The Old Raineians' Association
Famous Personalities from Raine's Foundation School
Ronnie Scott OBE (1939-1940)
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The Old Raineians' Association
Famous Personalities from Raine's Foundation SchoolRonnie Scott OBE (1939-1940) |
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Ronnie Scott is one of the greatest English Jazz musicians of all time. Born 'Ronald Schatt' on 28 January, 1927 at the East End Maternity Hospital, he left primary school in the summer of 1938, and, in September 1938, he passed the Junior County Scholarship and went to Central Foundation School in EC1. In September 1939, war was declared and the evacuation of children began. Raine's was one of the schools that was chosen to be evacuated and hence pupils from other schools joined Raine's to be evacuated. They came from various other secondary schools from all over London, such as Brockley County, St Dunstan's College, Hackney Downs, Cooper's, Davenant and Central Foundation where Ronnie was studying. In September, 1939, Ronnie officially appears on the in-take record and register as now attending Raine's with Solomon "Sol" Berger listed on the in-take roll as his parent/guardian. Sol's occupation was given as a clothing salesman. According to his biography, "A fine kind of madness - Ronnie Scott remembered" (by Rebecca Scott with Mary Scott), a different version of events is portrayed: "Grandma Cissie and Sol were very proud of the fact that Daddy [Ronnie Scott] was about to begin his first year at Raine's Foundation School. However, it was not to be: with the announcement that war had been declared, everything changed. Sol and Grandma Cissie, unnerved by the news, realised that it would be better not to return to London under the circumstances and instead decided to take their family to stay with Auntie Annie and Uncle Muchie at their Hotel in Brighton. Daddy was twelve at the time, and he had good memories about his year in Brighton........Dad went to school there......The family decided to return to London in 1940 moving to Edgware" This version of events is probably not accurate. He was in essence 'seconded' to Raine's Foundation from Central Foundation where he was part of the evacuation of school children at that time. In Brighton, he lived at 21A Lansdown Street in Hove, and he is now officially registered as attending the evacuated Raine's 'school' there. In "A fine kind of madness", it is stated that "Sol and Grandma Cissie were very proud of Dad's accomplishments, and even though the outbreak of war had prevented him from attending Raine's Foundation School, they encouraged him to keep up the good work at Edgware High School". Again this is misleading - it is the outbreak of war that resulted in Ronnie Scott attending Raine's, now based in Brighton. The Jewish Schatt family had arrived in London in the 1880s, fleeing the pogroms in southern Russia. Settling in Broomehead Street off the Commercial Road, Morris Schatt quickly built a business as a tailor (eventually becoming a tailor to Queen Victoria) while wife Betty occupied herself with raising their eight children. One of the eight, Joseph (Jock), was a renowned alto sax player and band leader by his early twenties. He married Cissie and set up home in South Tenter Street, Wapping. After school, Ronnie soon decided his sights were set on America. Musicians like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young were inventing a new kind of music. An inspired Ronnie bought an old cornet from an East End junk shop - but the five shilling instrument disintegrated almost immediately. Returning to the shop he picked up a soprano sax and was on his way. Soon he was making a reputation for himself at Jewish youth club dances around the East End. And then he and his friends progressed to the West End. It was the late forties and the clubs were full of American GI's. Here Ronnie heard records by the likes of Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington and Artie Shaw, and memorised every note for their own shows.
