On 17th February 2022 Nigel Price sent a letter, endorsed by 68 other previous Parliamentary Jazz Award recipients, including Dame Cleo Laine DBE, to Nadine Dorries - the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.
The letter clearly details the present alarming situation that has caused a serious lack of funding of the UK’s grassroots jazz infrastructure and is an appeal for intervention to ensure that financial support for this vital part of our heritage is not overlooked in the Government’s well documented push to kick start the Arts following the pandemic.
The letter addresses these key points:
1. Lack of accessibility to funding to those without dedicated premises and/or company status.
2. Disparity in funding between large and small venues.
3. The fiercely competitive nature of the Arts Council bidding process leading to a higher incidence failure amongst grassroots promoters.
4. The urgent need for a simpler process in order to get help to these smaller venues.Nigel’s Letter to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
PRESS RELEASE
Musicians ask Government to help ensure their futures
Award-winning guitarist Nigel Price has called on Nadine Dorries to give support to the UK’s jazz live scene as it faces a parlous financial situation following the Covid pandemic.
In a letter to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, endorsed by Dame Cleo Laine and a large group of prominent musicians, educators, promoters and media representatives, Price has drawn attention to a serious lack of funding of the UK’s grassroots jazz infrastructure.
“I have appealed to Ms Dorries to ensure that financial support for this vital part of the UK’s jazz heritage is not overlooked in the Government’s well-documented push to kick start the Arts following the pandemic,” says Price. "We have already lost a number of promoters and venues who have succumbed to the dire financial straits faced by the jazz scene."
The letter addresses five key points:
· Lack of accessibility to funding to those without dedicated premises and/or company status.
· Disparity in funding between large and small venues.
· The fiercely competitive nature of the Arts Council of England’s bidding process leading to a higher
Incidence of failure amongst grassroots promoters.
· The urgent need for a simpler process to get help to these smaller venues.
A reply from DCMS has left Price and the 68 signatories to his letter, all of whom are winners of the Parliamentary Jazz Awards (the UK’s most prestigious annual jazz prizes) feeling that their claims have been dismissed.
“It’s clear that if we want a live art form that creates work for hundreds of musicians and means so much to so many people across the country to have any kind of future on these islands, then we are going to have to be prepared to fight for it,” says Price.
Price hopes that his initial exchange with the DCMS will be the beginning rather than the end of the discussion and will prompt wider action to support the people who keep the jazz scene alive, many of whom are volunteers who give up a great deal of their spare time to run weekly gigs through a love of the music.
Further information, including Price's original letter and the DCMS response, follows below.
Nigel Price is available for interviews on:
Tel: 07931 134561
Ends
20th April 2022
Notes to the editor
Nigel Price is one of the UK’s most prominent jazz guitarists. He first served for 4 years as an infantry soldier in the British Army and went on with his regular band, the Nigel Price Organ Trio, to establish his reputation as possibly the most prolific British touring jazz musician of the 21st century – he has toured the U.K 14 times, the largest of which was a tour of 56 dates in 2016.
He has received awards for ‘best guitarist’ and ‘best small group’ in the 2016 British Jazz Awards and ‘best small ensemble’ in the 2010 Parliamentary Jazz Awards.
Nigel took over as director Swanage Jazz Festival after the announcement of its demise in 2017, revitalised the infrastructure and ensured its survival before handing it over to the current local management. He did the same with Shepperton Jazz Club in 2019 but the club did not survive the pandemic.
Nigel continues to work tirelessly as a gigging jazz musician and also as an adviser to many of those who need assistance through his online project ‘Grassroots Touring Advice’. Few are better placed when it comes to having a clear overview of the current state of venues and touring infrastructure in the U.K. today.
The Parliamentary Jazz Awards celebrate and recognise the vibrancy, diversity, talent and breadth of the jazz scene throughout the United Kingdom. They are organised by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Group, with the support of PizzaExpress Live and have been running since 2005.
