About us
Steve Mead - Artistic Director
Born down south in the sunny and pleasant home counties in 1965, Steve grew up listening to the Test Card, then became a teenage singer/songwriter with a repertoire about buses, odd family holidays and girlfriends (lack of). Following a degree in composition and classical guitar, he got fed up of trying to sight read, so turned to jazz instead. Manchester became his adopted home, and after 10 years with a touring performance company, and another 13 with mjf, he still has a deep love for all types of music and the arts, doesn't own a telly and likes really old things that are still being used. He currently drives a 1969 Triumph 2000 that uses more oil than petrol and travels at a leisurely pace befitting of Steve's approaching middle years.
Mick Waterfield – Producer
Born and educated in Preston way back in 1953, Mick went on to become an apprentice electrician and cabinet maker. He spent the '70s travelling Europe and North America - where he developed a life-long love of walking - listening to The Who, James Taylor and Frank Zappa and not getting his hair cut. Following a lengthy stint as a political activist, he became a father for the first time in 2005, although denies any link between the two. His deep resentment at people mis-spelling his name, and his deep love of music events and of bringing people together, continue to manifest themselves both through manchester jazz festival and through NWJazzworks. Mick now specialises in Northernism, nappy changing and going off at a tangent.
Fanny Guillaut - Festival Coordinator
Born and bred in a sleepy village West of Paris, Fanny first got a taste for live music when marching to the sound of her dad's sousaphone with a tin drum dangling from her neck. She subsequently realised that she much preferred to sit down at her mum's piano, and went on to plod through The Well Tempered Clavier and other very modern stuff at the Versailles Conservatoire, also playing lots of chamber music with her clarinettist brother. Her natural talent for chatting endlessly with total strangers led her to consider a career in "communication", and after a stint in Bordeaux – where she was confronted with the difficult choice between attending marketing lectures and lazing on the beach – she randomly picked Manchester for her final year of studies and has been a welcome addition to the festival team since 2007. When not slaving away at the festival office or running between venues, she's busy practising her Manc accent, cycling in the rain and chatting endlessly to total strangers.
Festival history
When we were putting together the very first festival back in late 1995, we really had no idea that the event would take off as it did, blossoming into an annual celebration of the region's talented, creative musicians that we now look forward to each year. We were initially a voluntary group of musicians, jazz fans and event organisers with the common goal of wanting to give Manchester a day of great music, demonstrating the wealth of jazz talent in the area.
Our special focus was on contemporary jazz, and on encouraging musicians to create their own repertoire. This, aside from being a particular passion of ours, was also crucial in determining the character of the festival, ensuring that it didn't conflict with other major jazz festivals in the region. Wigan, Hayfield and Appleby (alas, the latter two no more) focussed on traditional or mainstream jazz and we wanted to reflect the cutting edge of Manchester.
We set about raising funds, applying for grants, and talking to several local companies about contributing their services in-kind. With some financial help from the City Council, a brewery, the music department of what was then North West Arts Board, and the Musicians Union, we put together a programme of nine bands, a DJ, off-stage activities and beer sampling – but alas, we forgot to book the portaloos.
By staging the event outdoors and for free in the middle of June, outside Dukes 92 in Castlefield, our hopes were set on a decent crowd, a hot sunny day and a rave reception. What we hadn't planned for was having to pull the entire event just as the first saxophonist's mouthpiece reached his lips, when the 1996 bomb went off and the city centre had to be evacuated. Those of you who were there may recall one of the bands due to appear was John Ellis' Big Bang…
Undeterred, we re-staged the event for August, with the same line-up, the same beer, the elusive portaloos, and, entirely co-incidentally, a spectacular firework display in Castlefield for a backdrop…
Flushed - and surprised - with the success of the event, we realised that there was a need for it to become a regular occurrence: the demand was there from both the musicians and the audience. In order to expand and keep a lot of the event free, however, it was clear that we were going to need support and long-term investment from funding organisations.
Working from our front rooms – as many similar events still do – we planned a second festival for June 1997, and earned a number of grants and sponsorships, enabling us to bring in more venues, more bands and spread the activity over a two-week period, allowing us to also experiment with the format and timing.
