SHEFFIELD JAZZ: 1974-2024: A HISTORY

Sheffield Jazz is a company limited by guarantee and charity run wholly by volunteers and it receives no funding other than some individual charitable donations from a small group of supporters. It began in 1974 as Hurlfield Jazz and since then has showcased leading jazz musicians from the UK, USA and other European countries. It has for some time been one of the main UK jazz venues outside London and it attracts an audience from across South Yorkshire and well beyond. To mark our 50th anniversary we produced the history below and we held a special concert in the Crucible main theatre on 18 May 2024 featuring the Emma Rawicz and Tony Kofi Quartets.

You can find photographs of our concerts and posters dating back to the 1970s here: https://www.sheffieldjazz.org.uk/gallery/  and video extracts from some performances here: https://www.sheffieldjazz.org.uk/video-extracts-of-recent-sheffield-jazz-gigs/

Pre 1974

Before Sheffield Jazz came into existence it is fair to say that the city wasn’t a major presence on the jazz map, but equally it certainly wasn’t a jazz desert. .For jazz lovers in the city during the 1960’s and early 1970’s, there were plenty of activities if you sought them out. Many local bands played in pubs and social clubs, and although the quality was variable, some were pretty good. Stylistically they ranged from New Orleans (Dave Brennan) through middle of the road to Modern (Barry Whitworth) and even Free Jazz (a trio with the unlikely name of Joseph Holbrooke who comprised Derek Bailey, Gavin Bryars and the great drummer Tony Oxley (who sadly died in late 2023)).

There were occasional concerts at the City Hall (which featured a lot of the big name visiting US musicians), the University, and even the Fiesta nightclub (where Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie both played). Barry Whitworth, a trumpet player who was highly regarded by his peers and who played with many national and international ‘names’ ran a series of jazz gigs which featured visiting London-based musicians, such as Barbara Thompson, Joe Harriott and Don Rendell. There were several memorable sessions, albeit mainly in the format of guest with high quality House Band.

1974-1984

1974 When Sheffield Jazz first started, it was based at Hurlfield Campus and was known as Hurlfield Jazz (Hurlfield School has since closed and was redeveloped as Myrtle Springs). It was formed by a small group of local musicians with a grant from Yorkshire Arts.   It was founded by Fred Brown, who ran the school’s adult education programme and was able to use the school hall to run gigs at weekends.

Almost from the start, Hurlfield Jazz differed from other jazz gigs in the city. There was a committee structure, and attendees at gigs were encouraged to sign up to a mailing list – post mail in those days. From those early days right through until the present time Hurlfield Jazz and Sheffield Jazz (as it became) have relied wholly on the work of volunteers: both committee members and trustee/directors, and on the small army of people who make up the door team, put out the seats and generally make gigs happen.

Band bookings encompassed regular working bands rather than guest soloists, and – a frequent event then – visiting US musicians touring with UK rhythm sections. Early artists included Ronnie Scott, Don Rendell, John Taylor, Dexter Gordon, Benny Carter, Bud Freeman, Sam Rivers, and Barney Kessel. The first gig featured Doncaster Youth Jazz Orchestra (still going and featured at Crookes Social Club as part of the Sheffield Jazz Spring 2024 season) with guest Don Rendell.

The timing was also fortuitous: the Arts Council and its then regional offshoots were increasingly willing to fund jazz and the Arts Council had a touring strand known as Contemporary Music Network, which subsidised tours for larger ensembles such as the Michael Gibbs Band (at Hurlfield in 1978) which would otherwise have been uneconomic.

By the late 1970’s there were a number of changes. Due to other commitments, Fred Brown was taking more of a back seat (he left Sheffield a year or two later). The committee felt that Hurlfield Campus was not an ideal location for most of the jazz audience in Sheffield, so for the first time, gigs were run elsewhere, initially at the nearby Arbourthorne pub, where the lowest ever audience of 4 was attracted to see Swift. Trumpeter Wild Bill Davison attracted rather more of an audience, but the end for the venue came when the Arbourthorne’s landlady, who had the world’s loudest “time” bell, famously interrupted a quiet Stan Tracey piano solo during a sextet gig.  Stan (being the pro that he was) incorporated a bell into the number permanently from then on, and he came back to Sheffield many times subsequently. Thereafter Hurlfield Jazz moved to the Broadfield on Abbeydale Road. However, the school hall was still used for larger capacity concerts.