This document contains:
1. The original letter to Nadine Dorries MP - Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
2. The reply from Julia Lopez - Lopez MP - Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure.
3. The reply to Ms Lopez from Nigel Price.
Responses to the reply from Julia Lopez MP from:
4. Mark Davyd - CEO of The Music Venues Trust,
5. Ros Rigby - Chair of the Jazz Promoters Network
6. Digby Fairweather, founder of the Jazz Centre UK.
1 The original letter
Rt Hon Nadine Dorries MP
Secretary of State
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
100 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2BQ
17th February 2022
Dear Secretary of State
My name is Nigel Price. I am a prominent UK jazz guitarist and previous APPJAG award recipient.
I write to you to today, with the support of another 68 Parliamentary Jazz Award recipients, led by Dame Cleo Laine, to inform you of the alarming financial state of many of the UK’s grass roots jazz venues as we move into 2022.
The funds recently allocated via the ‘Cultural Recovery Fund’ and the ‘Emergency Grassroots Venues Fund’ has simply NOT REACHED grassroots venues. We have already seen several clubs close their doors permanently and the future of dozens of others is now hanging by a thread.
We cannot allow this vital part of our heritage to be eroded.
The issue is very specific. Without permanent premises or company status, any application to Arts Council England’s current Cultural Recovery Fund or the Emergency Grass Roots Venues Fund is prohibited. Around 90% of UK jazz venues therefore do not qualify for any financial assistance. It should be noted that this includes many actual Parliamentary Jazz Award winners. This is surely not a workable scenario and needs to be addressed.
Project grants are permitted for these promoters but there is a further problem. The brave souls who run these provincial jazz clubs have absolutely zero experience in the world of funding and Arts Council England (ACE) applications. I myself know how tough these applications are; having toured the UK with ACE support nine times. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. Whilst ‘on the road’ I have had many conversations with these amazing people, and those who have previously attempted ACE applications all say roughly the same thing – “It was horrendously difficult, took forever to complete and we didn’t get the money anyway.”
Even if promoters manage to get a bid of their own submitted, they are extremely unlikely to succeed because they are then in direct and fierce competition with professional bid writers, who are often employed by larger establishments to ensure a successful outcome.
Paul Kelly, Director of Swanage Jazz Festival and an experienced bid writer illustrates this in detail:
“Let’s Create, Arts Council England’s ambitious 10 Year strategy published in 2021, has a bold vision. ‘By 2030, we want creative nation in which every one of us can play a part. England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where every one of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences.’
Let’s Create is built around three outcomes – Creative People, Cultural Communities and A Creative and Cultural Country. A key means of delivering this outcome lies in Arts Council England’s (ACE) grant funding, access too much of which is via Grantium, its online grants application system. Grantium has long been disliked by applicants for its complexity and even some Arts Council Officers have expressed reservations. When ACE released its Let’s Create Delivery Plan late in 2021 and revised its funding criteria, some of us hoped it might also reform Grantium and make it more user friendly.
Not so; Grantium has become even more complex, even to the experienced fundraiser, and very little of it directly refers to the creative idea that is being bid for. This sits at odds with ACE’s strategic objective of creating a nation “in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish”. Rather than encourage diversity, access and creative development, Grantium is highly likely to deter potential applicants, especially at the grassroots, especially where relatively small amounts of funding can make a huge difference to both non-profit voluntary organisation and the often many professional artists they employ or who wish to bid for funds themselves. The sheer complexity of the 45 page, 24 section Grantium form deters those who want to deliver creative projects and employ professional artists, with need of only modest amounts of funding. It is these people, many of whom willingly give their time for free, on which the bedrock of creative activity in England is built. If this country’s arts and culture are to thrive, Grantium needs urgent reform.”
A scan down the list of past recipients of the Cultural Recovery Fund tells you that those successful applicants now have a very secure future. That’s brilliant. In stark contrast, those who were unsuccessful or indeed unable to ask for help have been left with absolutely nothing and face a bleak and rocky road ahead of them. Can you imagine the state of morale amongst these people? Typically a club will be run by an individual or small committee who, driven by their passion for the music, often soak up financial shortfalls with their own money.
