Bracknell Jazz Festival
The Bracknell Jazz Festival was a jazz festival that took place in Bracknell , Berkshire, England from 1975 to 1991 . It was one of the most important modern jazz festivals in Britain in the 1980s.
It took place over three days on the first weekend in July on the grounds of the Victorian manor house of South Hill Park. It was organized by John Cumming, who later organized Camden Jazz Week and its successor, the London Jazz Festival with his Serious agency . As the successor to the Bracknell Festival, the Outside In Festival, also organized by Cumming, ran for a while in Crawley ( West Sussex ).
The rural surroundings were also ideal for picnics during the concerts and attracted up to 4,000 listeners. The festival offered a forum for a wide variety of jazz styles, both international stars and British jazz musicians. Avant-garde jazz , free jazz and modern creative were also represented . In the early 1990s it was replaced by a no longer jazz-specific Bracknell Festival and then by Big Day Out . In 2012 efforts were made to revitalize a weekend jazz festival in Bracknell.
Rhythm & blues and rock musicians such as Alexis Korner , Charlie Watts with his big band and Jack Bruce performed there and jazz musicians such as Barbara Thompson with her paraphernalia (TV recording 1979), Ornette Coleman , Stanley Clarke , Pharoah Sanders , Don Cherry , George Coleman , Evan Parker , Tony Oxley , John Surman , Ralph Towner , Alan Skidmore , Trevor Watts , Paul Rutherford , Django Bates , Dudu Pukwana , Johnny Dyani , members of the Canterbury scene , Jan Garbarek , Pat Metheny , Peter Brötzmann , Peter Kowald , Max Roach , Elvin Jones , McCoy Tyner , Tomasz Stańko , Bobby Hutcherson , Naná Vasconcelos , Michael Gibbs and Bill Frisell .
The Arts Council of Great Britain commissioned several compositions for the festival (such as: Bracknell Connection 1976 by Stan Tracey , The Cortege 1979 by Mike Westbrook , Hoarded Dreams 1983 by Graham Collier , each performed with their bands).
Several live albums were made at the festival, e.g. B. The Bracknell Connection (1976) by Stan Tracey with his octet, Don Cherry ( Live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival 1986 , 2012) or Mike Osbourne / Stan Tracey. Live at the Bracknell Festival (1977).