THE JAZZ CENTRE UK
AT VILLAGE GREEN
Village Green is a large-scale music and arts festival organised by Metal. It takes place in Chalkwell Park, Southend-on-Sea. The Jazz Centre UK have been involved since 2017 bringing a mixture of live jazz music, dance, art and heritage to the festival.
VILLAGE GREEN 2017
We loved Village Green 2017. Our stage for the event included a Jazz Café with live music and an exhibition of some of the fantastic things we keep in our collections - including posters, vinyl record sleeves, pictures and memorabilia of the great tap-dancer Will Gaines (who lived in Southend for many years), journals old and new, and a celebratory display of ‘Women in Jazz’.
Our Women in Jazz section of the exhibition included a showcase of jazz’s greatest women icons from Valaida Snow, Lil Hardin Armstrong and Mary Lou Williams right up to Barbara Thompson, Annie Whitehead and Britain’s newest emergent trumpet-star Laura Jurd.
Our live music line up is included a mixture of locally sourced and further afield musicians including Dominic Ashworth, Steve Fishwick, Mick Foster, Karen Sharp and Clare Foster. “I think one of the good things about Village Green,” says Colette, of Metal “- is the calibre of acts and the diversity of performances we attract now. We’ve had Wilko Johnson, Sam Duckworth, Stereo MCs, The Asylums, Youth Club, Tiggs Da Author, The Skints, Ballet Black, the Royal Opera House and, a local boy, Phill Jupitus jumping on stage with the Blockheads. This was our biggest jazz event so far. And we're very happy to be collaborating with The Jazz Centre (UK)!”
See our photo collection from the day below:
2017 GIG LISTING
