JAZZ SUPERGROUP COME TOGETHER FOR NEW ALBUM CELEBRATING AND SAVING THE JAZZ CLUB TRADITION

OUT 12 September 2025
ON WESTWAY RECORDS

A dimly lit, smokey room. A strong drink. A smooth as silk sound.

Jazz clubs are an evocative place like no other, rich in tradition, legacy, and cultural preservation; whilst still pushing music into new areas. However, despite jazz’s mainstream prominence in recent years, for a variety of reasons such as arts cuts and wider economic difficulties, across the world, these institutions are in decline.

Step right up then, Joe Stilgoe and the Entertainers – the new powerhouse jazz supergroup who have put together a record like no other; a pure love letter to jazz clubs around the world, and the people who frequent them.

Titans of the UK jazz scene, singer and pianist Joe Stilgoe and clarinettist Giacomo Smith have come together to form The Entertainers, which features members of Kansas Smitty’s House Band, Joe’s own band, and guest vocalists Emma Smith and Pete Horsfall.

Spurred on by the gutting closure of the Kansas Smitty’s bar in East London, which became a word of mouth success and propelled the House Band into the spotlight, this new supergroup is a fun and infectious celebration, both on record, and in their upcoming live shows.

The groups will play three dates at London’s iconic Wilton’s Music Hall from 22 June – 24 June. These special shows will see Joe and the band create a wondrously immersive night of entertainment that will see the Hall turned into the greatest jazz club on earth.

Each song on ‘Welcome To The Club’ tells a different tale and presents a different character – the music is about membership, acceptance, a shared love of something vital, quixotic rules and regulations, the minutiae of ‘everynight life’, and importantly, the world of entertainment.

Joe explains: “Giacomo and I started writing this album during the first lockdown. His beautiful jazz club, Kansas Smitty’s, had been closed. All music venues had, but we weren’t to know then that this would be a permanent full stop for the place. We swapped stories about the people who came to the club, and to the clubs we’d both played in around the world. We realised that the characters you might see in Ronnie Scott’s or Birdland in New York or Blue Note Tokyo are the same… the roles always repeated even though the cast changes.”

From the opening, the gauntlet is thrown down with ‘Can We Entertain You?’. “The door opens. We’re in the club. The house band playing a storm. The words though are a little warning. You might think you’re bigger than the music, but when you’re in here, everyone’s the same, and your money doesn’t buy you anything more than the next guy.”

The Entertainers then take the audience on a journey through both jazz styles and the jazz club itself, from the performer trying to get in past the brash security on ‘Nobody’ (based on a true story of an experience Joe himself had), through to the sometimes strange, sometimes sultry characters frequenting the club on the likes of ‘Bootsy’ and ‘The Music That Keeps Me Alive’, to the stories of the musicians themselves on ‘When I Meet Them’ and ‘Hit The Big Time’.

Written between Joe and Giacomo, whilst the latter produced the record, ‘Welcome To The Club’ is a concept album, but one that shies away from the haughty. Sometimes humorously, sometimes tenderly, yet always exhilaratingly, it embraces the very environment where this music was born to be played; and hopefully, in years to come, still can be.

A dimly lit, smokey room. A strong drink. A smooth as silk sound.

Jazz clubs are an evocative place like no other, rich in tradition, legacy, and cultural preservation; whilst still pushing music into new areas. However, despite jazz’s mainstream prominence in recent years, for a variety of reasons such as arts cuts and wider economic difficulties, across the world, these institutions are in decline.

Step right up then, Joe Stilgoe and the Entertainers – the new powerhouse jazz supergroup who have put together a record like no other; a pure love letter to jazz clubs around the world, and the people who frequent them.

Titans of the UK jazz scene, singer and pianist Joe Stilgoe and clarinettist Giacomo Smith have come together to form The Entertainers, which features members of Kansas Smitty’s House Band, Joe’s own band, and guest vocalists Emma Smith and Pete Horsfall.

Spurred on by the gutting closure of the Kansas Smitty’s bar in East London, which became a word of mouth success and propelled the House Band into the spotlight, this new supergroup is a fun and infectious celebration, both on record, and in their upcoming live shows.

The groups will play three dates at London’s iconic Wilton’s Music Hall from 22 June – 24 June. These special shows will see Joe and the band create a wondrously immersive night of entertainment that will see the Hall turned into the greatest jazz club on earth.

Each song on ‘Welcome To The Club’ tells a different tale and presents a different character – the music is about membership, acceptance, a shared love of something vital, quixotic rules and regulations, the minutiae of ‘everynight life’, and importantly, the world of entertainment.

Joe explains: “Giacomo and I started writing this album during the first lockdown. His beautiful jazz club, Kansas Smitty’s, had been closed. All music venues had, but we weren’t to know then that this would be a permanent full stop for the place. We swapped stories about the people who came to the club, and to the clubs we’d both played in around the world. We realised that the characters you might see in Ronnie Scott’s or Birdland in New York or Blue Note Tokyo are the same… the roles always repeated even though the cast changes.”

From the opening, the gauntlet is thrown down with ‘Can We Entertain You?’. “The door opens. We’re in the club. The house band playing a storm. The words though are a little warning. You might think you’re bigger than the music, but when you’re in here, everyone’s the same, and your money doesn’t buy you anything more than the next guy.”

The Entertainers then take the audience on a journey through both jazz styles and the jazz club itself, from the performer trying to get in past the brash security on ‘Nobody’ (based on a true story of an experience Joe himself had), through to the sometimes strange, sometimes sultry characters frequenting the club on the likes of ‘Bootsy’ and ‘The Music That Keeps Me Alive’, to the stories of the musicians themselves on ‘When I Meet Them’ and ‘Hit The Big Time’.

Written between Joe and Giacomo, whilst the latter produced the record, ‘Welcome To The Club’ is a concept album, but one that shies away from the haughty. Sometimes humorously, sometimes tenderly, yet always exhilaratingly, it embraces the very environment where this music was born to be played; and hopefully, in years to come, still can be.

Tracklisting

1. Can We Entertain You?
2. Nobody
3. Bootsy
4. When I Meet Them
5. BTS
6. Mr Peanuts
7. The Music That Keeps Me Alive
8. Hit The Big Time
9. The Man In The Moon
10. Lovers

Praise for Joe Stilgoe