39th Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival is imminent

The UK’s biggest jazz and blues party is coming to town.

With 189 performances over ten steaming July days, 181 of the performances with free admission, everyone but everyone who cares about Hot Jazz, Cool Blues and having a good time, will be beating a track to the 39th Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival. The festival, which began in 1985, has been going ever since, without so much as taking a break even for Covid.

From July 14th to 23rd, bands and musicians from Spain, Italy, France and the USA will be playing in bars, museums, nightclubs, libraries, bandstands, hotels, markets, pubs, stately homes, restaurants, shopping centres, gardens, music stores, cafes, record, furniture and bookstores, a hospital – and even an optician’s – throughout the region.

© Merlin Daleman


The entertainment during the festival is as diverse as the audience with big bands, Dixieland, bebop, gypsy jazz, Chicago blues, bluebeat, barbershop, cigar box blues, jitterbug, jump jive, country blues, swing, New Orleans R&B and much more all on the menu.

And there’s more – a lot more – with free ukulele lessons for all-comers; free jitterbug dance lessons for all abilities, a sketch crawl, book talks, films and a jazz, blues, rock & roll jumble sale.

For more information phone 0121 454 7020 or visit the birminghamjazzfestival.com website.