In 1947, Ronnie, then 20, blew his savings on a trip to New York to see for himself what the jazz scene there was all about. It was 'a fantastic experience' he remembered later. For a young jazzman from London, particularly in those early post-war years, it was like reaching Mecca. Because of Musicians' Union restrictions, British jazz addicts in the late 1940s and 1950s had virtually no chance of hearing American jazzmen in person. And to hear them even on record meant paying out vast sums for imported 78 rpm performances of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and the others. He'd never heard an American group in a proper club atmosphere. Scott took in most of the New York clubs during his two-week stay. When it was finally time to return to London, the seeds of ambition were well and truly sown within his mind. He was high on American music and basked in the tremendous impression that the Three Deuces and the other clubs had made on him. There were other trips across the Atlantic, with the inevitable visits to the local jazz clubs. On one memorable night Ronnie heard Charlie Parker play with Miles Davis at the Three Deuces. Playing next door was the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band and, late into the night, Davis sat in and blew with Gillespie. His dream now was to set up a club in London. For Ronnie Scott and Pete King, the dream finally came true on Friday October 30th, 1959. That was the day they opened their jazz club in basement premises at 39 Gerrard Street, in London's Soho. For a while it had been used as a kind of rest room for taxi drivers, and had occasionally, as a tea-bar, also been a haunt for local musicians. To begin with, the plan was simply to provide a place where British jazz musicians could jam. A loan of £1,000 from Ronnie Scott's stepfather helped Scott and King meet the immediate commitments once the lease was signed. They took out a small advertisement in Melody Maker to announce the grand opening performance: "Tubby Hayes Quartet; the trio with Eddie Thompson, Stan Roberts, Spike Heatley. A young alto saxophonist, Peter King, and an old tenor saxophonist, Ronnie Scott. The first appearance in a jazz club since the relief of Mafeking by Jack Parnell". The long-time Scott policy of mixing jazz ideals with light comedy relief was already showing through. For the first two years they were booking the best of British modern jazz musicians but had problems getting work permits for American instrumentalists because the Musicians' Union attitude towards visiting jazzmen was still tough. Then, a vital development came in the Scott-King decision to fight for the right to present a top American jazzman. Pete King was the chief negotiator with the Musicians' Union and the American Federation of Musicians. There had been a few concert exchanges (involving, for example, Stan Kenton and Louis Armstrong). But the end product of King's long meeting with the Musicians' Union and the American Federation of Musicians was the lift of the blanket ban on American musicians, provided an exchange deal was involved, so that work in the United States was provided for similar British players. The Tubby Hayes Quartet went off to play the Half Note Club in New York - and the great Zoot Sims was booked in for a four-week residency at Ronnie Scotts club, November 1961. Ronnie Scott's club was the first to offer engagements to American musicians in a club setting. Zoot Sims trail-blazing session paved the way for guest appearances by other American tenorists, including Johnny Griffin, Roland Kirk, Al Cohn, Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, Benny Golson and Ben Webster. The appearance of such jazz giants really put the Club on the map and the fortunes of the enterprise improved to such an extent that King and Scott had to go in search of bigger premises. In the summer of 1965 Scott and King found the ideal place, at 47 Frith Street, only a short walk from the "old place". Where £1,000 had covered the bulk of the expense of setting up the original premises, they were now faced with having to find around £35.000 to convert and decorate the new hall. Financial aid was forthcoming from top promoter Harold Davison, a friend and keen jazz fan. The last American to play at the "old place" was tenor saxophonist, Benny Golson. The euphoria of being able to present in person some of the legendary names in jazz did not cause Scott and King to neglect their objective of providing a good working environment for British jazz musicians. They kept the "old place" in operation (running at a loss) until the lease expired in 1967 so that the younger British jazzmen could continue to have an opportunity to play and develop. In the booking schedule there has always been space left for artists such as Tom Waits, Linda Lewis, Elkie Brooks, Eric Burdon, Paul Rodgers, Jack Bruce and recently the Notting Hillbillies, featuring Mark Knopfler. Acts not exactly within the jazz field but nevertheless part of the unique "atmosphere" of the club that has always been so important. But in the 1990s Ronnie's health began to suffer. A heavy smoker for many years, he suffered thrombosis, having two operations on his legs. Worse was to come. Teeth problems, a disaster for a sax player, forced him to stop playing. A lengthy and painful course of teeth implants didn't help. After more than a year unable to play, the surgeons came to fit the new teeth and found the bone structure wasn't large enough. The formerly teetotal Ronnie began to drink heavily - exacerbating his occasional depression. Mixing brandy with strong prescription sleeping pills was dangerous, and on 23 December 1996, Ronnie suddenly died. The coroner's verdict, death by misadventure. Scott was 'a magnificent jazz musician' who 'would take an old tune and give it new life', Spike Milligan recalls. About his club, they say "Ronnie Scott's is simply unique" and it's "a club run by people who love jazz for people who love jazz". In 1981, Ronnie Scott received the OBE for 'services to jazz'. Ronnie Scott OBE is known as the greatest English jazz genius of all time, one of the most influential saxophonists of his day, and the founder of a jazz institution that still bears his name. He attended Raine's Foundation from 1939-1940 as part of the evacuated amalgamation of schools that went to Brighton. |
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Further information about Raine's Foundation School today can be found at: www.rainesfoundation.org.uk
Further information about The Old Raineians' Association can be found at: www.oldraineians.com
Further information about individual Old Raineians, including their memories of the school and their teachers, a message board, a list of famous pupils and some school photographs, can be found at: www.friendsreunited.co.uk
