Steve Rubie has been managing this basement club for more than 30 years and knows his stuff.

“Let’s please keep the noise down,” he murmured while introducing the star turn, “or, as my friend Ronnie Scott used to say, we’ll have to send Igor round with the genital clamps.”

A more realistic threat to last night’s customers were parking clamps, now active all the way to 10pm, even in Chelsea’s darkest back-streets. But in any case, nobody chats while the ebullient Lilian Boutté is onstage.

One of 11 children born to a New Orleans barber and his hairdresser wife, Lillian just had to be a natural entertainer. Applying her lively humour and warm, flexible voice to gospel, r’n’b and jazz, she toured everywhere from Brazil to Japan before marrying saxman Thomas L’Etienne and settling down in Hamburg. Not a surprising choice when one considers that German radio plays 300 hours of jazz per month to Britain’s 30.

Backed by a swinging quartet with two excellent soloists, pianist Tom Pilling and guitarist Denny Ilett, she delivered a sparkling set of standards (Embraceable You, Tennessee Waltz) and Louisiana favourites (Cry for Me, Farewell Storeyvillle and Lipstick Traces, an Allen Toussaint classic). My favourite was the Irma Thomas belter You Can Have my Husband but Please Don’t Mess With My Man.

Younger singers should queue up to experience her stagecraft and voicecraft the next time this pocket rocket hits town.