as a recent member of staff, he was the more junior employee, made him ring up jazz clubs and other modest venues all over the country.
    When John and I came in, our determination reinforced by a couple of drinks in the Intrepid Fox on the corner, we began to say something like, ‘No offence, Pete, but…’ when Jack strolled forward and handed us both sheets of paper. ‘Your date-sheets for the next month,’ he told us in a throw-away voice. While admittedly in most cases modestly rewarded, almost every night was booked!
    From then on Jack raised our fees where possible, but his personal intentions were less in evidence. He learned all he could about the current jazz world; he had a fast memory; and he was prepared to stay in the office until long after Chips had left to relax even further, or perhaps kip.
    Then, when he was good and ready, the long green legs rubbed together and the harsh laugh of the Braying Mantis was heard in the land. Jack Higgins resigned; and shortly afterwards he asked us to join him.
    Pete was furious. The scales fell from his eyes once he had understood Jack’s strategy. He refused to speak to him for many years and the negotiations for our Christmas appearances at the club had to be conducted through a third party in Frith Street. (Chips had left shortly after Jack’s defection.) Jack was refused entry to the club on Pete’s instructions, even in the company of friends, for many a season. Recently, however, they communicated again – another great, if on this occasion pleasant, surprise for me.
    Pete, however, in no way tried to dissuade John and mefrom joining Jack’s new agency, with its smart office in Charing Cross Road.
    And so we continued to play at Ronnie’s, when the stupid lights come on each year in Oxford Street, and Soho is suddenly one-way and almost impenetrable. For John most likely, for me certainly, our first appearance had been something of a miracle. Since I’d been a jazz-hooked adolescent I had dreamed of singing into the small hours in a famous appreciative jazz nightclub and being driven home in a taxi through the almost empty streets. Now, with what the surrealists called ‘the certainty of hazard’, it was happening – and still is!

8. Up at Ronnie’s
    I have appeared for over thirty years at Ronnie Scott’s, that is to say over a third of my life, covering my involuntary arrival in the suburbs of old age and fairly soon, I fear, the city centre itself.
    For those who have never visited the club (those who have may skip this passage, as no description can cap the reality), you enter under a neon sign through two big glass doors. You arrive in the comparatively large expanse of the lobby. It holds on the right a desk where you can buy or book your tickets and order a taxi (not always instant). Then, a low table with an unexpected vase of beautiful flowers, and a leather sofa and armchair. On the other side of the foyer, round