The Rolling Stones, the Who, Rod Stewart, Elton John, David Bowie, Ten Years After and many other bands can all be thankful for the part played on their way to fame and fortune by the manager of the Marquee Club in the 1960s, John Gee, who has died aged 86.

He also had a particular passion for the music of a previous era and its performers – Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra – and was the first British journalist to interview Duke Ellington.

Originally from east London, during the second world war he was evacuated with his mother to Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, to be near his father, who was stationed nearby with the RAF. John, an only child, won a place at the local grammar school, where he discovered his love of a good book (he was an avid reader of Dickens) and jazz. His first jobs were as tour manager and publicist for two of the great dance-band leaders of the day, Ambrose and Ted Heath, and he even continued to promote Heath by arranging cricket matches between an RAF XI and the band while doing his national service; like his father, he was in the RAF.

During the late 1950s his great fondness for big bands and Sinatra helped to secure the interview in Paris with Ellington; he also attended several Sinatra recording sessions in London. At this time he became associated with Jazz News, a publication owned by Harold Pendleton, who also owned the Marquee Club in central London.

Some years on, John became the respected manager, club secretary and, most importantly for rising pop musicians and groups, main booker at the Marquee. It was often mooted that all that was needed to get your group a gig there was to engage John in conversation and make sure he was aware that your greatest hero/influence was Sinatra. This was not strictly true, but a Sinatra conversation was a sure-fire introduction.

He joined Radio Luxembourg in 1969, working at the station's offices in central London for the next 23 years, before retiring happily to Carshalton Beeches, south London.

I first met John in 1964 when I was trying to get a booking for an R&B group I managed at the time, and so began a friendship lasting 50 years, as a result of which he came to regard my family as his own.