Your best bet these days is a Blues Club, I'd say
As Chompy points out above, Jazz is seen as highbrow and middle class and so the jazz clubs seem to have picked up on that by being expensive and pretentious. Ain't Nothin' But and Charlotte Street Blues are good places to try if you're in London - same kind of atmosphere you're after and a bit more relaxed, and although no one wears cocktail dresses you can get decent grown-up beer in Ain't Nothin' But.
(LongJohnBaldry, Wed 19 May 2010, 15:56, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

maybe I'll wear a cocktail dress anyway
and show 'em how it's done.

I want prohibition to come back so I can go to a bar like Fat Sam's Grand Slam speakeasy.
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:06, Reply)

Me too
In my fringy dress and my headfeather
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:09, Reply)

You know I was picturing you as I wrote it

( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:11, Reply)

I love you
in a waaaay...
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:12, Reply)

*hilarious strikethrough*

(PsychoChomp, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:21, Reply)

hilarious
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:23, Reply)

good call
anybody who is anybody will soon walk through that door
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:13, Reply)

*does hands-on-knees dance*

( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:14, Reply)

we once did a cover of Bad Guys from Bugsy Malone
it was legendary
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:15, Reply)

Oh my
That is cool
( Roota zweeeeeoooooowm, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:15, Reply)

cool bumderifically gay.
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:44, Reply)

*chorlte*

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Wed 19 May 2010, 16:48, Reply)