This from Simon Brown, Director of Norwich Jazz Club:
“I continue to run Norwich Jazz Club out of a desire to perform and to advocate the music I love - but which I’ve come to feel is a faintly naïve qualification when in order to succeed (at least in the current climate) your best qualification is as a professional funding applicant. Each gig I stage now generally falls slightly short of washing its face and I underwrite the losses out of my own pocket. With the background cost of living on the rise it’s probably not a position I’ll be able to maintain for much longer.”
This next illustration is from Julie Sheppard, Director of ‘Jazz Jurassica’ Lyme Regis.
“The regional jazz circuit relies on a band of volunteer promoters operating out of a variety of local venues. They have little support for the vital work they do - and many will soon “retire” with little sign of who will replace them. If jazz is to thrive outside the big metropolitan centres then this fragile part of the ecosystem needs bolstering. Where will that support come from? Arts Council? Jazz Promotion Network? Local councils? And who is giving voice to their challenges and needs?”
Promoters all over the country are echoing these sentiments. Make no mistake. We are in very real danger of losing a valuable part of our heritage.
Throughout the pandemic, limits on audience capacity and fear of infection have battered an already struggling industry. Without some assistance we are going to see more casualties very soon. Just in the last few weeks we have seen clubs throw in the towel: Peterborough Jazz, Herts jazz, Folkestone Jazz Club, Shepperton Jazz Club. Who’s next? The regional UK jazz clubs are the very arteries that supply the veins of larger clubs. Legendary venues like Ronnie Scott’s wouldn’t even exist without this utterly essential infrastructure. Young up and coming musicians gain the invaluable experience they need by playing at these clubs and we risk losing them at our peril. In very real terms this means that the future of UK jazz is under threat. If we don’t act now then we will have a very stark future.
Putting art and culture aside for a second, it’s also worth recognising that the revenue from UK jazz is without doubt of significant value to the UK economy.
My view is that this situation could actually be rectified quite simply. One solution is to create a ‘proper’ grassroots fund that will go further than the recent ACE fund by specifically supporting clubs that hold events in non-dedicated premises, and hold no company status. If such a fund were to be created it is an absolute requirement that the form will have to be simpler. The applications would be made by regular, ordinary people. Not professional bid writers. Without these kinds of concessions their applications will fail.
I hope I have put across the message clearly and that this letter will encourage a meaningful response. I have copied this letter to Darren Henley, CEO Arts Council England and the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group for discussion amongst APPJAG members and their colleagues in both Houses of Parliament.
Without immediate action the face of the UK jazz scene will irrevocably change for the worse.
I have personally invited other past recipients of the Parliamentary Jazz Awards to add their signatures to this letter and the response has been nothing short of overwhelming, with other respected figures within the UK Jazz scene also volunteering their support below.
We implore you to help us keep the music we all love alive here on these islands by making funding more available and attainable for grassroots venues.
