An accountant by training who used to manage the Jazz Cafe and The Forum for promoter Mean Fiddler, has opened a new jazz venue in London’s Herne Hill. Tony Dyett opened Jazz on the Hill, a smart street front cafe bar with good sight lines on Railton Road very close to Herne Hill station in late-June, and it all got underway in some style with a range of high profile jazz acts.
With bookings now under the personal remit of Dyett the cafe has an eclectic Caribbean-style menu and presents jazz on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays with open mic nights on Sundays and weekly blues nights on Tuesdays. Dyett says the Herne Hill area is in need of a jazz club and already locals are looking to the club as a regular haunt. 
It’s on the site of a former night club and the Poet’s Bar but Dyett and his team have made a series of much needed alterations, including moving the bar further to the right, removing stud walls and relocating the kitchen. Jazz on the Hill is working with local visual artists mounting exhibition space at the front of the club and at the rear for regular art exhibitions, and a relationship has also been established with the local Sunday farmers market with jazz becoming a soundtrack to activities on the street as shoppers sample the local traders’ wares.
There’s no house drum kit just yet, and the piano is a modest upright but with good sound, attractive decor and an easily accessible location, Jazz on the Hill adds considerably to the profile of jazz in south London with Hideaway in Streatham not far away, already a major draw.
Upcoming bookings for the venue include Anton Browne Trio (9 August), The Esther Bennett Trio (10 August), Alan Barnes Quartet (11 August) and the Brandon Allen Trio (16 August) - Stephen Graham
The exterior of Jazz on the Hill (pictured, top), and Anton Browne appearing on Thursday 9 August above