Chapel Allerton Village Jazz Festival - September 1st - 3rd

Steve Crocker and the team at Seven Jazz are gearing up for the 2nd annual Chapel Allerton Village Jazz Festival, catching the late summer sun between 1st - 3rd September. This is their second festival of the year no less, following on from the highly successful event in Millenium Square in Leeds earlier this month.

From the press release...

The Chapel Allerton Village Jazz Festival in Leeds gets underway in a couple of weeks starting Friday 1st September  and running to Sunday 3rd September. Dazzling jazz sax player Dave O'Higgins will headline, with a special performance with material from his latest album, It's Always 9.30 in Zog at Seven Arts on Saturday 2nd September. 

He plays with quite exceptional fluency and his fund of ideas never runs out - Observer. 

His band will also be giving a masterclass before the concert. There is a definite funky feel to the bands on offer at this second Village Jazz Festival . Dave Kane's amazing Magic Ya Ya band open the festival on Friday 1st September, then there are performances on Saturday by bluesy songstress Terry Shaltiel with guitarist Esmond Selwyn and on Sunday afternoon on the main festival Regent Street stage by rising stars Nag Champa, Dan Goldman's Elec-trio, Hyde Park Brass plus a final set from the popular James O'Hara Blues Band.

There are a whole host of other performances over the weekend as well including pop-up sets from
the Washboard Resonators in  the cafes of Chapel Allerton village, a set from community big band,
Mojo 78, popular vocalist Marlena Rose with Canadian guitarist Jeff Hewer and the latin rhythms of
Tempo Feliz.

All in all 4 venues with 14 different bands - plus the rest of the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival to enjoy
too.

For more information, including links to purchase tickets, visit the Seven Jazz website. 

Nicki Allan Launches Charity Single for Cancer Research

Jazz vocalist Nicki Allan is releasing a single to raise money for Cancer Research, both in memory of a close friend Nick Laycock who passed away after being diagnosed with stomach cancer and drawing from her own experience with breast cancer.

The single is called For Life and will be officially launched at the Chapel Allerton festival on September 5th. Proceeds from online downloads and cd sales will be split between MacMillan Cancer Care and Yorkshire Cancer Research.

In an article published by Yorkshire Cancer Research, Nicki says

On returning home from the funeral I immediately felt compelled to compose a piece of music in Nick’s memory. The melody was easy but I could only think of a few hook lines here and there for the words and assigned the main task to another friend, Johanne Levy, who was going through breast cancer at the time. She wrote the lyrics, which were beautiful, and yet it was another four years before the song was recorded.

In January I found a lump which turned out to be breast cancer and although it initially turned my life upside down, once I got my head around things I realised I wanted to try and give something back to charity to spur on the fight to find a cure for this terrible disease that was threatening to take my life.

Full Article Here

For Life will be available on iTunes from September 5th and more information can be found on Nicki's website.

A day of Jazz at the Chapel Allerton Festival

The annual Chapel Allerton Arts festival takes place this year between 31st August and 6th September with a range of events and activities for all ages - there's film, art and music at various venues across Chapel Allerton. As has become tradition, the Seven Jazz team led by Steve Crocker are putting on a full day of Jazz to end the festival on Sunday 6th September.

For £3, audiences can see live jazz from 12.30pm until 6.30pm as well as enjoying the sunshine (hopefully!) and food and drink stalls run by local producers and businesses.

12.30pm - Garforth Jazz Rock Band 
1.30pm - Stretch Trio
2.30pm - Rod Mason/Nicki Allan Quintet
3.30pm - James O'Hara Blues Band
4.30pm - Louis Louis Louis
5.30pm - Tarantismo

If that isn't enough jazz, you can also see jazz singer Tessa Smith lead the Community Choir at 3.15pm, Hassan Erraji at 7pm and  A Dread Supreme at 9pm all on Saturday 5th September.

For more information on the programme, visit the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival website.

Chapel Allerton Jazz Sunday, 31st August

Seven Jazz in Chapel Allerton will be hosting a day of jazz as part of the Chapel Allerton Arts festival, an annual festival which runs between 29th and 31st August.

Steve Crocker writes...

At present Leeds doesn't have a jazz festival so the nearest thing to a celebration of the fine music being produced in the city is at the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival held every summer in Regent Street Chapel Allerton.

This year the jazz blues and salsa afternoon of the festival (on 31 August) features the Leeds Youth Jazz Rock Orchestra, just back from a tour of South Africa, bassist Simon Read's new Octet with rising trumpet star Laura Jurd, Richard Ormrod’s seven piece ska tribute to John Coltrane  “A Dread Supreme”, trumpeter Enrico Marchesi’s brand new edition of his salsa band “Bourbon et Tequila” and the nine piece blues band led by guitarist Al Morrison- the  Blues Experience. The music starts at 12.30pm and finishes at 5.30pm and costs only £3 in the famous festival buckets.

Elsewhere in the festival weekend there are appearances from The Abstract Hip Hop Orchestra (Friday evening 29 August 9pm) and Chunky Butt Funky (Saturday evening 30 August 9pm) plus also Leeds jazz singer Tessa Smith directing the new Chapel Allerton Festival Community Choir on the Saturday afternoon main stage at 3.15pm.

More information on the festival can be found on the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival website and further details on the jazz events and others run by Seven Jazz can be found on their website, Seven Jazz.