City festival celebrates an amazing non-stop four decades.
In the 10 days from July 19th to 28th The Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival will celebrate its 40th consecutive year of bringing the finest and most entertaining jazz and blues to Birmingham, Sandwell, and the region. The festival, unique in that it continued to present live music through both those Covid years, will present a programme appropriate for their 40th year with 237 performances, 228 of them free admission in 115 venues.
Musicians and bands from Estonia, Spain, France, Italy, Singapore, Norway and the U.S.A. will join those from the West Midlands and throughout the UK in the biggest and best free jazz and blues party in Europe.
Jumping, jiving Rhythm & Blues attraction, King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys, described by BBC presenter Paul Jones as “The hardest act to follow since the parting of the Red Sea” will hold sway at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, The Swing Cats from Barcelona will make their first ever UK appearance with nine shows around the region, leading Django Reinhart stylists Django Chutney and the Hot Club of Halifax will battle it out to be the festival’s Top Gypsy Jazz combo and so much more.
There’ll be Dancing in The Street with the Edgbaston Greenfield Crescent closed to traffic, kicking off at 11am with a massed jitterbug dance lesson open to all, followed by band performances on the street through to 6pm.
Further afield the CBS Coventry Arena will hold an all-dayer featuring a Jazz, Blues and Beer festival across three of their rooms from 10 am to 10pm with nine bands as well as free Jitterbug and Ukulele sessions while way out in Kidderminster they make their Jazz & Blues Festival debut with Calypso Moon, Tipitina, Jamie Thyer & The Worried Men, Simon Spillet Quartet, Shufflepack, and Tenement Jazz Band.
Sandwell will feature performances across all their libraries, museums and art galleries with a total of 30 performances while Sutton Coldfield and Solihull also get in on the action.
The You’re Never Alone With A Uke free ukulele lessons, always a much-loved feature in the festival, will take place in the Children’s Hospital, retirement villages and in public places, while Strictly Jitterbug, swing dance sessions open to everybody regardless of ability or experience, will happen across the festival.
Amid all the fine jazz and blues performances, there will be a free photography workshop, a celebration of the 54th anniversary of The Chicago Birmingham Blues Brotherhood with Earl Pryor from Illinois, the grandson of the legendary Chicago blues man, whose 1948 hit recording Telephone Blues was the first ever recording to feature amplified harmonica.
Analogue audio buffs are in for two special record sessions, My Kinda Blues and My Kinda Jazz featuring leading jazz and blues musicians and discussing their favourite recordings under the watchful eye of founder member of hit vand, Pop Will Eat Itself, Richard March.
Then there are the Cigar Box Guitar Blues sessions featuring the King of The Cigar Guitar – Chicken Bone John, star of the BBC feature Cigar Box Blues, a whole lot of first-timers to the festival and a veritable array of leading UK blues bands and jazz musicians. First timers include leading Estonian blues guitar man Andres Roots, and the all-girl combo The Traveling Janes from USA, Singapore, Norway – and Scotland.
