NorvolJazz new years honours... - Entrepreneur Generations

The North of England is one of the best place to see jazz in the UK, second only to London in the quality variety of jazz being played, composed and recorded.

The 18 jazz festivals in the North cover all areas and musical styles. There are more than 30 jazz clubs, co-operatives, collectives and venues promoting jazz throughout the year. There are two highly successful music conservatories featuring jazz, at Manchester RNCM and Leeds College of Music - who celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2015 in style - as well as Jazz degrees run by the University of Northumbria and an Improvised Music degrees at York University. There are the big music venues - the Band on the Wall in Manchester and the Howard Assembly Room Leeds, and the Sage Gateshead, showing that public funding can still provide great spaces for jazz to find a home.

But at the much smaller end there are just so many "crucibles of creativity" all over the place - for example in spaces like Fusebox,  Fold studios and LS6 in Leeds, in the Lescar in Sheffield, the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle. We have creativity in our jazz festivals - in Manchester, especially with "MJF Introducing" and "MJF Originals", at Marsden Festival's "New Stream", in Lancaster Jazz Festival's "Breaking Bread" through to creative teaching of "Dales Jam" in Skipton - or just in creative new ways of running things, like the Newcastle Jazz Co-op and Heart in Leeds.

We are also lucky to have one of the few Arts Council funded regional jazz organisations - Jazz North, that supports musicians and bands through the much admired "Northern Line" scheme, now in it's third year. The North also has the most active regional network of jazz clubs in the UK through the NorvolJazz network.

We all need to be creative to keep the jazz ship afloat. So it seems fitting to ask some jazz people from the North what they remember as the highlights of 2015 - a NorvolJazz new years honours list!

Other people's nominations will all follow on - so why not nominate your best three highlights as a reply!

from NorthernJazzLive http://ift.tt/1JhquXA NorvolJazz new years honours... - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet