Its line-up over the last 10 years reads like a who’s who of modern jazz. If you know your jazz, you’ll know the 144Club, held in the Roffen Club in Rochester.

Since it launched a decade ago it has welcomed the biggest names on the circuit including keyboard player Darius Brubeck, son of Dave Brubeck, and cornettist Digby Fairweather.

Launched by professional musician Roan Kearsey-Lawson, it was based on the set-up at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London, with a house band and features modern jazz, where the majority is improvised.

Roan said: “The quality of the musicianship is as high as you’ll find anywhere. To be able to play modern jazz, you have to have a really high level of musicianship.

“In Kent there are places still keeping it alive, which is a great thing. Twenty years ago people said to me people wouldn’t want to listen to it in future but it has been 20 years and there are still people to play to.” The first to perform was Don Rendell, who died last year, and trumpeter Harry Beckett.

Roan said: “When people get into their 50s and beyond they mellow and want to be listening to something a little less loud. We have a mellow crowd here.”

More details at www.144club.co.uk.

MARKING THE MOMENT

She may be in her 80s but there’s no slowing down for singer Marlene VerPlanck.

Having just released a new album, The Mood I’m In, at the age of 82, the New Yorker who sang with Frank Sinatra, is still performing all over the world.

Touring the UK this year, she has squeezed in a date to mark the 10th birthday of Kent’s prestigious 144Club.

Officially on the Frank Sinatra Society list of performers he worked with, Marlene’s Medway gig has attracted interest from music-lovers across the country.

A prolific studio singer of jingles, her voice was known to millions for the arrangement of the 1930s Mmm Mmm Good, that’s what Campbell’s soups are” song.

Marlene released her first album I Think Of You Every Breath I Take in 1955 at the age of 21 but did not release another solo album until 1979. She recorded backing vocals for Frank Sinatra and jazz singer Mel Torme, nicknamed the Velvet Fog and over the years performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall.

Many of her albums feature arrangements scored by her husband of 52 years, Billy VerPlanck, who died in 2009.

Marlene will sing at the 144Club on Wednesday, March 2. Tickets cost from £13.