Jazz Services - A voice for jazz

We focus on six crucial areas that promote a healthy jazz scene - touring, recording, information, international support, education and promotion. We’re ‘a voice for jazz’ in the UK - a voice that brings audiences, musicians, promoters and producers together. It's a voice that has the ear of MPs, funding bodies and anyone and everyone who can contribute and help towards the progress and development of all styles of jazz. In short, we're a national charitable organisation that supports jazz throughout the country in many positive ways.

However, in this time of austerity and spending cuts we’ve now got to make sure everyone's aware of the varied and valuable services we provide.

Which is why, in order to raise our profile and attract more funding for the music, our voice is going to get even louder and we're going to work even harder.

Here’s what we do...

1. National touring and promoter support

Our unique touring support scheme helps bands get exposure throughout the UK. We provide them with financial help as well as promotional and marketing advice. 48 bands toured in 2009/10 and 43 bands in 2010/11. Jazz Services with the Performing Right Society for Music Foundation supported 16 promoters in 2009 and 19 promoters in 2010; promoters who showed a dedication and commitment to promoting new British jazz. Juliet Kelly uses the services to good effect,“As a musician, Jazz Services has been a valuable resource for me. Its extensive database of contacts has allowed me to source promoters and venues; to set up gigs all over the country and with the financial and marketing help I have received from their excellent National Touring Support Scheme, I have been able to carry out four successful tours”.

2. Recording

We can provide constructive help in producing CD’s and recordings and financial help when more funds become available. 5 CDs have been released to date through the Jazz Services Recording Support Scheme.

3. International support

We promote UK jazz internationally, highlighting the quality, diversity and professionalism of British artists. We have supported more than 240 musicians in more than 60 different bands in showcases and concerts at Jazz Ahead, the Europe Jazz Network, Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival in USA, Banlieues Bleues Festival in Paris, Dubai Jazz Festival and the IAJE in North America.

4. Information

We provide a comprehensive online database covering the UK and international jazz scene as well as supplying detailed advice and information by phone, email, Facebook or Twitter. Last year there were 3.65 million page views of the Jazz services website of which 1.26 million page views were for the gig listings

5. Education

We work with various organisation and agencies to develop policies and projects that raise the profile of jazz in education. With Access to Music and Yamaha we provide a limited number of bursaries for training. Jazz Services works closely with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and they receive their Arts Council funding via Jazz Services. Every year NYJO organises over a 100 open workshops for musicians up to the age of 25 and performs more than 40 concerts.

6. Communications and Publishing

We publish the Jazz UK magazine, newsletters and research that are recognised as the premier sources of jazz information in the UK. Jazz UK is published 6 times a year with 30,000 copies distributed nationwide to venues, festivals and libraries. On average 2700 events are listed in each issue.

7. Awards

Each year Jazz Services works with the Phonographic Performance Ltd and the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group to produce and present the Parliamentary Jazz Awards. With the National Music Council, Jazz Services presents the Will Michael Awards for excellence in jazz education by Local Education Authorities

8. Equal Opportunities

We are committed to taking positive steps to prevent discrimination and promoting equal opportunities irrespective of disability, race, sex, age, sexual orientation, marital status, or religious belief.

... and we want to work even harder:

1. Raise more funding

We’ve a lot of exciting plans and initiatives in place but these are dependent on finance and that means we have to attract more funding from public and private sources. We plan to do this through a series of advertising campaigns to promote Gift Aid as well as direct approaches to trusts, organisations, companies and individuals.

2. Develop the news content on the Jazz Site

We intend to provide every issue of Jazz UK from 1 to 100 as free pdf downloads through the Jazz Site. We are also committed to providing more news and updates through the site and through a bi-monthly email newsletter. We hope this will help us engage more with the jazz community.

3. Touring Support

With the National Rural Touring Forum we aim to develop a Rural Touring Support Scheme with the first tours starting in 2012. We are going to develop support to help the core of jazz promotion in the UK – the voluntary  jazz promoters.

4. Develop our existing on-line resources

Provide a more comprehensive advice and information service to musicians, promoters and the public on subjects ranging from touring to archives. We will also enhance the Online Music Business Resource that helps musicians develop their careers and promoters build bigger audiences. We are also launching a new British Jazz History section of the website, which we hope will provide a valuable free resource for fans of UK jazz.

5. Expand the online photo library

We intend to commission new photographs and build an in-house photo store with Jazz UK that will be freely available to the media and to promoters.

7. Develop a radio portal and podcasts

These initiatives will offer new media broadcast opportunities for UK jazz musicians and promote UK jazz to international audiences.

8. Produce more publications to help musicians and promoters

We have already launched several new online publications and many more are being planned for the Online Music Business Resource plus we are looking at ways of developing and enhancing Jazz UK.

9. A Young Person’s Jazz Festival

We will develop projects to pilot young people's involvement in jazz for 2012.

To help us help jazz, why not make a donation - in return we'll send you six copies of Jazz UK magazine free! Find out more