The Return of the Discovery Stage

Not from arenas or concert halls, but from basements. Small rooms where musicians stand close enough to see the audience breathe. Some became legends.

In December 1948 a group of young musicians opened a club in the basement of 41 Great Windmill Street and called it Club Eleven. They were not famous. They were experimenting, night after night, with a new sound arriving from America called modern jazz. The club was a cooperative, run by musicians for musicians. Two house bands took turns on the tiny stage, one led by Ronnie Scott, the other by John Dankworth, with Lennie Bush on bass, Tommy Pollard on piano and vibes, Tony Crombie on drums and Hank Shaw on trumpet. Bebop records had been crossing the Atlantic, and this basement was the first place in Britain where audiences could hear the music played live.

Within two years the musicians of Club Eleven had launched the careers that would define British jazz. Ronnie Scott went on to open his own club, first on Gerrard Street and then on Frith Street, where it still stands. A young saxophonist named Tubby Hayes emerged from the same scene. Club Eleven closed in 1950, but the UK National Jazz Archive still counts it among “the most important milestones in the development of modern jazz in post-war Britain”. The room beneath Great Windmill Street was far from finished.

“Club Eleven was where we learnt how to play properly. We were discovering the music as we went along.”

Ronnie Scott · Co-founder, Club Eleven, 1949

Upstairs, the building found another kind of show. After his Devonshire Road gym was destroyed by German bombs in 1940, the boxing promoter Jack Solomons found a new home on Great Windmill Street, drawn by the jazz club below and the revelry of Soho nightlife. He brought the biggest fights from the US and Britain together, promoted 26 world title fights, and in 1963 staged the famous bout between Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, and Henry Cooper. The boxing ring is gone. His name remains above the door.

Home of London’s Mod Revolution

Fifteen years after Club Eleven, the same basement reopened under a new name: The Scene. Owned by Ronan O’Rahilly, later founder of Radio Caroline, it became the headquarters of the Mod movement, driven by its resident DJ, Guy Stevens. He played imported soul, R&B and blues that most of London had never heard: Stax singles, Chess recordings, Motown before it was Motown. Georgie Fame held a Friday residency from August 1963. The Rolling Stones played here in their early club days. The Who, then The High Numbers, played here too. Alexis Korner and Chris Farlowe were regulars. Bands watched the crowd to understand what came next.

Stevens never lost the ear he had built in that room. In 1979 The Clash recruited him to produce their third album because they understood what he had done in Soho: taken unknown sounds and put them in front of an audience ready to hear them. The album was London Calling. The spirit of discovery born in a Soho basement in 1948 was still restless, still searching for the next sound.

“It was a focal point for the mod movement. I don’t think anyone who was a mod outside Soho realised the fashions and dances all began there. The Scene was really where it was at.”

Pete Townshend · The Who

The building kept attracting people who recognised its energy. Rupert Power restored the space as Jack Solomons Club, honouring its history while shaping its future, and installed a rare 1920s prohibition bar from New York in the Red Room, the hidden Soho speakeasy that became home to the Piano Bar when it moved from Carlisle Street. As the collaboration with Soho Live Studios grew, the musical legacy of the address became impossible to ignore. The return of the Discovery Stage was never an if. It was always a when. It joined the Soho Live Music Club collective on Record Store Day, 18 April 2026.

Europe’s First. Yamaha’s Finest.

Soho Live Studios has always chosen Yamaha, just as Yamaha chose Soho for its flagship showroom on Wardour Street. For over a decade Yamaha instruments have been the backbone of every stage the studios run. That trust now extends to a collaboration with Yamaha’s Pro Audio division, and to the creation of the Discovery Stage.

The Discovery Stage at Jack Solomons Club is the first grassroots live music venue in Europe to be certified by Yamaha Sound xR. The platform combines Active Field Control, for acoustic enhancement, with object-based 3D imaging that places instruments and voices precisely within the room, using technologies developed by Yamaha, NEXO and Steinberg. In concert halls and theatres worldwide, Sound xR has transformed how audiences experience live performance. At 41 Great Windmill Street it brings that same standard to a room of ninety: the intimacy of a small stage, in a room that hears everything, now open to every artist and every audience.

For an emerging artist that matters. Early gigs usually happen in whatever room will have them, on whatever system is in the corner. At the Discovery Stage a first serious show sounds the way a headline show should, and the audience hears exactly what the band intended.

“The quality of musicianship on these stages would hold its own anywhere in the world. The fact that it happens in rooms of ninety people is what makes it special.”

Nathan Britton · Co-founder, Soho Live Music Club

The Discovery Stage at Soho Jazz Festival 2026

During Soho Jazz Festival the Discovery Stage carries the cutting edge of the programme. The 2026 Discovery series opens with JSPHYNX on Wednesday 16 September, followed by Happy Garden on Thursday 17 and Kieren Mensah on Friday 18, all at Jack Solomons Club, alongside Jazztronica Live with trumpeter Jay Phelps. Attending requires a Soho Jazz Festival pass, on sale now at www.sohojazzfestival.com.