| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Leader: | |
| Group email: | Jazz group |
| When: | On Tuesday afternoons 3rd of the Month at 2.00 pm |
| Venue: | Member's Homes |
After a period of dormancy , the Jazz Appreciation Group was restarted in 2025 and is again thriving. Newcomers will be welcomed, whether experienced or new to jazz; just contact the Group Leader via the link above.
The group meets once a month on the third Tuesday at 2:00 in the members’ homes. The format is either, everyone brings something to play, or a member may decide to make a specific presentation.
The aim of the group is for members to share their choice of jazz with everyone else although some members are happy just to listen and make new jazz discoveries.
At this point, you may wonder "What is jazz?". If this is the case, please skip to the page "What Is Jazz" where I have tried to answer the question.
The membership is spread between beginners and a couple of musicians, one of which has started the U3a Midland region Big Band
However, as group leader I like to stretch the listeners by introducing a variety of new and old performances, often by unfamiliar names. To this end, I always have a few presentations assembled that I hope will expand the members’ knowledge of the music and its performers. I try to include examples from over the jazz spectrum although we do tend to miss out the latter day trad movement. However, I do include the occasional historic jazz recording which I am reminded of, either by browsing my collection of recordings or in Jazzwise which is my jazz magazine of choice.
I like to include examples that some listeners may consider ‘not safe’. By ‘not safe’, I mean totally unexpected. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Lately, I have taken to adding an extra wild card piece not part of the presentation of the day, usually not jazz, just to move the listeners’ ears in another direction.
Every member has a personal way of introducing the music. For example, I always introduce my selections "blind" so that the listeners can not only listen, but also speculate on the identity of the artist(s)
We meet in members homes and the current membership is comprised of musicians at one end of the listening spectrum and relative novices at the other end. If you would like to discover all about jazz or just expand your existing knowledge, please come and try us out.
Meanwhile, there is a couple of useful pages to read about the subject of Jazz
Everyone attending will leave with a playlist for the session as a reminder.
If you think you could be interested, please consider joining in at one of our Jazz Appreciation group meetings to explore this wonderfully diverse musical world. You never know, you might enjoy what you hear and want to come again. I can’t promise that you will enjoy everything that you hear during any session, but that also goes for the regular members.