IF you were to walk past Ballyhackamore Working Men’s Club at the top of Sandown Road in east Belfast, you could be forgiven for not realising just what kind of magic lies on the top floor.
Started by friends Scott Flanigan, Cormac O’Kane and Richard Brown, Scott’s Jazz Club hosts a variety of world class jazz musicians every Friday night including names such as Greg Murphy (from New York), Nick Kerkhoff (Amsterdam) and Rob Luft (London). Luft, an award-winning jazz guitarist, describes the Belfast Scott’s as “the finest jazz club in the UK and Ireland outside of Ronnie Scott’s”.
“Cormac is a big supporter of the arts, he runs a fantastic studio off the Ormeau Road, and he’s a big jazz fan,” explains Scott of the club’s genesis.
“I’d worked with him on and off throughout the years and he has always had this idea of starting up a jazz club. In July 2020 he asked if I wanted to help him do it and I thought, ‘Why not?’”
Scott has been at the forefront of the Irish jazz scene for over 20 years. An established musician in his own right performing regularly across Europe and travelling throughout Ireland teaching jazz, he has also obtained a PhD in Jazz Performance.
His skill and reputation have enabled him to develop an impressive contacts book which is part of the reason why the club’s weekly docket is filled full of jazz legends.
“I have to believe in the music in order to put it on. I guess that makes me a very selfish promoter, because every gig I put on I really like,” Scott laughs.
“Whenever we first started, I picked some absolutely fantastic musicians from Northern Ireland – there are some brilliant musicians in this country who are world-class, and they need a platform to play so I would call them, and they’d be more than happy to come and perform.
“Then gradually as we got more and more established, more people would start to email me from over in England, Scotland and from slightly further a field saying they’d heard about the club and asking if they could come and play.
“We’re in May now and we’re programmed until the end February next year - and that’s every Friday night. We have absolutely fantastic musicians from all across the world coming to play this club in east Belfast.”
Given Scott’s infectious enthusiasm, passion and talent, it’s easy to see why the club was named after him.
“Cormac said, ‘I want to start a jazz club and I want to call it Scott’s Jazz Club and I want to run it every Friday night’,” Scott recalls.
“And my first response was, ‘That’s a terrible name, there’s no way I want to call it that’ – but he explained that the Arts Council application was due in three days, so we agreed to run with it and then change it after.
“But it seems to have stuck, and I must admit the name has grown on me since then.”
Although the club has welcomed plenty of outstanding musicians since opening its doors in 2021, Scott was particularly pleased to host American saxophonist Joel Frahm at the end of April.
“The home of jazz on this planet is New York City, so any time we get the opportunity to feature a musician from New York it’s always a real thrill.
“About two weeks ago we had fantastic saxophonist Joel Frahm. He was on a European tour with his band and he came to the club and it was just such a brilliant gig.
We’ve continued to sell great tickets every week for a jazz club, in a working man’s club, in east Belfast. The fact that something like would take off has gone beyond our wildest dreams
— Scott Flanigan
“I’ve been listening to jazz records for 25 years and there’s an authenticity that you get with certain musicians where you know that this is the real thing – and he was the real thing.
“And he was very complimentary about the club, he announced over the microphone that it was a very special place which to me, Cormac and Richard really meant a lot.”
However, despite the club’s evident success Scott confesses that it wasn’t something they ever expected.
“I had played a lot of regular jazz gigs around Belfast and inevitably with something like this it would run for a couple of weeks and then the audience would stop coming and that would be the end of it,” he explains.
“So, we assumed we would run for a couple of weeks, all our friends would turn up and then gradually it would all die off and that would be that.
“But then the opposite happened, our friends brought their friends, and their friends brought their friends and before we knew it, we were selling 100 tickets.
“And we’ve continued to sell great tickets every week for a jazz club, in a working man’s club, in east Belfast. The fact that something like would take off has gone beyond our wildest dreams.”
With tickets costing just £15, drinks being amongst the cheapest in Belfast and all the club’s marketing being based on word-of-mouth and social media posts, Scott believes that the backing from the Arts Council has been “invaluable”.
“Whenever we first started the Arts Council were very, very generous and gave us £5,000 up front to run a couple of gigs. It was great to have that security and know that we’d be able to pay musicians and maybe pay ourselves a little bit as well,” he explains.
“It helped us secure really solid footing for the club – we wouldn’t have been able to get off the ground without the Arts Council.
“The club is not that sustainable on its own despite great ticket sales; it’s still quite an expensive gig to put on, so the Arts Council has been absolutely invaluable in helping the club survive and thrive.”
Going forward, Scott and the rest of the team hope that they can continue to provide an authentic jazz club experience where people can switch off and listen whilst the music takes over... Every Friday night at 9pm, Scott’s Jazz Bar is open and waiting for you to discover the magic that lies on the top floor.
