10 of the best jazz clubs in Europe

Get in the groove at swingin’ jazz clubs from Berlin and Brighton to Paris and Madrid. Whether you want laid-back or out-there, you will find good vibes

Hot Clube de Portugal, Lisbon

Europe’s westernmost capital city has one of Europe’s oldest jazz clubs: Hot Clube, founded in 1948, has hosted legends such as Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Dexter Gordon. And on 22 and 24 February this 140-capacity club will host another elder statesman of jazz: 89-year-old Lou Donaldson, a soulful alto sax player influenced by Charlie Parker. So … old, old, old. Not so. Jazz reinvents itself and so has Hot Clube – literally, after its original premises went up in smoke in 2009. Happily, it reopened three years later two doors away thanks to the support of Lisbon residents and businesses and the work of the association that founded it.

Its new interior style is minimalist and modern and the only heat being generated now is by the soloists up on its stage. Just a short walk from the Bairro Alto, central Lisbon, and attracting a mixed crowd of young musos, students, and tourists, the good times roll in this intimate space, which also has a terrace at the rear for a quick gasp of air. Whoever’s on – and watch out for Portuguese tyros such as Andre Fernandes (guitar) and Mario Laginha (piano) – the vibe is “This is good, we’d better listen.”
Admission €7.50, beer from €2.50, booking advised for name acts, 48 Praca da Alegria, +21 3460305, hcp.pt

Harris Piano Jazz Bar, Kraków

Jazz spread like wildfire in Europe in the early 1920s and Poland joined the swing explosion with enthusiasm, merging it with its own fiddle-based traditions. But the second world war put paid to all the fun. After the war, amid Stalin’s repression, jazz came to symbolise freedom and resistance, so in many ways has a greater resonance here than in the UK, say. Nowadays such is the audience for the genre that top US jazz acts often play several dates in the country. There is boundless local and national talent, such as pianist Paweł Kaczmarczyk, who’s appearing at the club on 6 February, who have risen to the top at clubs such as Harris and U-Muniaka in Kraków. These are small places (both about 70 capacity) in near-1,000-year-old brick cellars with bars in adjacent rooms. Harris is on the hugely atmospheric Market Square and lays on mainstream jazz, funk and blues, good food (international mains from £3) and a boisterous vibe. On many nights it’s free of charge.
Admission €5 (€10 for name international acts), mid-week jam sessions free entry, beer from €2.50, booking advised at weekends, 28 Market Square, +12 421 57 41, harris.krakow.pl

Donau 115, Berlin

Germany’s capital isn’t short of live music venues covering every conceivable genre. Its best known jazz clubs are the A Trane and Zig Zag, where more established artists feature. Less well known, and much smaller (50 capacity), is Donau115 in the lively Neukölln district. The club’s programme covers top-quality straight-ahead post-bop jazz to – in the words of part-owner Chad Matheny – “experimental Zappa-influenced atonal intellectual weirdos” plus the occasional “noisy, scrappy acoustic pop act”. So it’s not always jazz as you might know it. The club is based on the ground floor of a building that was bombed in the war; the above floors were torn down and rebuilt but the room Donau is in survived. With Moscow Mules at €5 and often wildly original music the operative word here has to be wunderbar.
Admission free but €5 donations encouraged, beer from €2.50. Live music every Friday, Saturday, most Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Donaustrasse 115, no phone, donau115.de

Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen

Denmark’s capital has several clubs helping it maintain its reputation as a jazz haven; a status it gained in the 1960s, when homegrown world class stars such as bassist Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen emerged. Soon, US stars like Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon and Ben Webster became Copenhagen residents – black musicians worn down by their treatment at home and intrigued by the warmth shown to them by Scandi audiences. Jazzhus Montmartre, a non-profit venue supported by the government, attracts nordic greats and star international names, like the UK’s Liane Carroll.

The focus is on music in the centre of the jazz genre; avant garde and funk/rock is out of bounds here. It’s in a handsome yellow-painted building with large windows in the city centre. Nearby, in beautiful Nyhavn, is another excellent venue, the harbourside Standard Jazz Club, run by renowned pianist Niels Lan Doky and Noma co-owner Claus Meyer. The emphasis is on great food as well as jazz; prices are a bit steeper than Montmartre (€38, students €26) but the programme and the setting are outstanding.
Admission from €25, students €13, beer from €4, live bands three nights a week, booking advised for name acts, Store Regnegade 19a, +45 70 263 267, jazzhusmontmartre.dk

