Monthly Archives: May 2015

Jazz UK – The Jazz Economy Parts 1,2 and 3

Jazz UK in three consecutive issues; September/October 2004, November/December 2004 and January /February 2005 published an in depth survey of the jazz scene in Britain. The contributors were Brian Blain, Emma Kendon, Peter Vacher, Pete Martin,Godfrey Pratt and John Fordham. I have reproduced the reports here. The report was subtitled a “A Labour of Love” […]

Arts Council England – A policy for the support of jazz in England – Published 1996

The Arts Council published a policy for the support of jazz in 1996 and then 4 years later it was dropped in favour – as I recall – of “the bigger picture”. Needless to say no real resources had been allocated to the policy. In Paragraph 62 the Arts Council say clearly that they will […]

The Arts Council’s National Review of Jazz – 1993

In 1993 the Arts Council conducted a national review of jazz. Jazz In, issue 29 for Oct/Dec 1993 wrote an editorial on the review and it makes interesting reading; in fact it could be published tomorrow. Please see: Jazz In Issue 29 Oct-Dec 1993 Arts Council Review of Jazz

Public investment in jazz – or the lack of it

I have just completed a paper on “Public investment of jazz – a coherent policy for jazz, changing demographics, live music and coping with the increasing supply of jazz musicians”. This paper examines: A level playing field for jazz The paucity of public funding for jazz The lack of a coherent policy for jazz in […]

The Arts Council’s magazine Create – vanity publishing in an age of austerity

On the 18th November the Arts Council held a State of the Arts debate at the South Bank, London to launch their publication “Create”, a journal of perspectives on the value of art and culture, at the Southbank Centre. The aim of the report was to start a “conversation” about the importance of public  funding for arts […]

An enquiry to Arts Council England regarding a policy for music

On the 17th October I wrote to the Arts Council drawing attention to the fact that their own statistics, reported in the PRS magazine for the summer of 2014, stated that jazz received just two percent of the available monies for music. Opera received a percentage increase of 22.5% which gave opera and music thatre […]

The Proms 2015 – the UK public deserve better than this

There was an  article on the BBC Proms and Martin Kettle who looks for a critical angle  for the proms each year and every year he fails (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/apr/23/bbc-proms-2015-its-a-season-with-practically-everything ). Perhaps Martin Kettle, Alan Davey and the BBC live in a different universe to me. The BBC publicity states “While the Proms celebrates its 120th year in […]