Simultaneously, Arts Council support had evolved to the extent that there was now a Jazz Development Officer for the North, based in Manchester. One of his first actions was to set up a mini touring network for bands, so they could play gigs in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield on consecutive nights and thereby simplify the cost and logistics of travel. Musicians who played at the Broadfield, mainly under the touring network scheme, include Jack Bruce, Bobby Wellins, Harry Beckett (who had his band unplugged by the Broadfield landlord at 11.10pm), Mike Osborne, and a young Guy Barker.

But the biggest consequence of having a Jazz Development Officer on call was that it became feasible to run a Jazz Festival in Sheffield. The festival, sponsored by Radio Hallam, ran for 5-6 years, initially at The Crucible (1979 – 81), then at the recently opened Leadmill. The programming was fantastic: line-ups at the Crucible included Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, the Pharoah Sanders Quartet, the Clark Terry Ensemble, Stephan Grapelli, Ornette Coleman’s “Prime Time”, Abdullah Ibrahim’s Quartet,  Al Cohn/Zoot Sims, Machito’s Big Band and Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee.  Although Hurlfield Jazz played a secondary role in the festival organisation, it would probably never have happened had Hurlfield Jazz not demonstrated that there was a jazz audience in Sheffield, and that it could support a festival of this scale.

In 1980 however Hurlfield Jazz became homeless and an itinerant wanderer around various pub back rooms.  The next move was to another pub in Nether Edge, the Brincliffe Oaks, where there were memorable nights featuring the likes of Americans Al Haig, Andrew Cyrille, Tal Farlow and Al Cohn. In 1982 Hurlfield Jazz moved on again to the George IV on Infirmary Road, where the clubroom was decorated in Country and Western style with wagon wheels.

Hurlfield Jazz were putting on an increasingly adventurous and independent programme, featuring people like South African drummer Louis Moholo, German bassist Eberhard Weber, American saxman David Murray with drummer Andrew Cyrille, and British pianist Gordon Beck. The blues became an important part of the programme: Alexis Korner played two memorable nights here with Colin Hodgkinson, and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson loved the place – he commented “I ain’t seen a room like this since I was 15!”

The biggest change to the Sheffield jazz scene was undoubtedly the opening of the Leadmill in 1983. For the rest of the 1980’s the jazz audience boomed. Hurlfield Jazz started to run local Sunday lunchtime music as well as international Wednesday evening gigs at the Leadmill and in addition concerts at the Crucible, Sheffield Hallam University and the Octagon Centre.

Evening concerts featured a roll call of some of the best names in jazz: Al Grey, Buddy Tate and Roland Hanna, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Loose Tubes, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Johnny Griffin, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, the George Russell Orchestra, the Michael Gibbs Band, Slide Hampton, Dudu Pukwana, Billy Bang and Frank Lowe, Dave Holland, Bobby Watson, Kenny Wheeler, Courtney Pine, the Jazz Warriors, Anthony Braxton, James Moody, Larry Coryell, the Guest Stars, Don Cherry, Ralph Towner and Oregon, Slim Gaillard, Bertice Redding, Lee Konitz, Abdullah Ibrahim, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers again), a young Courtney Pine and Kenny Burrell.

The blues concerts were popular too: Memphis Slim came over from Paris specially to play a Sunday lunchtime gig, and Lowell Fulson, Louisiana Red and Jimmy Witherspoon all appeared at memorable evening concerts. Improvising drummer Tony Oxley also returned to his native city to acclaim (and to perplex the Mayor of Sheffield who had been invited along to see his concert).

