The Cheltenham Jazz Festival held in association with BBC Radio 2 gets under way on Wednesday with a busy line-up of jazz this year stretching through the double bank holiday weekend until Monday.
Promoters Serious have confirmed that the Keith Jarrett standards trio will appear in London in the summer, their first appearance in the UK for two years.
A new annual event for bassists named in memory of the late Jeff Clyne, who died in 2009, has been announced for May in Northamptonshire.
The Kent seaside town of Margate has been in the news recently with the opening of the magnificent new Turner Contemporary Gallery in the town.
To coincide with Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape at Tate Modern, one of the must-see exhibitions running in London this spring, the Catalan Insititut Ramon Llull is mounting a series of complementary jazz concerts to take place at Chelsea’s 606 club over two nights in June.
Ray Smith, whose Shaftesbury Avenue record shop, Ray's Jazz, was a mecca for jazz fans and record collectors for nearly 30 years between 1975 and 2002, died at University College Hospital last night, after a long illness.
Singer Sophie Garner is organising a special fundraiser at the 606 club in Chelsea on Easter Monday (25 April) in aid of the Queensland Flood appeal following the devastating floods that affected Queensland in Australia earlier this year.
The Cheltenham Jazz Festival is so much more than the main concert programme.
Released on DVD and Blu-ray on 9 May the charming film Chico and Rita, which had a run in the cinemas last autumn, has music by Bebo Valdéz and Freddy Cole singing as his brother Nat.
Le QuecumBar in south west London kicks off its spring season later this week with a host of Gypsy jazz stars, from many parts of Europe and the USA.
