Bath Jazz Weekend kickstarts the 2025 musical calendar with Laura Jurd, Iain Ballamy and Dee Byrne confirmed

Come the first weekend in January and, as has become traditional, the Bath Jazz Weekend (Widcombe Social Club, Bath, 3-5 January) breaks the ice to plunge into a New Year of music with a three-day programme of quality contemporary jazz and improvisation. For this fifth outing the line-up includes Laura Jurd’s new quartet, Dee Byrne’s Outlines sextet and Larry Stabbins in an improvising trio with Paul Rogers and Mark Sanders as well as the welcome return of Iain Ballamy’s Molecatcher Trio with Rob Luft and Conor Chaplin. Saxophonist Kevin Figes will be bringing his all-star You Are Here sextet, a tribute to the late Keith Tippett, and Outlines pianist Rebecca Nash’s longstanding Ribbons duo with singer Sarah Colman appears in its new quartet format.

There are some spellbinding roots-based acts too: Huw Warren and Angharad Jenkins  offer arrangements of Welsh traditional songs in their duo Calennig – appropriately the Welsh word for New Year celebrations – while the high energy Secret Path Trio deconstruct their Scottish roots. The weekend also welcomes vocalist Nani Vazana, virtuoso exponent of the fiery Judeo-Spanish Ladino singing style.

As with previous years the festival will be run on a co-operative basis with all participants – whether musician, crew member or even promoter Nod Knowles – receiving an equal portion of the money raised from ticket sales. It’s a liberating principle which contributes greatly to the celebrated warm vibe of the weekend, helped no doubt by the fact that it reliably sells out.

Weekend, single day and single session tickets for the Bath Music Weekend are now available from AllOfTheAboveMusic.eventbrite.com.