Jazz in the Welsh hills, go for it!
These words fuelled the idea to hold an international music festival in a small market town in rural Wales. Where other proposals for generating more visitors to the town and surrounding area had not succeeded, the community of Brecon in Powys, South Wales searched for way to attract visitors. This recollection of the festival origins by Jean Hosie, who became the festival administrator, describes how the first festival was planned, artists were invited, a programme put together, and business owners around the town persuaded to join the initiative and to provide multiple venues over a weekend in August.
The quote above is by George Melly, a world famous jazz musician who was living a few miles outside Brecon in an ancient tower house by the River Usk. George Melly was at the top of the list of people to speak with about such an unusual and unlikely idea. An idea suggested during a discussion between local councillors and townspeople, one of whom had returned recently from visiting the Breda Jazz Festival in Holland. The date was fixed due to being the only weekend George Melly was available and with him on the bill Humphrey Lyttleton and other great jazz musicians would agree to undertake the journey west to play at the festival. The image of bands parading through the Georgian town seemed to fit Brecon like a glove and over the decades since 1984 Brecon Jazz put rural south Wales on the map as an internationally recognised home for all genres of jazz.
Jean Hosie recalls how Tony Constantinescou, who came up with the idea, Liz Elston the first Chair and festival’s driving force together with Jed Williams a jazz programming genius were key to the birth and success of Brecon Jazz and brought the town together to produce what is to this day a colourful and unique experience in the Welsh hills.
For more info on Brecon Jazz today, please visit www.breconjazz.org
To buy Gina Davies's excellent book, "The Brecon Jazz Story in Photographs" please visit www.crookedwindow.co.uk/thebreconjazzstory.html
Photography is reproduced with kind permission of Liz Elston's family and Gena Davies.