Yours sincerely
Nigel Price - 2010 APPJAG Ensemble of the year
(Nigel Price Organ Trio)
With the support of Parliamentary Jazz Award recipients:
Dame Cleo Laine DBE - Services to Jazz Award (2009)
Claire Martin OBE – Jazz Album of the Year (2021)
Guy Barker MBE - Jazz Musician of the Year (2013)
Dr Tommy Smith OBE – Jazz Education of the Year (2016)
Cleveland Watkiss MBE – Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2017)
Julian Joseph OBE – Jazz Broadcaster of the year (2006)
Dennis Rollins MBE – Jazz Educator of the Year (2008)
Elaine Delmar – Parliamentary Special Jazz Award (2013)
Alyn Shipton – Jazz Broadcaster of the Year (2010)
Dr Ian Darrington MBE - Jazz Educator of the Year (2011)
John Eno BEM – Jazz Education of the Year (2020)
Chris Hodgkins - Services to Jazz Award (2015)
Ian Shaw - Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2018)
Liane Carroll - Jazz Album of the Year (2018)
Xhosa Cole – Jazz Newcomer of the Year (2019)
Mike Flynn, Jazzwise - Jazz Publication of the Year (2010)
Jean Toussaint - Jazz Education of the Year Award (2018)
Callum Au - Jazz Album of the Year (2021)
Empirical - Jazz Ensemble of the year (2008)
Tony Kofi - Jazz Ensemble of the Year (2005)
Georgia Mancio - Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2021)
Paul Pace - Services to Jazz Award (2008)
Phil Robson – Jazz Musician of the Year (2009)
Mark Lockheart - Jazz Musician of the Year (2010)
Gareth Lockrane - Jazz Album of the Year (2010)
Kathy Dyson - Jazz Educator of the Year Award (2010)
Zoe Champion - Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2019
Kate Williams (& Georgia Mancio) - Jazz Album of the Year (2020)
Pete Oxley, the Spin, Oxford - APPJAG Live Jazz Award of the Year (2012)
John Turville – Jazz Album of the Year (2011)
Alison Rayner - Jazz Ensemble of the Year (2018)
Emilia Martensson - Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2016)
Jasper Hoiby - Jazz Ensemble of the Year (2017)
Professor Catherine Tackley – Jazz Publication of the Year (2013)
Luca Manning - 2020 Jazz Newcomer of the Year (2020)
Christine Tobin - Jazz Vocalist of the Year (2014)
Henry Lowther - 2019 Parliamentary Special Jazz Award (2019)
Nick Smart - Jazz Education of the Year Award (2013)
Tim Garland - 2006 Jazz Musician of the Year (2006)
Jim Mullen - 2017 Parliamentary Special Award (2017)
Mike Walker, Impossible Gentlemen - Jazz Ensemble of the Year (2013)
Phil Meadows - Jazz Newcomer of the Year (2015)
Nikki Iles – Jazz Album of the Year (2019)
Paul Hobbs/Kathryn Shackleton, Watermill Jazz, Dorking – Jazz Venue of the Year (2019)
Paul Deats, Peggy’s Skylight, Nottingham – Jazz Venue of the Year (2021)
Brian Kellock – Jazz Ensemble of the Year (2011)
Joanna Mayes, St Ives – Jazz Venue of the year (2015)
Dr Corey Mwamba – Jazz Media Award (2020)
Fergus McCreadie – Jazz Album of the Year (2019)
Ryan Quigley – Jazz Ensemble of the Year (2009)
Sam Crockatt – Jazz Album of the Year (2009)
Ross Dines, Pizza Express, London – Jazz Venue of the Year (2007)
Ian Mann – Jazz Media Award (2019)
Pete Rosser and Judith Waterhouse, Wakefield Jazz Club – Jazz Venue of the Year (2005)
Fiona Ross, Women In Jazz Media – Jazz Media Award (2021)
Lance Liddle, Bebop Spoken Here – Jazz Media Award (2018)
Jill Rodger – Services to Jazz Award (2018)
Jon Newey,/Jazzwise – Jazz Journalist of the year (2012)
Peter Fairman, Fleece Jazz – Jazz Venue of the Year (2009)
Gill Alexander – Jazz Venue of the Year (2008)
Simon Purcell – Jazz Educator of the Year (2006)
Sebastian Scotney, Jazz London News – Jazz Publication of the Year (2015)
Kevin Le Gendre – Jazz Journalist of the Year (2009)
Josephine Davies – Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year (2009)
Digby Fairweather – Special Award (2021)
Stuart Nicholson – Jazz Journalist of the year (2007)
Debra Milne – Lockdown Innovation Award, The Globe, Newcastle (2021)
Buster Birch – Jazz Education award, Original Jazz Summer School (2021)
Other signatories:
Clark Tracey BEM (for music promotion) – for Herts Jazz (recently closed)
Jacqui Dankworth
Alec Dankworth
Laurie Jacobs - Peterborough Jazz Club (recently closed)
Simon Brown - Norwich Jazz Club
Julie Sheppard - Jazz Jurassica
Paul Kelly - Swanage Jazz Festival
Trefor Owen - North Wales Jazz (recently closed)
Ashley Slater - for ‘Loose Tubes’
Clive Davies – Times Journalist
CC Executive Committee of the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group: John Spellar MP, Lord Mann, Lord Colwyn, Lord Alton, Greg Knight MP, Alison Thewliss MP, Chi Onwurah MP, Ian Paisley MP, Sarah Champion MP, Chris Hodgkins (Secretary).
