The Pennine village of Marsden has just hosted it’s 33rd annual jazz festival. Founded in 1992 following the refurbishment of the village’s historic Mechanics Hall, the first festival featured the likes of Ronnie Scott, Jim Mullen and Alan Skidmore among many others and over the years the festival went from strength to strength, featuring the cream of British jazz talent as well as many international artists. An unforeseen funding shortfall in 2022 could have rung the death knell for the event, but the festival committee and local community rallied round to save what had become a key part of the local calendar. In 2023 a single evening of jazz performances by Yorkshire based bands was curated at the Mechanics, along with a number of fringe events at pubs, clubs and cafés around the village and this has been growing steadily since then.
The 2025 edition of the series featured gigs over three days at the main venue as well as numerous performances and events (not all jazz) around the locality, and some unseasonally warm and sunny weather made the event extra special.
Friday evening’s events got off to a sparkling start with the duo of Parliamentary Award winning vocalist Zoë Gilby and her bassist husband Andy Champion who performed songs from an array of styles including standards such as Nice Work If You Can Get It, John Martyn’s Solid Air, which was dedicated to recently departed basis extraordinaire Danny Thompson, Nick Drake’s River Man, Pink Floyd’s Money and they wound their set up with Tom Waits’ Way Down In The Hole. An eclectic mix of material which was greatly appreciated by the audience.
Next up, guitarist Rob Luft and his quartet of Joe Wright (tenor sax), Tom McCredie (bass guitar) and Corrie Dick (drums) performed a set which included a lot of brand new material which will hopefully see the light of day in recorded from soon, as well as pieces from his album Dahab Days, written when Rob was stranded in Egypt during the Covid lockdowns. The material highlighted each member of the band’s strengths, with Luft’s extraordinary talents as a guitarist to the fore, and at the end of the evening the audience left the hall knowing they had witnessed something extremely special.
Saturday afternoon was filled with free events around the village including a selection of performances in Marsden Park’s Bandstand curated by Musica Kirklees which featured a wide array of youth and college bands from around the Kirklees Metropolitan Borough. The main festival events kicked off with Threeway (Ben Crosland, bass guitar; Steve Waterman, trumpet, flugelhorm & EVI, and Steve Lodder, keyboards) who were joined by Rob Luft on guitar making his second appearance of the festival. The set was made up of pieces from the Trio’s 2024 CD Harken with compositions from all 3 members of the band, plus an excellent arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s Black Crow. The highlight for me though was a new composition by Crosland, Two Weeks Too Late which featured a delightful solo from Luft who deployed an array of shimmers and Frisell-like trills and runs which added an extra dimension to not only this piece, but the set as a whole.
New Orleans was our next port of call, with Leeds based band The Big Easy who performed a selection of tunes that one would expect in any such performance including Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Sweet Georgia Brown with a bit of Charlie Parker thrown in too. After a short break, they started their second set with an intriguing, slow arrangement of Lennon & McCartney’s A Hard Day’s Night which wouldn’t have been out of place at a Bourbon Street funeral parade. All the numbers they performed featured imaginative arrangements which made their whole set a little different from your standard New Orleans fare.
Saturday evening closed with a set by another Leeds based band, Têtes de Pois whose set of original compositions seemed to blur the lines between genres to such a degree that it didn’t seem to know where it should sit. Was it Jazz? At the end of the day, I wasn’t sure.
At the beginning of Sunday afternoon’s session, Festival Chair Richard Whitelaw explained that the festival had been started in 1992 by a group of local enthusiasts – some of whom are still involved in the festival – following a major refurbishment of Marsden Mechanics by the local Council. He acknowledged the help and support Jonny Kelly and his team at the venue in making the Festival a viable ongoing event.
Sunday’s performances were all about getting people dancing and they certainly didn’t disappoint on that front. For many years, Leeds based 7-piece Alligator Gumbo had occupied the Sunday afternoon slot at the village’s British Legion Hall. Now transferred to the Mechanics they put on an effervescent display of thoughtful and imaginative arrangements of classic New Orleans style jazz, interspersing snatches of Bill Haley and Jerry Lee Lewis, which brought the audience to their feet for what was 90 minutes of pure, unadulterated fun.
Rounding off the festival, the Pat Fulgoni Blues Experience’s set combined original compositions with blues classics Texas Flood, The Thrill Is Gone and Midnight Train as well as a funky interpretation of Gil Scott-Heron’s Lady Day and John Coltrane. The set featured notable solos from guitarist Jacob Beckwith and keyboards man Sam Bolt and the band brought the festival to a fitting close with the old John Lee Hooker classic Think Twice Before You Go.
On this showing, the festival is definitely recovering well from its 2022 setback, and although still focussing on Yorkshire based acts, they are definitely beginning to spread their wings again. Here’s hoping their recovery continues and lasts well into the future.
