Businesses are being urged to help elevate Bristol to a world-class centre for jazz and blues music as part of Mayor George Ferguson’s ambitions to make the city the ‘New Orleans of the UK’.
Cultural and business links between Bristol and the Louisiana birthplace of jazz are being formalised and will form the basis of next year’s Bristol International Jazz & Blues Festival.
It is hoped the Mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu will visit Bristol to make the tie-up official – triggering cultural and business exchanges between the two cities built not just around their common musical roots but also their vibrant street art and lively food scenes. 
And with this year’s Jazz & Blues Festival – the second in two years – now just two weeks away, organisers are asking Bristol businesses to become involved as they lay the foundations for what is expected to become a major annual cultural event.
Corporate partnerships and sponsorship packages will be available for next year’s high-profile festival but ahead of these a very small number of tickets are left for this year, including the showpiece New Orleans-inspired feast for supporters of the festival on March 6 which kicks off the festival.
Over the following three days the Colston Hall will play host to some of the top names in international jazz and blues, including headliners Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley, who were part of James Brown’s original line-up, and the soulful Lillian Boutté, who is also New Orleans’ Official Music Ambassador.
Tickets for the gala dinner at the Bordeaux Quay restaurant are £85 per person which also includes VIP access to one festival concert, cocktails and canapés and three courses of soul food. Jazz-loving Mayor Ferguson will announce more details of the Bristol-New Orleans cultural exchange.
A festival spokeswoman said: "Bristol has a fantastic music scene and a vibrant culture. The International Jazz & Blues Festival is really putting the city on the map and we're pleased that the Mayor is so closely involved.
"The links with New Orleans will strengthen what we have been building over the past two years. It would be great to hear from businesses in the city that want to share in and promote its vibrancy and put the city.”
Festival highlights include godfathers of World Music Osibisa, Joseph ‘Zigaboo’ Modeliste, the King of the Funky drummers and the founder member of The Meters, Bristol’s own jazz superstars Get the Blessing, Andy Sheppard, Iain Ballamy, Alan Barnes & Howard Alden Quintet, New Orleans musicians and Django à la Creole and gypsy jazz guitarist Elliot Randall as well as world famous funksters Pee Wee Ellis & Fred Wesley Funk Assembly and Lillian Boutté.
The festival has commissioned two special projects centred on the talents of Bristol-based ensembles. Big Buzzard Big Band will be joined on stage by three choirs – The City of Bristol Choir, The North Bristol Wellbeing Choir and Clifton College Choir – with one of the UK’s leading jazz vocalist Jacqui Dankworth for new arrangements of some of Gershwin’s best-loved songs.
Another of the Festival’s commissions features poetically virtuosic pianist Kate Williams in a celebration of the works of Miles Davis collaborator Bill Evans. Together with the Bristol Ensemble, Williams will perform a programme of Evans key works, interspersed with works by Impressionist composers such as Ravel, Debussy and Satie which sit so well alongside his style of composition.
Bristol’s own jazz stars stand their own amongst this international line up. The storming rock and avant jazz outfit Get the Blessing will close the festival with the launch of their new album on a bill with Indigo Kid featuring Iain Ballamy. Fellow Bristolian and festival patron Andy Sheppard hosts two concerts as ‘Andy Sheppard presents…’ featuring special duo performances with guitarist John Parricelli and Italian percussionist Michele Rabbia.
For more information on the festival go to: www.bristoljazzandbluesfest.co.uk