Darren Henley, CEO. Arts Council England
2 The Reply from Julia Lopez MP
Mr Nigel Price
Dear Nigel,
Julia Lopez MP Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure 4th Floor 100 Parliament Street London SW1A 2BQ
E:enquiries@dcms.gov.uk W:www.gov.uk/dcms
18 March 2022 Our Ref: MC2022/02709/SR
Thank you for your correspondence of 17 February, to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Nadine Dorries MP, regarding the challenges being faced by grassroots jazz venues. I am responding as the Minister responsible for Creative Industries. Your passion for the performance and promotion of jazz as a musical genre is palpable from your letter, and the commitment and adaptability you and your fellow musicians have demonstrated during the pandemic is remarkable. Please accept my apologies for the delay in you receiving a response.
You note in your correspondence that organisations without permanent premises or that were not registered as an organisation could not apply to the Cultural Recovery Fund (CRF). It is true that organisations had to be formally constituted (e.g. as a registered business or charity) to apply for most strands of CRF support. However, operation of a permanent performance venue was not a condition of CRF support.
In summer 2020, the CRF ran a scheme specifically targeted at grassroots music venues, explicitly including jazz venues. The criteria for this scheme encompassed sites from dedicated music venues through to community venues or village halls with significant live grassroots music programmes. This scheme managed to offer grants totalling £3.36 million to 135 venues before the end of August 2020. Since then, the total CRF funding in grants and loans for music organisations has risen to over £240 million.
The Government chose not to make the CRF open for individuals to apply for. This was based on several factors including that cross-economy support was in place for freelancers through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). According to the latest statistics (published 16/12/21) self-employed people in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector had made 312,000 claims across the five grants, with the average value of claims from self- employed in the sector being £2,600.
The CRF has had significant indirect benefits for freelancers by supporting organisations to survive, reopen, and restart performances and therefore to provide meaningful opportunities to freelancers. These organisations are supporting freelancers through activity that has been made possible because of CRF investment.
I note that you have copied your letter also to Darren Henley at the Arts Council England (ACE). Your observations on the technical application processes are the domain of ACE, and I recommend that you refer those queries to ACE by emailing crf@artscouncil.org.uk. With all funding applications, there is a balance to be struck between ensuring application processes are as simple as possible, and ensuring that funds are correctly distributed and that public money is invested wisely.
As the Government emerges from the pandemic, I am aware that different organisations will experience the recovery at different speeds, and the next year or so may remain very challenging for many organisations and individuals. In your letter, you recommend setting up a grant fund for grassroots music promoters who are not constituted as companies or charities. I am pleased to say that ACE has just such a funding opportunity open at the present time.
Mindful of the challenges faced by grassroots music venues, the ACE has explicitly invited funding applications from the organisations and people involved in the hosting and promotion of live music events in venues, and has ringfenced £1.5 million in the 2021-22 financial year for this priority. This has been put in place specifically to support more organisations and individuals in this sector to be confident in applying to the main Project Grants programme in the future.
This is being delivered with National Lottery funding, and is open to individuals as well as organisations. Applications for Supporting Grassroots Live Music projects will not be in competition with everyone else applying to Project Grants. As the budget for this time limited priority is ringfenced, these applications will only be in competition with each other. Further information can be found here.
For organisations interested in further funding opportunities, I recommend that you continue to monitor the ACE website where all funding programmes are posted.
Thank you for writing on this important issue. I hope my response is helpful and that your constituent is reassured that the work of the CRF and ACE prioritises supporting organisations and individuals in this sector.
