New Fringe festival aims to seal Liverpool’s status as UK’s hottest city for grassroots jazz

A new Fringe festival is aiming to seal Liverpool’s position as the hottest city in the UK for grassroots jazz.

The city’s annual International Jazz Festival already brings some of the biggest names from across the world to perform at the Capstone Theatre.

Now Parrjazz has created Liverpool International Jazz Festival Fringe, showcasing what’s becoming a fast-growing scene here.

Jab, who’s a director of Parrjazz and founder of Mutant Jazz, says it will be an opportunity to showcase some fantastic local talent.

He said:

“The current scene is amazingly buoyant, with lots of bands that have been going for a few years, and lots that are brand new.

“Neil Campbell at the Capstone, who started the jazz festival, asked us to put on aftershows a few years ago, but this year we’ve been a bit extra so we’ve got 15 bands, 50 artists in total, four DJs all playing vinyl, and one MC.

“There are six Fringe events over nine days, starting with a free family-friendly one at Baltic Market. 

“We’ve got three big events at Quarry on Hardman Street, as well as art jazz improv at Hobo Kiosk in the Baltic Triangle and an afternoon of classic jazz and cake at Commune in the Fabric Quarter.”

Jab says Liverpool’s jazz scene has been flourishing for the last decade, sparked by Geni Lamb founding what is now Parrjazz when she realised nobody was putting on contemporary jazz in the city.

They’ve brought over Grammy-award winning artists to play in small venues and helped put us on the map.

Add to that the number of jazz musicians coming out of the student community and it’s not hard to see why we’re becoming a recognised jazz destination.

“The streaming and YouTube generation see music as pick and mix, they can have any flavour they want and they don’t get stuck in genres,” says Jab. 

“I’ve noticed the rise of young bands because of LIPA, Liverpool Uni Music School, Liverpool Community College and John Moores, so there’s a new generation of young jazz players and people who came here from other countries to study and never left.

“Every few weeks I hear of a new jazz band that’s started up, lots of the players migrate between bands, and we have a lot more gigs and venues. 

“Live Jazz In Liverpool put out a daily post on Instagram of what jazz is happening each night and there are usually over 30 every week, just jazz.

“But you’ll go to Fred’s and see a totally different bunch of people than you will in the Pen Factory or the Grapes or Ma Boyles, so it gets a really mixed crowd.”

Although jazz is currently huge in Liverpool, we actually have a 100-year history of breaking new ground in the genre.

“In 1919, after WWI, the first time American jazz players set foot on European soil was in Liverpool, because we were the front door to America,” explains Jab.

“Jazz in Europe and the UK started pretty much then so we’ve always been ahead of the game.

“It didn’t really become a phenomenon until the 1920s but it just took over the whole western music scene and Liverpool was no exception.

“Before Merseybeat virtually every club in Liverpool was a jazz club, even The Cavern, and when The Beatles started playing there they were on the bottom of the bill to jazz bands. It was only when Merseybeat took over that all those clubs switched overnight, so it’s always been a very important part of the Liverpool music scene, even in the 60s.

“Because it’s dance music and it’s really cool, it’s always captured the imagination of the younger generation and they’ve just kept mutating it into their own thing.

“Liverpool is a city with ears, you can put the most outrageous weird stuff on and people will respect it if it’s good – there’s a level of respect for music and musicians here.

“We have a very long history of jazz and we’re at the forefront again, so it’s an exciting time for jazz artists and jazz lovers.”

Find out more about the Liverpool International Jazz Festival Fringe here.

Find more music events across Liverpool here.

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