During this period BBC 2 decided that Sheffield was a happening enough place to do a broadcast of a series of concerts from the Leadmill. Jazz at the Leadmill ran on BBC 2 for four weeks. One of these programme links survives – Joe Newman/Dick Morrissey Quartet Jazz at the Leadmill BBC TV 12 Oct 1983, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbZR02XUZW4 featuring live footage from the Leadmill, some rare live broadcast material and an interview with then committee members Terry Hargreaves and Steve Crocker (who was also a jazz broadcaster for Radio Hallam and subsequently went on to organize jazz gigs in Leeds).

Radio Hallam promoted two more festivals at the Leadmill in 1983 and 1984 that featured Dr John, Brotherhood of Breath, Joseph Jarman and Henry Threadgill. Both Radio Hallam’s jazz radio show (Steve Crocker) and the BBC Radio Sheffield jazz programme (Dave Brennan) supported the live jazz scene, even giving live transmissions to local bands.

1984-1994

When Radio Hallam ceased their sponsorship for festivals, Hurlfield Jazz organised their own festival in 1985 featuring bluesman Taj Mahal, and Brazilian singer Tania Maria. Hurlfield Jazz did one other festival at this time – in 1991 at the time of the Sheffield World Student Games featuring Red Holloway, Jimmy McGriff, Hank Crawford and Red Rodney. Andy Sheppard finished the festival in style with his “In Commotion” big band.

Sunday lunchtime Leadmill concerts became a feature of the Sheffield music scene. As well as featuring the best local bands, international stars wanted to play too.  Carlos Ward brought his brilliant quartet, tenor sax player Teddy Edwards visited, as did Harry Edison, Joe Temperley, vocalist Mark Murphy, and traditional jazz stars Kenny Davern and Bob Wilbur on their respective clarinets. Art Farmer, Bobby Shew, Spike Robinson and countless others played at the Leadmill at this time. Hurlfield Jazz and the Leadmill were on the international jazz map!  There were also occasional gigs at the Octagon such as John Surman and Jack De Johnette in 1989 and Wayne Shorter at the then Sheffield Poly’s Nelson Mandela Building.

It wasn’t just the big concerts. One of the best initiatives during the 1980’s was the Sheffield Jazz Workshops – again the first in the UK and still going strong in 2024. Run initially by Nev Reaney, then subsequently by Roy Hawkesford, Steve Crocker, Pete Lyons, Richard Ingham, Pete Fairclough, Dave Blackmore  and Jude Sacker, the workshops were a place to learn, a place to meet others and to help people develop as musicians. During the 1980’s the workshops helped many local bands develop, for example saxman David Blackmore’s “Big Sun”, women’s band Troika, pianist Paul Reid, jazz funk band the Blind Venetians, the improvising sax quartet Hornweb, Mick Beck’s band QAF, and bassist Fred “Thelonious” Baker. Many of these bands recorded on the 1988 compilation vinyl album “Made in Sheffield” which Steve Crocker produced at Axis studios.

Hurlfield Jazz had a proud (and unique) history of producing people who were later involved in promoting voluntary jazz clubs elsewhere in the UK – Paul Hobbs went on to run the Watermill Jazz club in Dorking, Steve Crocker now runs Jazz Leeds, (which he models closely on the Jazz at the Leadmill), John Blandford went on to run Cambridge Jazz, Charlie Monkham, Pete Rosser, Geoff and Judith Waterhouse who are now at Wakefield Jazz, as well as Jude Sacker. The 1980’s were a special time for Jazz in Sheffield. Everyone involved felt proud and very privileged to be part of it.

However The Leadmill gradually moved to a more commercial programme and in 1991 Hurlfield Jazz was forced out by a combination of prohibitively high venue hire charges and limited access. Funding from Yorkshire Arts and Sheffield City Council was also diminishing,  Radio Hallam changed to Hallam Gold and dropped jazz, and Radio Sheffield lost its jazz contact.  Steve Crocker and much of the committee were ready to move on.

