Jazz and blues in Camden: Jazz Cafe, Green Note, the Blues Kitchen

For a proper jazz gig in Camden, book the Jazz Cafe: doors at 19:00, standing around £25, a table upstairs for a tenner more. For folk, blues and small group jazz any night of the week, walk up Parkway to Green Note, where tickets mostly run £10 to £20. For a Saturday blues and soul party, it is the Blues Kitchen, free before 20:00. Here is how each one works.

The Jazz Cafe, 5 Parkway, NW1

The Jazz Cafe started in Stoke Newington in the 1980s and moved to Camden in 1990, into a former Barclays bank. It holds 450 across two floors and has been run by The Columbo Group since 2016. Over the years the stage has had Sun Ra Arkestra, Pharoah Sanders, Ahmad Jamal, Archie Shepp, Cassandra Wilson and Mulatu Astatke, alongside soul and reggae names from D'Angelo to Lee Scratch Perry.

Be clear about what you are buying. The programme is far wider than jazz: the listings filter by Jazz and Improvised Music, Soul and RnB, Funk and Disco, Latin, Brazilian, African Diaspora, Reggae and Dub, and more. Pick the jazz filter and you get piano trios, electro jazz drummers and spiritual Afro jazz bands; pick the rest and you get anniversary album shows and tribute nights.

How a live night runs:

• Times: live shows are typically listed 19:00 to 22:30. Popular acts sometimes play an early and a late show on the same night.
• Tickets: standing or restaurant. On one recent jazz show, standing was £25 and restaurant £35.
• Where to be: standing is the downstairs floor; the restaurant ticket is a table upstairs with a guaranteed view.
• After: on Fridays and Saturdays the room becomes a club from 22:30 to 03:00, 18 and over.

Our advice: for a jazz act, book the restaurant ticket and sit upstairs. You came to listen, and upstairs with a seat is the place to do it.

Green Note, 106 Parkway, NW1

Green Note is a small independent venue and vegetarian cafe bar with gigs every night, across folk, Americana, country, bluegrass, blues, roots, world, jazz and singer songwriters. Its awards include Time Out's London Venue of the Year and a Grassroots Award from the UK Americana Awards. The current listings mix jazz quartets and trios, touring blues players and folk bills, with tickets mostly from £10 to £20.

Evenings run 19:00 to 23:00, and some days add a matinee with doors at 13:30. The room is mixed seated and standing, seats are first come, first served, and there are no table reservations, so arrive at doors if you want to sit. Advance tickets go off sale online at 18:00 on the day; any left are sold on the door. It is family friendly and all ages, with children accompanied. Note for access: the Basement Bar is down steep stairs with no step free route, and there is no accessible toilet.

The Blues Kitchen, 111 to 113 Camden High Street, NW1

The Blues Kitchen is a bar and restaurant that turns into a party at the weekend. A Saturday is three live sets of soul, Motown, R&B and neo soul, then DJs from 21:00 until 03:00. It is free before 20:00, then £10 online or on the door, with a limited number of £6 early tickets. Saturdays sell out. Brunch starts at 11:00 if you want to make a day of it. Check the live music page for the week's bands.

Know what it is: this is a dancing night with a band, not a listening room. Come for the party and the late licence, and go to the Jazz Cafe or Green Note when you want silence during the solos.

Ellen's, inside KOKO

Behind the main room at KOKO, the backstage space now holds Ellen's, a small late night jazz club named after Ellen Terry, the actress who opened the Camden Theatre in 1900. It hosts secret live performances, but it belongs to The House of KOKO members' club, so it is for members rather than a ticket you can buy. If you are not a member, the main KOKO room still books jazz and soul acts on its regular gig nights.

A bit of Camden jazz history

In the early 1990s, after it stopped putting on bands, Dingwalls at Camden Lock became the home of Talkin' Loud and Saying Something, the jazz dance club run by Gilles Peterson and Patrick Forge. Dingwalls is a live venue again today, with a 500 capacity main room and a smaller canal bar. And the Jazz Cafe itself is now old enough to have its own history: more than 35 years on Parkway.

Plan your night

• Serious jazz, seated: Jazz Cafe restaurant ticket, early show.
• Cheap and close up: Green Note, mostly £10 to £20, get there at 19:00.
• Blues and soul to dance to: Blues Kitchen on a Saturday, in before 20:00 for free.
• The Parkway double: early show at the Jazz Cafe, then a late set at Green Note, further up the same street.

Bills change, and Jazz Cafe and Green Note shows do sell out. Book ahead, and check the venue's own page on the day.