For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk
The Archive
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For
information on today's festivals see eFestivals.co.uk |
Last update Nov 2018.
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The National Jazz, Pop , Ballads and Blues Festivals. 1961-1975 |
National
Jazz and Blues Festival menu.
The
National Jazz and Blues festivals
are probably the longest running of the UK rock festivals. Organised by the
National Jazz Federation
, closely linked to the famous Marquee
Club
,the festival is still running to this day - albeit under a different title,
with a completely different sort of music to the period covered in this site
and at a different venue - but nevertheless, the continuity is there. The Reading
Festival,
as the National
Jazz and Blues Festival
is now known , hasn't a hint of jazz in its line-up
anymore and its blues content is pretty spartan too , primarily its a heavy
metal/rock festival and a heavy drinking one at that, but that's beside the
point and beyond the scope of this web site to cover.
1965 to 1970 were for me the heyday years of the National Jazz festival .This was when the festival gradually shed its rather stuffy Jazz and Ballad image and developed into a showcase for some of the best of the United Kingdom's jazz, rock, pop, blues and folk artists. True, after 1964 The Rolling Stones - who first appeared at the Festival in 63 and were the headliners in 1964- had by that time outgrown the festival, but there were still the likes of The Yardbirds, The Who,Cream , Spencer Davis , Traffic , Small Faces , Jethro Tull , The Nice , Family , Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall , Jeff Beck , Blodwyn Pig, Pink Floyd , Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention , Pentangle , Arthur Brown , Tyrannosaurus Rex , Bonzo Dog Band , Colosseum , Joe Cocker and many other artists of note, the list is apparently endless , but it is predominantly British . The imports were mostly the jazz element to the festival which tailed off markedly from the mid sixties to almost nothing by the early 70s.
However, eventually , the lack of major draw cards from overseas was to prove a factor that would cause these festivals to be overshadowed by other bigger events such as Bath and the Isle Of Wight. It certainly stopped me from going to most of them , as I could get to see the likes of Family or the String Band when they toured locally, whereas I went to the big festivals because I got to see lots of bands from overseas that rarely ventured to the UK and I could do it all in one hit. Because of this, the Nat Jazz festivals always ended up being fairly small scale events, with audiences around the 60,000 mark over a three day period- which was not necessarily a bad thing, as whilst the economies of scale prevented the mega-groups being part of the card, it also allowed most people to have a decent view of the stage , avoided huge traffic jams and enabled reasonable access to facilities such as food stalls and toilets without the hour long queues that resulted at places such as Bath -and most notoriously - the last Isle Of Wight show.
So, to sum up. The Nat Jazz Festivals were fairly cosy, low key events which showcased the cream of British talent for at least a decade. Usually they were well organized, made money and were conveniently placed near London with good transport connections. The weather- often the jinx of UK festivals - was usually good, so people could forgo the sea of mud, crowd huddled under sheets of plastic as the stage is swept away by the wind, conditions that prevailed at some of the festivals of the 70s. Although the festivals escaped that legendary status that was conferred to their larger and more shambolic competitors , they deserve their place in the sun . I think they have been unjustly overlooked and if you care to look through the material contained in the site, I think you will come to agree with this viewpoint.
The
National Jazz Festival
Menu.
The
pages for each year contain the festival
line-up, posters, programmes, photos and reviews from the press or audience
members- if available.At the moment, information on the 61 to 64 festivals and
the post 1970 festivals is pretty thin. I welcome any additions.
I'm compiling a list of recordings that
were made and which have circulated amongst tape traders, if any film exists
this will also be detailed. The eventual aim is to compile a master list for
all years but this will happen when more details on recordings are available.
If you know of any, or can help with more data of any kind Contact
me and I'll add it to the site.
I'd like to acknowledge the help of Neil Rice, Wolfgang Fuerst, Mike Godwin, Chris Jones, Kieran McCann, Benjamin Horrendous, John Gillatt ,Tonny Steen, Jon Morrow, Vin Miles, Pieter van der Wal , Stephen Vaughan, David Vass, Steve Austin, Austin Reeves , Richard Novell and Gary Muth , who have all donated memories and/or memorabilia to enable me to develop this site. Thanks to Ross who sent me a complete list of all the artists who appeared from 1961 to 1975. To all you guys , a big thanks, particularly to Wolfgang, Pieter ,Vin , Steve Austin , Gary and Kieran - who donated HEAPS.
The early festivals.
You can find out the complete
line ups of the first festivals if you follow the links below.
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Festivals 65-83
Most of these have fairly complete documentation BUT we are always on the lookout for MORE !.
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