Since it is that exciting time of the year again, I thought it would be good to remind jazz fans and festival-goers about a history of the London Jazz Festival (since 1993) and indeed of London itself as a festivalising city of jazz (since 1949) that Dr Emma Webster and I wrote a couple of years ago. You can download it for FREE by clicking here; or if you are a librarian, archivist or collector, or researcher or journalist, or a special fan, and would like a hard copy, drop me a line.
Music From Out There, In Here: 25 Years of London Jazz Festival was an output of an Arts & Humantiies Research Council-funded project in collaboration with Serious, producers of London Jazz Festival.The project was called The Impact of Festivals. The 40,000 word book, with lots of archive images and posters, and including a number of interviews with festivals directors, musicians and others, was published in 2017. From the cover blurb:
Webster and McKay have pieced together a fascinating jigsaw puzzle of archival material, interviews, and stories from musicians, festival staff and fans alike. Including many evocative images, the book weaves together the story of the festival with the history of its home city, London, touching on broader social topics such as gender, race, politics, and the search for the meaning of jazz. They also trace the forgotten history of London as a vibrant city of jazz festivals going as far back as the 1940s.