Hurlfield Jazz almost died! But Jude Sacker who had been involved in Hurlfield Jazz, mainly as organiser of  the jazz workshops,  gathered together a new committee who found a new venue at the Charnwood Hotel, changed the name to “Sheffield Jazz” and adopted a policy of booking mainly UK bands, especially promoting  young up-and- coming UK musicians such as Julian Arguelles, Nikki Iles, John Parricelli, Iain Ballamy, Guy Barker and Julian Siegel.

 1994-2004

1994  We promoted the first Crucible Studio concert “in association with Music in the Round”.  The Studio was an intimate theatre in the round – ideal for acoustic music.  The first concert was a duo of pianist John Taylor and trumpet virtuoso Kenny Wheeler.  Subsequently the Studio (now the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse) has become a key venue on the national jazz scene, hosting 2-3 concerts p.a., typically of piano-based combinations who are suited to a primarily acoustic format. This has proved a very popular venue with both our audiences and visiting musicians.

1996  We moved to a new venue, the Ecclesall Non-Political Club (usually known as the Non-Pots) ), a working men’s club on Ecclesall Road with a good bar and great ambience, and our audience numbers immediately grew, and we even attracted some of the student population.  We had a very good 8 years there, continuing to book up-and-coming bands through to established stars. Throughout however the focus has been on quality, bringing to Sheffield artists of national and international standing whom the Sheffield audience  would not otherwise be able to see without travelling to London.

Other musicians booked during this period included Jamie Cullum, Tim Garland, Azimuth, Ralph Towner, Steve Swallow, Kenny Drew, Herb Ellis, Joe Lovano, and Harry Beckett.

2004-2014

2004  The Non-Pots closed down at short notice and we were itinerant for 6 gigs, then found our next venue – the Millennium Hall, Polish Centre – just across the road from the Non-Pots.

2006 Still putting on gigs at Millennium Hall – about 24 p.a. here and 2-3 concerts p.a. at the Crucible Studio..  Attracting new, younger people in the audience.

2007-8 During this period attendances began to tail off, generating a few financial crises, and staffing the Sheffield Jazz committee also became a problem. This led to a major appeal to recruit new blood and as a result a number of new people joined. This in turn led to a decision to put Sheffield Jazz on a firmer footing, resulting in it becoming a company limited by guarantee in 2008 and a charity in 2009.

The later move was fortuitous. During the preceding years we had been receiving £3-5 k pa from Jazz Yorkshire and further helpful funding from the Performing Rights Society’s Foundation. However Arts Council England cutbacks and shifts in policy were progressively reducing the former and in 2011 Jazz Yorkshire lost its ACE funding altogether. This was galling in view of the already scandalously low funding awarded to jazz by comparison with other forms of music and we tried to fill the gap by bidding directly for ACE funding but were repeatedly disappointed. In the end we switched our focus to using our charitable status to secure donations from SJ supporters. These Friends of Sheffield Jazz, as they became known, rose magnificently to the challenge and since then, assisted by the Friends and the associated Giftaid money recovered from HMRC, we have managed to more or less wholly plug the gap left by the loss of the ACE/JY funding and the subsequent ending of PRSF funding. This has also meant that we have been liberated from the ACE’s bureaucracy.

Musicians booked during the 2004-2014 period included Junior Mance, Jerry Bergonzi, Avishai Cohen, Joe Lovano, Kirk Lightsey,  Peter King, John Etheridge, Stan Tracey, Scott Hamilton, Alan Barnes, Gilad Atzmon, Bheki Mseleku, Gwilym Simcock, Empirical, Polar Bear, Zoe Rahman, Enrico Peranunzi, Django Bates (a Crucible concert which was broadcast by BBC Radio 3), and the hugely impressive German pianist Michael Wollny.

2014-2024

However other challenges lay in store and in Spring 2016 we had to make a hasty move out of Millennium Hall as it hit a major financial crisis and there was the threat of our lovely Yamaha upright piano being seized by the Hall’s creditors. We did a quick survey of the ever-diminishing alternatives and came up trumps with Crookes Social Club, to which we moved in May 2016 and have since remained there. The Crookes manager, Maurice Champeau, and his team have been very supportive, the hall is very good acoustically, and we have been able to draw in the strong local audience base, including some of the student community.