With best wishes,
Julia Lopez MP
Minister of State
Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure
3 The reply from Nigel Price to Julia Lopez MP
Julia Lopez MP
Minister of State for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure
4th Floor
100 Parliament Street
London
SW1A 2BQ
Your Ref: MC2022/02709/SR
Dear Ms Lopez,
We sent a clear message to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to highlight the current plight of the UK grassroots jazz infrastructure. It literally could not have been any clearer. I was hoping that the message, endorsed by some of most important figures in UK jazz, would effect some kind of change, or at the very least lead to closer scrutiny of the arts funding system in this very specific area. I wanted the message to reach somebody in power who cares about culture on these islands and I was presuming that he DCMS was the correct recipient.
Bewilderingly, the reply seems to be defensive, often self congratulatory and, shockingly, appears to be passing the blame for the demise of our clubs onto the shoulders of those who have been hit hardest by the disparity in UK arts funding. The very people we’re asking you to help. It’s actually almost unbelievable.
Having seen the colossal waste of UK tax payer’s money in various ways over the pandemic, the willingness to thump billions of pounds without hesitation into questionable projects, white elephants and black holes, it’s utterly galling to have the cheque book closed on our cause that requires an absolutely tiny fraction, (maybe even .002%) of this figure and drives a coach and horses through the Government's levelling up agenda.
A couple of points of order. Having a company status was a requirement for applications to the Culture Recovery Fund. 100% of permanent premises have company status but almost none of the clubs without premises have company status, so whilst I was apparently incorrect to say that having premises was a requirement these are effectively the same thing. Also, whilst I thank you for the link to the Arts Council England’s ‘Supporting Grassroots Live Music’ fund I should tell you that I had never heard of it, and when informing others, others that included some highly experienced in the arts funding system, they too had no idea of its existence. It was not included on the ‘available funds’ on the ACE home page. Also, it closed ten days after you letter was sent. Had this fund been properly announced to those who would have jumped at the opportunity I’m sure the uptake would have been much higher.
Regardless of the perceived reasons for the failure to align available funding with the most needy, it is a problem that needs fixing if jazz clubs are to survive. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the blame for this lies solely at the feet of promoters? To suggest this would imply that they are lazy, unmotivated people which literally could not be further from the truth. They are the most inspirational people you could hope to meet and without them our music scene would simply not exist
Without action here, the current administration will ultimately be responsible for the potential and completely avoidable collapse of this vital part of our heritage. Correct me if I’m wrong but I would have thought that overseeing and ensuring the proliferation, sustenance and cultivation of the arts is the actual job of the DCMS?
I urge you to take another look at the key points of the original message, recognise that the very funding that was earmarked for exactly this purpose did not reach the intended recipients and to quickly take the required steps to resolve the urgent crisis in this valuable sphere of the arts.
Yours sincerely
Nigel Price
4 Response fromOfficial statement from Mark Davyd of the Music Venue Trust:
"It is correct that large numbers of Grassroots Music Venues, including some Jazz, Folk and Blues venues, were successful in the Cultural Recovery Fund. MVT was able to support many venues through the complexities of the Grantium application portal and to a successful grant outcome. That support was vital in preserving the live music touring network and was a much needed and highly successful intervention in the pandemic.
However, it is also the case, as correctly laid out in Nigel's original letter, that as we emerge from the crisis we need to address any elements of the fabric of our cultural infrastructure which were left behind by CRF or other government support. It is very clear that such consideration immediately highlights the very dire situation for the Jazz, Folk and Blues network, which has specific characteristics of delivery, ownership and support which were outside of the remit of CRF.
Specifically, most such venues were run by sole traders, excluded from CRF support, on an occasional use basis, also largely exempt from support from CRF. While CRF achieved many things, and the importance of the support was absolutely vital to the survival of our live music sector, we now need to address the reality of the current situation. MVT research suggests that as much as 50% of the total touring opportunities within the Jazz, Folk and Blues sector may have vanished during Covid.
