Swanage Jazz Festival, Dorset – 12-14 July 2024

“230 Musicians 50 Bands 1 Stroller Ticket….“ (Festival poster). “A well-balanced, diverse programme of quality music.” (Festival Director Paul Kelly.) Swanage Jazz Festival will take place from 12 to 14 July 2024.

All sorts of jazz events or festive gatherings seem to come and go these days. Nothing stays the same, they say, but the good news is that Swanage’s Jazz Festival not only endures but continues to dazzle and delight. So, what’s the Swanage secret? Is it the town itself that’s the attraction, with its placid seafront and genial family atmosphere? Well, yes, of course, but uppermost for the jazz enthusiast in my view is its durability. Whatever the highs and lows, the vicissitudes of council support or not, the involvement of the Arts Council or not, and the vagaries of the weather, Swanage prevails.

Fred Lindop was its original mastermind and long-term artistic director and ran the whole show (with the help of friends and family) making it ‘the supreme showcase for (almost) all of British jazz’. By 2017, he knew that it was time to withdraw, leaving it to others to carry on. Initially, none came forward until Nigel Price, Britain’s premier jazz guitarist, stepped into the breach, declaring that Swanage was too good to founder. As ever, he brought his characteristic energy and drive to it but for all his success, the financial and organisational problems he encountered were enough to make this busy artist’s first year also his last.

Enter Paul Kelly as the new Chair and Director. He’s well-known locally for his promotional prowess, and something of a festival specialist, his first Swanage the 2019 event, smaller-in-scale inevitably, only for Covid to derail his plans for the next two seasons. Post-lockdown and back in the saddle by 2022, Kelly and his committee chums got going in earnest, re-branding the festival as ‘Jazz By The Sea’ with an appropriately sunny new logo and stage backdrop, this a reminder that Darius Brubeck once described Swanage as ‘this mini-Newport’ alluding to that famous film ‘Jazz On A Summer’s Day’ and its depiction of the Newport Jazz Festival’s balmy, sea-side location over in the States. Ditto, Swanage!

Since then, the SJF has gained momentum year on year, with enhanced performance venues, the refurbished Mowlem Theatre on the sea-front its main adornment. New design marquees (restored this year to their rightful place up on Sandpit Fields overlooking the ocean) are installed and ready to host a compelling array of bands and stars.

So, what are the musical highlights awaiting the visitor this year, the 33^rd in this absorbing and popular series? Well, the SJF strap-line says it all: 230 Musicians 50 Bands 1 Stroller Ticket. Add in plenty of sunshine and the Festival’s easy-going atmosphere, the company of friends and the ability to stroll from venue to venue, while you pause to admire the view, and you have some idea of Swanage’s unique quality. All this spread across three music-packed days.

US alto star Greg Abate for so long a Swanage favourite is back, playing this time with the very potent Sound of Blue Note Band and opening up at Sandpit Field Marquee 1 on Friday the 12th; Art Themen and his equally tantalising Organ Quintet occupying a similar slot in the Mowlem. So, choices, choices. Consider Kelly’s named Headliners: The Wonder of Stevie with Derek Nash, Ian Shaw & Tony Kofi, Jivin’ Miss Daisy (also Friday), Emma Rawicz’s Jazz Orchestra, Gary Crosby’s Sextet – Mingus Moves, Martin Litton’s Red-Hot Peppers (Saturday), Liane Carroll Trio, Zoe Rahman’s Colours of Sound, The Pete Allen Jazz Band (Sunday) and you’ll sense something of Swanage’s unique approach. Stylistic variety, for sure: modern, mainstream or traditional – the tried-and-tested versus the edgily new – Kelly’s aim a ‘a well-balanced, diverse programme of quality music’. To his list of top performers, I’d add Nigel Price and Vasilis Xenopoulos, Alan Barnes & Dave Newton, forever joined at the hip, Henry Lowther’s Still Waters, Clark Tracey’s Quintet, and the Pete Allen Jazz Band as those I’ll want to see.

Add in the opening Festival Parade, the Free Festival Fringe, various traders set up on Sandpit Field, a Festival Merchandise stall, a Jazz DJ, and ‘Fingers and Toes’, a live inter-active performance designed to intrigue youngsters and you have quite a package. Oh yes, and something else entirely new, funded by the Arts Council: The Sound of Things To Come , that’s ten young bands selected because their approach ably blends jazz with other influences or because they just play the more usual jazz forms exceptionally well. They’ll have Marquee Two up on Sandpit Field to themselves.

This cornucopia of good things can all be accessed and the full programme examined on the festival’s website, and it’s there you can book your 3-Day Stroller Ticket or take it a day at a time. Don’t hesitate: it’s all too good to miss.