Sheffield Jazz first started as Hurlfield Jazz, founded by Fred Brown of Hurlfield Community School with a group of local musicians and a grant from Yorkshire Arts. They booked regular working bands and visiting US musicians touring with UK rhythm sections, including Ronnie Scott, Don Rendell, Sam Rivers, Dexter Gordon, Carla Bley and Barney Kessel. At this time The Arts Council subsidised tours for larger ensembles which would otherwise have been uneconomic. A Jazz Development Officer for the North made it feasible to run a Jazz Festival in Sheffield, which ran for 5 years, initially at The Crucible then at the recently opened Leadmill. Featured bands included Art Ensemble of Chicago, Loose Tubes, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Johnny Griffin and Archie Shepp,
The opening of the
Leadmill in 1983 was the biggest change to the Sheffield jazz scene and for the
rest of the 1980s jazz audiences boomed. Hurlfield Jazz ran local Sunday lunchtime
music, international Wednesday evening gigs at the Leadmill and concerts at the
Crucible and Sheffield Hallam University. BBC 2 broadcast of a series of
concerts from the Leadmill in 1986. One of the best initiatives during the
1980s was the Sheffield Jazz Workshops – the first in the UK and still going
strong in 2024, it was a place to meet others and develop as musicians. Local bands
recorded on the 1988 compilation album ‘Made in Sheffield’. Wayne Shorter, John
Surman and Jack DeJohnette were among those appearing in this period.
When the Leadmill moved
to a more commercial programme, in 1991 Hurlfield Jazz was forced out by
prohibitively high venue charges and limited access, sources of funding were diminishing
and Hurlfield Jazz almost died! But Jude Sacker, who had been involved in
Hurlfield Jazz, formed a new committee who found a new venue and changed the
name to ‘Sheffield Jazz’. They adopted a policy of booking mainly UK bands,
especially promoting young, up-and-coming UK musicians such as Julian
Arguelles, Nikki Iles, John Parricelli, Iain Ballamy, Guy Barker and Julian
Siegel. They also started concerts at the Crucible Studio in association with
Music in the Round, featuring musicians such as John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, Jamie
Cullum, Tim Garland and Ralph Towner.
Throughout the 90s and
early 2000s Sheffield Jazz operated from a number of venues, booking
up-and-coming bands and established stars with a focus on quality, bringing
to Sheffield artists of standing whom the Sheffield audience would not be able
to see without travelling to London. From 2004-2014 they were still putting on around
25 gigs each year, with 2-3 concerts at the Crucible Studio. Bheki Mseleku,
Stan Tracey , Empirical, Joe Lovano, Polar Bear and Zoe Rahman were among those
appearing during this period. Although attracting new and younger audiences,
attendances began to tail off, generating a few financial crises. This led to a
decision to put Sheffield Jazz on a firmer footing - it became a company
limited by guarantee in 2008 and a charity in 2009.
From 2014 to the present Sheffield
Jazz has run a varied programme each year, primarily at the current home venue
of Crookes Social Club. Featured artists in this period included established
musicians such as Gwilym Simcock, Nikki Iles, Tony Kofi and Alan Barnes; rising
stars like Fergus McCreadie, Yazz Ahmed, Laura Jurd and Emma Rawicz; plus locally-based
musicians who enjoy a national profile, such as Martin Archer and his
Anthropology Band and Nadim Teimoori.
Sheffield Jazz has always
relied on the work of volunteers: both committee members and trustee/directors and
on the army of volunteers who make generally make gigs happen. In 2024 Sheffield
Jazz reaches its 50th birthday and to mark this milestone they’re holding a
special concert in the Crucible main theatre on Saturday 18th May. It features
longstanding Sheffield Jazz favourite Tony Kofi and his quartet and a more
recent favourite, rising star Emma Rawicz with her Quartet. For tickets for the
Sheffield Jazz 50th anniversary concert visit HERE.
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