The outcomes of such a collapse in available gigs is clearly detailed in Nigel's letter. An opportunity exists for DCMS to take a lead on rebuilding this support with careful and considered interventions; a great deal can be delivered with small amounts of financial support carefully distributed to enable the sector to rebuild and to bounce back. Without that leadership, the UK Jazz, Folk and Blues circuit may never recover. We strongly support the call by Nigel Price for urgent action.”
Mark Davyd
CEO, Music Venue Trust
5 Response from the Jazz Promotion Network:
“The Jazz Promotion Network (JPN) supports jazz promoters, labels, managers, artists, and jazz activists across the UK and Ireland. Our Jazz Community Survey runs until 4 April at http://tinyurl.com/surveyJPN.
We are consulting with the whole of the UK and Ireland jazz and improvised music sector through our survey and regional round table events. Their input will inform JPN's priorities over the next few years and our discussions with all the UK/Irish arts funders, including Arts Council England.
The situation for non-venue-based volunteer jazz promoters will likely feature strongly within the JPN Jazz Community Survey responses. In some cases, these grassroots promoters, which are vital to the ecology of the jazz sector, have not been eligible for some of the Covid recovery support during the pandemic.
Arts Council England, working closely with the Music Venue Trust and the Music Venues Alliance, launched in May 2019, has helped address some of the needs of grassroots promoters via the 'Supporting Grassroots Live Music' fund though the funds available have been modest. We hope that Arts Council England will build upon the Supporting Grassroots Live Music fund when the current phase of the scheme closes to applications on 31 March 2022.
As said above, we would urge anyone passionate to develop the UK and Ireland Jazz Sector to contribute to the JPN's Jazz Community Survey at http://tinyurl.com/surveyJPN. All responses have a chance to win a £50 Bandcamp voucher.”
Ros Rigby.
Chair,
Jazz Promotion Network.
6 Response from Digby Fairweather:
“I am delighted to support Nigel Price’s long-overdue initiative in requesting formalised financial support for jazz in the UK for which, at the moment, there is none. Jazz music in Britain now offers a continual creative legacy spanning one and a half centuries, while at the same time – quite remarkably (and probably tragically) – possessing no recognised ‘creative centre’ nor corporate representation. This separates the music from (1) classical music (Philharmonic Society, London, f.1813) (2) Folk music (Cecil Sharp House, London, 1930) and (3) Rock and Pop (British Music Experience, 2007, London/Liverpool).
This lack of any such representation has led to an inadvertent but damagingly progressive side-lining of the music in both artistic and financial terms; a side-lining compounded by the relentless growth of the (oxymoronic) ‘music industry’ since the advent of the rock revolutions of the 1960s and after. That jazz has continued to survive and flourish – albeit (almost exclusively) as a cottage-industry in economic terms – is testament both to its durability as an ‘underground music’ and proof that (in the words of one performer) ‘you cannot kill any art form which is an expression of the soul’. But the resulting removal of jazz from mainstream media (including radio and television) as well as the overweening sixty-year pop culture now large enough to replace it, consequently presents the very real possibility of a ‘black hole’ in British musical culture if nothing is done.
It should also be pointed out that the practical mechanics by which the highly limited funding for jazz may be accessed are in themselves excessively complicated, constantly shifting and – most generally – only achieved by the employment of professional fundraisers; an expense well beyond the means of most jazz promoters. The recent demise of many highly-respected independent jazz organizations including ‘Herts Jazz’ bears sad witness to the fact. The redress of this long term musical misbalance is a matter of urgency for governmental intervention at the highest level.”
Digby Fairweather
Founder/Lifelong Patron: National Jazz Archive 1988 (RC:327894)
Founder/Former CEO/Artistic Director: The Jazz Centre UK (2016)
Freeman of London (1992)
Services to Jazz Award (British Jazz Award,1992) Benno Haussmann (1993)
Freedom of Southend-on-Sea (2000)
Lifetime Achievement Award/ Worshipful Company of Musicians, London (2013)
APPJAG ‘Special’ Award (2021)
