[2] Throughout its various owners the club has continued to showcase performers from the genres of jazz, hip hop, electronica, blues, world, reggae, Latin and soul, as well as providing a venue for new and established artists.

[citation needed] The Jazz Cafe has played host to such jazz musicians as: Jamiroquai, Sun Ra Arkestra, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Jimmy Smith, Abbey Lincoln, Ahmad Jamal, Archie Shepp, Eddie Harris, Cassandra Wilson, Mulatu Astatke, and many more too numerous to mention.

It has hosted top-drawer funk, soul and disco artists such as Amy Winehouse, Ben E King, Leroy Burgess, Evelyn "Champagne" King, The Blackbyrds, Jocelyn Brown, Jean Carne and The Fatback Band, plus reggae artists including Lee Scratch Perry, Yellowman, The Skatalites, Max Romeo, Luciano, Horace Andy, Johnny Osbourne and Marcia Griffiths, Italian singer-songwriter Elisa, and singer-songwriter Benedict Cork.

[citation needed] The American soul singer Bilal played the venue on the night of July 15, 2006, amidst a period of controversy surrounding his unreleased Love for Sale album.

In attendance was the American writer Tamara P. Carter, who later recounted in Wax Poetics the rousing nature of his performance, which had left her "drenched in sweat".