For a long time Sheffield Jazz had been trying to build a closer relationship with the Sheffield universities. This was particularly the case with the University of Sheffield and its Music Department, and in pursuit of that agenda various workshops were arranged for musicians on the afternoon of Friday gigs whereby they would provide tuition to students. We also offered occasional gigs to the main university jazz bands such as the Sheffield University Jazz Orchestra and the Sheffield University Big Band.

In 2016 we adopted a new approach of jointly holding concerts with Sheffield University’s Concerts Team at Firth Hall where they have a fine Steinway piano. The first of these concerts was a solo piano gig by Gwilym Simcock which proved highly successful and Firth Hall has subsequently featured Barry Green, Bruno Heinen, Jason Rebello and Zoe Rahman

For a number of years we had had occasional gigs by bands and musicians from continental Europe, part of the extensive pan-European collaboration by jazz musicians which had developed since EU entry. Brexit in 2020 made all of this very much more difficult and continues to limit the opportunities for British jazz musicians. Also in 2020 Covid struck, resulting in the cancellation of many gigs. The silver lining was that afterwards audience numbers rose significantly, perhaps reflecting both the audience’s eagerness to hear live music again and a recognition that the size of Crookes means that they can still be relatively well-spaced.

During 2022 Crookes Social Club saw a return visit to Sheffield by the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association and its highly talented alumni who gave a very successful concert showcasing what a brilliant organisation they are. This was just one of the big bands which we put on during the early 2000s. Others were the Stan Sulzmann, Nikki Iles, Jensen Sisters and Julian Siegel Orchestras. Crookes Social Club, with its big stage and large audience capacity, proved to be ideal for big gigs such as these and helped to further cement the place of Sheffield Jazz among the UK’s current leading jazz venues.

Among the other noteworthy developments over recent years have been:

    • a number of very successful gigs by locally-based musicians who enjoy a high national and/or international profile, such as Martin Archer with his Anthropology Band, Nadim Teimoori and his Quintet, and the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association;
    • the growth in numbers of highly talented female musicians who have played in Sheffield with their own bands or as part of other bands. Apart from the Jensen Sisters and Nikki Iles as mentioned above, visiting band leaders have included Yazz Ahmed, Alex Clark, Trish Clowes, Rachael Cohen, Josephine Davies. Laura Jurd, Allison Neale, Emma Rawicz, Kate Williams and Karen Sharp;
    • Sheffield Jazz has also been able to play a part in the emergence of a number of young musicians who have really come to the fore in recent years, with Fergus McCreadie being a particular example;
    • continued collaboration with other jazz venues and through the Jazz Promotion Network to make it possible for British and overseas musicians to make tours and to develop their careers. There has always been a strong complementary and close relationship with Jazz at The Lescar and in recent years this has been taken a step further with joint promotions;
    • the purchase of a drum kit and bass amplifier in order to make it possible for musicians to come to Sheffield without incurring massive travel costs, a situation which was exacerbated by Covid and its aftermath.

 2024

In 2024 Sheffield Jazz (like the Doncaster Youth Jazz Association) reaches its 50th birthday. To mark this we held a special concert in the Crucible main theatre on Saturday 18th May featuring longstanding Sheffield Jazz favourite Tony Kofi and his Quartet and a more recent favourite, rising star Emma Rawicz with her Quartet. This attracted an audience of over 700 people and was an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the previous 50 years.

Sheffield Jazz now has a turnover of some £60,000 pa, and running 20 to 25 gigs pa as well as the Jazz Workshop is a practical as well as financial challenge. Throughout the 50 years we have been very fortunate in the support which we have enjoyed from a wide range of volunteers and in the highly skilled support provided by our sound engineers, piano tuners etc. As we go into our 6th decade however we now urgently need some new blood.