The Verdict, Brighton

Jazz in the UK is alive and kicking beyond hallowed Ronnie Scott’s, which is often sold out and can be expensive. Visitors to London should head for places such as the Vortex, Jazz Cafe, the 606 and Streatham’s best-kept secret, the Hideaway. But the capital hasn’t got a monopoly on quality: two streets back from Brighton’s pier, the Verdict is not in the buzzy Lanes area but in the rather more austere company of the law courts (hence the name). However, under the direction of the enthusiastic Andy Lavender, the only pleading heard here is for encores. Its purpose-built basement, adorned with original photographs of jazz legends, seats just 60 and brims with atmosphere. Upstairs there’s a cafe that screens the performances. Adventurous programming and great acoustics are pulling in the finest UK players – people such as saxophonist Mark Lockheart, pianist Liam Noble, plus international names such as Portuguese guitarist Vitor Pereira – and attracting jazz lovers from across the generations.
Admission £10-£15, students from £5, live jazz Friday and Saturday, pint £4, booking advised, 159 Edward Street, 01273 674847, verdictjazz.co.uk

Porgy and Bess, Vienna

The city is identified strongly with the classical masters – Haydn, Mozart, Strauss – and might once have looked down its imperial nose at the likes of Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. But times change and they’ve got the hang of syncopation and making music without the dots in central Europe these days. This modern club – with the ambience of a state-of-the-art mini concert hall, and room for 350 – has been designed to present top players to maximum advantage.

The crowd at Porgy is respectful and attentive and an evening here is a pleasurable and comfortable experience – depending on who’s playing. A wide variety of top-of-the-range jazz is booked, from dazzling, brash evergreen Cuban heroes Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D’Rivera to the dark experimental broodings of central European virtuosi.
Admission about €20, music every night, venue has summer break between mid-July and end of August, booking advised, Riemergasse 11, +43 1 512 8811, porgy.at

Reduta, Prague

Few jazz clubs can claim to have had a US president perform, but Reduta proudly lists Bill Clinton alongside stellar names such as Wynton Marsalis, Cecil Taylor and Ronnie Scott among its alumni. Interesting to learn, too, that this club, just off Wenceslas Square, opened in 1957 at a time when Czechoslovakia wasn’t exactly enjoying the warm creative breeze of a liberal renaissance. But a commitment to jazz every night of the week (kicking off at around 9.30pm) and a wide programming policy with big bands, tributes to the legends, dixieland, latin and fusion, have ensured that tourists and locals alike have stoked up a buzzing atmosphere. It’s a decent size (capacity 100) and has a genuine jazz club vibe and good acoustics. The bar serves pilsner straight from a “saxophone” pump.
Admission from €10.50, student discounts; beer €2, Národní třída 20, +420 224 933 487, redutajazzclub.cz

Sunset Sunside, Paris

Jazz in France is not a US import. There have always been plenty of indigenous sounds, such as the “gypsy jazz” manouche of Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, and bal-musette, with its accordion and violin base blended with cross-Atlantic forms. But US musos have always loved Paris. In fact Miles Davis jammed at this family-owned club, created in 1983 by Michele and Jean-Marc Portet. Its two rooms each have a very different feel: Sunside looks like a 1950s New York while Sunset’s styling is reminiscent of the Paris metro.

On the same street is another club, Duc de Lombard, of similarly high renown. Considering their prime central locations close to Notre Dame it might be wise to book. If you want to dance, a short walk across the river is the cellar club Caveau de La Huchette, where the focus is more on 1930s and 40s swing and the bands usually play to a throng of jivers.
Admission at Sunset Sunside €10-€28, beer €5, live gigs every night starting from 7pm, booking advised, 6 Rue des Lombards, +33 1 40 26 46 60, sunset-sunside.com

The Loft, Cologne

The rather staid streets of Cologne’s Ehrenfeld district have become trendier over the years, so much so that this friendly 25-year-old club is flourishing, with an adventurous programme of local and international players (including many Brits) of impeccable credentials. Owner Hans Martin-Müller is actually a classical flautist with a long history of orchestral playing but his love of jazz, and the camaraderie of musicians, courses through this intimate space at the top of a nondescript residential block. It’s a lounge-in-an-attic, a place where audience and musicians readily mix and might even buy each other drinks. The jazz is modern, often purely improvisational, attracting a young, open-minded crowd.
Admission €9, students €6, beer €3 half litre, Wissmannstr 30, +49 221 952 1555, loftkoeln.de

Cafe Central, Madrid

Spain is passionate about all music, not just the type that involves strumming guitars implausibly rapidly against a backdrop of clacking castanets. Respect for top-quality musicianship is instinctive, and audiences are enthusiastic. Central has been putting on live jazz and blues since 1982 in a 19th-century building that previously housed a beautiful shop selling paintings, glass, mirrors and frames. It’s easy to imagine this, given the club’s high ceiling and elegant Iberian decor. Its location on Plaza del Angel puts the venue at the heart of the city, amid pedestrianised streets, bars, restaurants and shops. Musically, the focus is on mainstream and gypsy jazz with a good mix of well-known (in jazz circles) US instrumentalists and local heroes – some of whom do play guitars implausibly fast.
Admission about €13, beer €4, meals available (burger €10.20), booking advisable Thursday-Saturday, Plaza del Angel 10, +34 91 369 4143, cafecentralmadrid.com

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