The Jazz Centre UK has as its mission “to preserve promote and celebrate the art of jazz music in all its forms”. Its founder and moving spirit, Digby Fairweather and his team have won a victory this year, seen off an eviction notice and secured the organisation’s future. Digby tells the story, describes the current range of activities and makes a request for more people to get involved:
“Our present and most urgent priority is to find like-minded people from newer generations to join our advisers and Trustees’ Board to guide us…”
Digby Fairweather writes:
There’s good news for The Jazz Centre UK! As of 2024, after eight years of building the working model for a real cultural centre for jazz in the UK (something the cottage industry of UK jazz still desperately needs) we are embarking on fifteen secure years in the Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, via a lease signed by Southend City Council guaranteeing our future until at least 2039.
Many (many) thanks are due from me: for the skills, services and unfailing commitment of our Trustees’ Board and equally to our valiant army of gifted volunteers. When we opened our doors in 2016, (helped by just a handful of friends and co-believers), I had no idea that today I could wander into the buzzing meeting of a super-efficient Events Team to hear about a dynamic and diverse programme of live events stretching six months ahead. Nor could I have foreseen the publication of our house magazine ‘Centrepiece’, distinguished by professional design and artwork and informed commentary. You can apply for a free copy on our website: www.thejazzcentreuk.co.uk and also check out our weekly live gigs, featuring guests (over the years) from Evan Parker and Coco Mbassi to the Jake Leg Jug Band – everything, in short, from classic jazz to bebop, fusion, free and whatever lies beyond.
It seems to me that, despite the odd threat to our well-being -most notably an artfully manipulated (and rightfully overturned) ‘Eviction Order’ back in 2022 – our activities have made a useful start. Amongst a great deal else we’ve begun plugging a potential black hole in jazz culture by collecting the valiant ‘little labels’ of British jazz which, over forty years, have most usually been the sole (often self-produced) option for most UK players, including once-secure major names from Humphrey Lyttelton to Michael Garrick. Our film and classic vinyl collections are comprehensive and growing by the day. And such collections, of course, are mutually exclusive from (as well as complementary to) the collections policy of the National Jazz Archive in Loughton. The NJA’s primary mission is to collect research materials including books, journals, letters and photographs – anything you can read or look at – on the subject of jazz. And one day our two departments must find a secure home under one roof.
But the challenge of establishing a true ‘cultural centre’ for British jazz –realistically involving the different (and often highly canalised) interests of all UK jazz performers – is, of course, a truly formidable objective and long-term mission. It will need the services (possibly over a couple of generations) of a globally unified team of people equipped with vision, passion and steely devotion to the cause. And if we are to maintain realistic progress over the fifteen years to come, our present and most urgent priority is to find like-minded people from newer generations to join our advisers and Trustees’ Board to guide us accordingly. Anyone interested in the possibility should email our Chairman gareth.evans@thejazzcentreuk.co.uk or talk to me about it at digby@digjazz.co.uk
LINK: TJC (UK) website
