About

Welcome to The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh

Everybody loves this place!

What makes this really cool basement music venue so universally appealing is its unique, high-quality, daily mix of superb, multi-genre music, a stylish but non-trendy environment, great service, and an ever-changing creative buzz.

There’s always lots going on – we stage three or four gigs a day, seven days a week, every week, every month (except Christmas Day!), plus Saturday and Sunday afternoon sessions. That’s a LOT of gigs, running all year round!

The Jazz Bar opened its doors on 1 July 2005. The initial focus was mainly on jazz events, but it was soon recognised that this was a superb performance space for other kinds of good music, and it quickly became a magnet for musicians and bands of all types, who added their particular musical offering to the bar’s repertoire. This has developed over the years into today’s fantastic mix of musical genres, which makes the venue so successful with such wide-ranging audiences. About a third of what goes on here is ‘Jazz’, another third is Blues/Roots/Acoustic, the remaining third being Funk/Soul/Electric.

Jazz Bar Music Genres:
Three thirds of Good Music!

The main Jazz Bar logo features a photo of London-based trumpeter Byron Wallen, taken by Edinburgh photographer Marc Marnie backstage in the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh. The collage of great photo prints in the entrance stairwell wall is also of photos taken by Marc, while those subjects were on Edinburgh and Glasgow gigs.

Jazz trivia quiz: how many can you identify?
Marc Marnie’s incredible photographs of jazz legends now also line the walls of our bar’s interior. Try to guess as many as you can or check out our cheat sheet near the entrance.
Order prints here: www.marcmarnie.com

Winner of SIX major awards!

  • ‘UK JAZZ VENUE OF THE YEAR‘ – Parliamentary Jazz Awards, House of Commons, 2010
  • Scotland’s ‘JAZZ VENUE OF THE YEAR‘ (TWICE!) – Scottish Jazz Awards, 2011, AND  2009.
  • Scotland’s ‘MUSIC PUB OF THE YEAR‘ – Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards, 2009
  • ‘BEST BAR NONE’ GOLD AWARD – Edinburgh City Council 2014
  • Scotland’s ‘LATE NIGHT OPERATOR of the YEAR’ – British Institute of Innkeepers, 2015

AND the February 2016 and 2017 editions of world-famous US Jazz Magazine DOWNBEAT lists us as one of the ‘193 great jazz venues of the world’, covering some 32 countries stretching from China to Mexico, Australia to Finland, and Japan to Turkey.