Bridgnorth Jazz Festival 2003

Festival Review

In 1988, Phil Maile, landlord of the Bull Hotel Ludlow, and I held discussions about holding a full weekend of jazz as part of the well-established Ludlow Fringe Festival. We were told by various doubters that we didn’t have a chance of success, as there was no jazz audience in Ludlow. Today, some seventeen years later, the Ludlow Jazz Festival is established as one of the best small jazz festivals in the country and plays each year to capacity audiences in the famous Bull Hotel courtyard. Over the years it has hosted many of the great names in British Jazz.

Thus, with this longtime experience, and after running one or two successful concerts at various venues, three fellow enthusiasts and myself took the decision to stage the first Bridgnorth Jazz Festival, given that Bridgnorth already hosts two successful festivals celebrating Folk Music and the works of Haydn.

Two decisions were taken at the outset:
- that it would be a multi-venue festival and
- that we would go for top names in jazz.

The 2003 Festival thus opened with a rare performance by the Alex Welsh Reunion Band led by Digby Fairweather and featuring those two Welsh stalwarts John Barnes and Roy Williams. This was attended by an enthusiastic and appreciative audience of 140 people and a particular highlight was John Barnes?special version of “I’m confessin?that I love you,?complete with Manchester and Birmingham accents and finishing with a pastiche on Richard Tauber. The weekend was off to a great start.

Saturday morning saw an impromptu session by Craig Milverton on piano and Digby Fairweather on cornet in Tanners Wine shop (our main ticket box office) in the High Street. This was followed by Jazz in the Cartway using three close-by venues, providing four hours in total of continuous jazz at the Black Boy, the Bassa Villa and Gabrielle’s wine bar. All venues were packed (we may have to limit the numbers next year!) and Digby Fairweather’s comment of the final session in the Bassa Villa, where he played with Andrew Williams (guitar), Julian Marc Stringle (clarinet and sax), Erika Lyons (bass) and Bobbie Worth (drums), was that it was the best set he had played in ten years. It was certainly magical.

The inimitable Temperance Seven took us back to the 1920’s and 30’s at the Bridgnorth Leisure Centre on the Saturday evening, providing their own particular brand of humour and slick presentation.

Then, on Sunday lunchtime, it was off to the Shakespeare Inn for a performance by jazz legend Danny Moss accompanied by the Craig Milverton Quartet with special guests Jeannie Lambe and Geoff Simkins. The combination of Danny on tenor sax and Geoff on alto gave us some of the best jazz of the whole festival.

The climax of the weekend was at the Theatre on the Steps with the arrival of the inimitable George Melly, now accompanied by the Digby Fairweather Band. As always, George had the capacity audience enthralled with his interpretation of the Blues, references to his colourful life and, of course, several jokes from the history of jazz. As an amazing coda to this hugely enjoyable weekend, George was persuaded to repair to The Black Boy where he sang further blues and “Ain’t Misbehaving?to the skilled accompaniment of Andrew Williams?guitar and a chorus or two from Digby Fairweather’s cornet. It was a splendid end to a great first festival and its future seems assured.

Planning has commenced for the 2004 Bridgnorth Jazz Festival, which will take place from October 29-31 2004. Further details will be posted on this site as soon as they are finalised.

Tim Lord, November 2003.