Club Eleven was a nightclub in London's Soho between 1948 and 1950 which played a significant role in the emergence of the bebop jazz movement in Britain.
The club was so named because it was a musicians cooperative with 11 founders – business manager Harry Morris along with ten British bebop players: Lennie Bush, Leon Calvert, Tony Crombie, Bernie Fenton (1921-2001, piano), Laurie Morgan (1926-2020, drums), Joe Mudele, double bass), Johnny Rogers (1926-2016, saxophone), Tommy Pollard, piano and vibes), Ronnie Scott, and Hank Shaw.
Many of them had been influenced by hearing early bebop pioneers such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie during New York stopovers while they performed as ship musicians on the Atlantic-going liners.
[1] But it was the first chance UK audiences had to hear the new bebop music, and was later viewed as "one of the most important milestones in the development of modern jazz in post-war Britain".
[6][7] The Jamaican landlord Gus Leslie opened the Sunset Club at the same address in 1951, and it became a popular venue for black US Army personnel still posted in London.