Pain's the game for Jimmy

But if you want to hear the unique, suffering-suffused voice that once made him the balladeer's balladeer, hurry because it's nearly all gone.

Facing a hip-replacement operation, the little man was half-carried onstage last night and placed in a deep chair from which, with his knees practically under his chin, no singer in the world could have projected a decent note. "Ol' rockin chair's got me," he quipped, but this was no smiling matter.

His famous ultra-delayed phrasing and edgy, androgynous tone were still in place, but his pitching on Blue Skies, When Did You Leave Heaven?, Embraceable You and Pennies from Heaven was perilously approximate. Unable to hold a note for more than a moment, his dramatic climaxes became pregnant pauses.

Behind him drummer Dwayne Broadnax swung impeccably and pianist Anthony Wonsey and altoist TK Blue soloed with style, so let's keep our fingers crossed.

Jimmy actually collapsed here last year, remember, and waved away the paramedics. "No hospitals - it's just jetlag," he croaked before doing a high-spirited second set. He might turn cartwheels tonight.

Jimmy Scott
Ronnie Scott's
Frith Street, W1D 4HT