{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 Manchester Jazz Festival is an annual 9-day-long

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

focused on showcasing contemporary

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

from the

North West of England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

and beyond.

mjf 2017

The 2017 Manchester Jazz Festival took place from 28 July to 6 August in

Manchester city centre Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England situated within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way which collectively form an inner ring road. ...

History

The Manchester Jazz Festival was created in 1996 as a one-day showcase and has grown into a 9-day event, with 60 gigs and 300 musicians planned for July 2009. Key dates and figures for the festival: 1996: 1st Manchester Jazz Festival - 1 day, 1 venue, 10 bands
2000: 1st new jazz work commissioned by the festival
2003: 1st mjf all-day finale in Albert Square, with 5 bands, 50 musicians and 5,000 attenders
2006: 1st ever jazz festival podcast in the UK – won the Independent’s Critics’ Choice
2017: 1st ever visit by JJ
More details are available on th
festival website

Funders and supporters

Public funders

Manchester Jazz Festival is an

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

's Regularly Funded Organisation since 1999. It is one of

Manchester City Council Manchester City Council is the local authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. Manchester is the sixth largest city in England by population. Its city council is composed of 96 councillors, three f ...

's Pillar Event since 2003. It also regularly receive financial support from th
PRS Foundation for New Music
to foster new talents and develop new works.

Cultural supporters

The festival's international programme is supported by th
Instituto Cervantes Manchester
and th
Italian Consulate

Private supporters

The Festival is supported by businesses in Manchester, including The Midland Hotel, Susi Madron's Cycling for Softies, and Lloyd Piggott Chartered Accountants.

Commissions

From 2000, Manchester Jazz Festival has been commissioning North West artists to help them develop ambitious projects. Previously commissioned artists include

Richard Iles Richard Iles (born 1962 in Birmingham, England) is a jazz trumpeter. As a member of the Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra, he gained valuable experience in jazz. After leaving the Leeds College of Music in 1980 he became a founding member of the Creativ ...

Jon Thorne Jon Thorne (born 12 February 1967) is an English double bassist, producer and composer. Career Thorne is self-taught and started playing at the age of 23. He has studied and played jazz for a number of years following and considers Danny Thomps ...

(with

Danny Thompson Daniel Henry Edward Thompson (born 4 April 1939) is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist. He has had a long musical career playing with a large variety of other musicians, particularly Richard Thompson and John Mart ...

)
Stuart McCallum
(with

John Surman John Douglas Surman (born 30 August 1944) is an English jazz saxophone, bass clarinet, and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music. He has composed and performed music for dance performanc ...

),Review of Stuart McCallum's Chamber Pot by Chris Ackerley in Jazzwise (July 2007)
/ref> Mike Walker (with

Adam Nussbaum Adam Nussbaum (born November 29, 1955) is an American jazz drummer. Early life Nussbaum was born in New York City on November 29, 1955. He grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, and first played the drums at the age of four. After five years of piano ...

). In 2008, the festival has been allocated an increase in core funding from

to develop its commitment to new jazz works and to actively encourage innovative artistic creation on the part of the region’s jazz community. This new strand, called "mjf originals", is open to submissions. The first recipients, whose work will be premiered in July 2009, ar
Olivia Moore
an
Matt Owens

mjf in the press and media

mjf 2007 review in JazzwiseThe Ring Modulator mjf 2008 review

External links

Official Manchester Jazz Festival website

NWJazzworks
the support and development agency for jazz in the North West of England
Arts Council England
the national development agency for the arts in England
Manchester City Council

PRS Foundation for New Music

References

Music festivals in Greater Manchester Jazz festivals in the United Kingdom