By 1998, the festival was growing, and we needed to formalise ourselves as an organisation and become more professional in the way in which we carried out our work. This, along with exciting plans to introduce more activity into the programme – commissioning work, education projects for example – inspired us to apply to the then Arts Council of Great Britain for a major Lottery grant. This would allow us to operate from an office in the city centre, secure funds to produce the next two festivals, and almost actually get paid for doing it.
When news came, after months of slaving away at various drafts and proposals, that the grant was successful, we went to town (literally), picked up our office keys and got on with the job.
Over the next two years, mjf steadily built up festival activity to include additional projects such as the Education Programme with local schools, co-ordinated by Lucy Power, who went on to do great things with the getintojazz and NWJazzworks websites. We also tried out seminars, workshops and mini concert series throughout the year.
1999 saw a massive boost for the festival with the Arts Council awarding us the status of a 'Regularly Funded Organisation'. This effectively meant that we didn't have to keep applying for grants each year, waiting on decisions and not being able to plan ahead, a status which remains to this day.
In 2000 we were proud to host the national jazz industry conference How to Develop Jazz for Audiences. Or Die at the Bridgewater Hall, which really helped put Manchester jazz on the national map, and led to the birth of getintojazz, an innovative jazz information website for Greater Manchester.
2000 also saw us commission our first major work for the festival: New Futures by Richard Iles. This embodied our goal of providing a platform for our composers and players to realise such ambitious projects, and help raise their profile in doing so. It was also a great piece of music, which combined the talents of younger and older players, parts of which Richard is still playing today.
The Commonwealth Games were on the horizon in 2001, and we proposed an international exchange programme with jazz festivals in Canada, Barbados and Australia, as part of the programme of cultural events in the run-up to the games.A trip to the Ottawa Jazz Festival in the summer saw us hob-nobbing with international promoters and artists, and we were delighted to be able to bring a handful over to perform at the 2002 festival. Which reminds me, we're still owed for the flights, aren't we?…
In 2003 we were able to work with the Events Unit at the City Council to present a large outdoor finale in Albert Square – and after a fortuitously glorious afternoon, the sight and sound of festive revelry on that summer night left an imprint on us all. It managed to attract over 5,000 people – possibly the largest ever jazz audience in Manchester since Mick streaked through St Ann's Square in nothing but an umpire's hat. We also became a limited company, and for the first time appointed a board of directors to oversee our work and guide us along our mission to realise the visions we have for mjf.Our collaborations with venues continued, and in 2004 we were able to co-promote with the Bridgewater Hall the Wynton Marsalis concert with the Lincoln Centre Jazz Orchestra – this, and the jam sessions afterwards with some of our star Mancunian players, brought us sparks of music, excitement – and dare I say pride? Manchester City Council also confirmed us as one of their 'Pillar Events' on the calendar - which, aside from the benefits of earmarking regular annual funding, was an endorsement of our achievements to date in giving the city a high-profile music event.
With 2005 marking our tenth festival, we thought we'd raise funds to commission four very special and very diverse new pieces of work from regional composers to premičre at the festival. These pieces were fine examples of our aims to heighten the profiles and careers of some of the star creative artists we're lucky enough to have here in the north-west. They achieved national profile, with Guardian reviews, sell out crowds and some wonderful moments. We were also overjoyed that BBC Radio 3 chose to broadcast their flagship contemporary jazz programme Jazz on 3 live from the launch night – a programme which was later voted one of the best programmes of the year. The 2005 festival also attracted a title sponsor for the first time in our history, thus enabling us to really pull out the stops with the event. We held an enormously enjoyable launch, produced a special commemorative compilation CD (still a few copies left if you're interested!), T-shirts, and presented a sleepless 9 days of non-stop jazz: - widely recognised as our biggest and best so far; certainly the most exhausting for the tiny team of staff and volunteers…
As we passed into our second decade with the 2006 festival, we still held high our commitment to championing the music of North West and its creators. BBC Radio 3 returned, we collaborated with our neighbours the Wigan International Jazz Festival, and – surprisingly – our new podcasts won The Independent's Critic's Choice accolade. At the 2007 festival, we premiered two major new works, along with a fascinating programme of gigs and events.
New ideas keep coming in; exciting young players continue to emerge and musicians continue to view mjf as a chance to create something special. We'll carry on doing what we hope we do best: pass it on! More exciting commissions and collaborations unique to Manchester are planned for 2008, and 2009 will see the re-launch of our New Commissions Programme, with funds specially awarded to us from ACE to develop our work in this area.
