Art Mead was one of the unsung heroes of British jazz, one of the many behind-the-scenes supporters of the art form who make the jazz scene as vibrant as it is in spite of the cultural establishment. It’s an honour to record his contribution to jazz, and in particular to headline the fact that in 2007 he invented and established what became the prestigious Dankworth Prizes for Jazz Composition.
Art was a successful businessman, with a BSc in Physics & Mathematics, who loved jazz from an early age. Once he had sold Protech, the electronics company he had built from scratch with two friends, he was able to devote his time, energy, knowledge of jazz and independent means to supporting the music that he loved. His main vehicle for this was JazzOrg, a community-focused resource-sharing set-up based on a website which Art developed and coded personally in the days before WordPress & Wix. He used this to make youth band arrangements freely available to anyone who wanted them, along with a personal blog offering his thoughts on the jazz scene, always with a humorous twist and often with a Ronnie Scott joke. The site had achieved over 3 million hits by Art’s 80th birthday in 2015.
Photo reproduced by kind permission of Art Mead’s family
Art’s most enduring jazz achievement was to establish the JazzOrg prizes for Original Jazz Composition for young composers, which eventually became the Dankworth Prizes (of which more later). A competent MD and bass player with the Mid Herts Jazz Orchestra and several other bands, Art took lessons in jazz composition from Allan Ganley, John Dankworth’s drummer for many years and a noted composer in his own right. This led him to establishing an annual competition for original jazz compositions by young musicians, for big band and small-to-medium ensemble, with cash prizes that Art funded personally along with general expenses. At that time I chaired the jazz committee of the Worshipful Company of Musicians; Art approached me to suggest that the prizes would be more prestigious if they were promoted jointly by JazzOrg and the Company, and – after consulting colleagues Leslie East and Tim Garland – I was delighted to agree a partnership approach with Art.
Les, Tim & I were greatly taken with Art’s personality and style; he was warm, businesslike, generous and clearly in it for the good of the music and not for any personal glory. Together we refined the concept in a series of conference calls and emails and agreed that the judges of the first competition would be Frank Griffith (an old friend of Art’s) and Tim Garland himself. We announced the first competition in early 2008, there was an adequate number of entries, and the winners were James Hamilton (Leeds College of Music, big band) and Nicky Jacques (Birmingham Conservatoire, small band). We were up and running !
Art being the engineer that he was, his immediate reaction was to improve version one and trial version two. Between us we came up with the following ideas : get the winner’s pieces played live as part of their prize at a concert in a prestigious location, increase the prize money, and get a big name to endorse the whole thing. That’s exactly what we did ! Simon Purcell (then Head of Jazz at Trinity Laban) and a member of the Company’s Jazz Committee offered a live concert by the Trinity Big Band under Malcolm Earle Smith, and Art suggested to me that John Dankworth (also a member of the Jazz Committee) might allow his name to be attached to the award. I was deputed to request Sir John’s permission; the conversation should go on the record, so here it is as it happened:
Nigel : John, we would like to re-name Art Mead’s award as the John Dankworth Award for Jazz Composition.
John Dankworth : No Nigel, I won’t let you do that. Call it the Dankworth Award for Jazz Composition: that way you get four for the price of one.
We approached Ronnie Scott’s Club with the idea that the winning pieces would be played as part of a Trinity concert playing John Dankworth’s wonderful Zodiac Suite in its entirety. With the strong support of Ronnie’s MD James Pearson, the concert took place on Sunday 26 January 2009 with JD and Art and his family in the front row; the prize-winning pieces by James Beckwith and Matt Roberts climaxed the first half. A fitting culmination for Art of a life supporting jazz.
The prizes have of course grown in importance and prestige since 2009, exactly as Art foresaw. The panel of judges now regularly includes Nikki Iles, Jason Yarde, Callum Au and Josephine Davies as well as Tim Garland and Frank Griffith. Importantly, the Dankworth Prizes were joined in the Musicians’ Company portfolio by the Eddie Harvey Jazz Arranger Award in 2014, funded by the Harvey family, who were impressed by the success of the Dankworth Prizes and felt that an award commemorating Eddie would sit nicely alongside them. Art of course concurred and was delighted to see the synergy between the awards grow as musicians like Billy Marrows and Charlie Bates won both.
Art and I became good friends as we worked together on the Dankworth Prizes, so when I became Executive Chair of NYJO in 2009 I regularly turned to him for advice and the opportunity to discuss things with a wise and experienced colleague. He generously sponsored a Chair in the orchestra and came to concerts and open days to see how NYJO was progressing; if I had a tough problem to resolve I would call him. He was the ideal consigliere – never diverted the conversation to himself, always put himself in my shoes and then offered objective practical advice.
I’ll leave the last words to Nikki Iles, who called me as soon as she heard of Art’s death. The word she kept using was “warm” – “ he was such a warm man, so unselfish, always interested in me and how I was rather than wanting to talk about himself. And he loved the music for all the right reasons.”
Jazz will miss Art Mead, and so will I. RIP.
