Jazz on Merseyside!

Are you a Merseyside Jazzer? We need your insight on jazz venues!

The Liverpool City Region Music Board is calling out for any valuable insight on jazz venues and live jazz nights in the Merseyside area.

The board has been working in tandem with the University of Liverpool to develop a comprehensive venues map, which not only celebrates the fantastic nightlife available across the region but is a vital tool for audience members and musicians looking for gigs across the region. This map, having launched in 2022, is an ongoing project which provides invaluable data such as transport links and venue types.

Liverpool has a long history of live jazz, from welcoming some of the biggest American artists through its ports to the infamous traditional Merseyssippi jazz band. Liverpool now offers a cocktail of trad, fusion and even free jazz across the board, with at least one venue hosting jazz for every night of the week. The scene here is supported by key promoters such as Parr Jazz, who invite prominent jazz artists to work in collaboration with local musicians. Mutant Jazz (a new branch of Parr Jazz) is currently focusing on joining together different pockets of the jazz scene and carving out opportunities for local artists at their monthly Mutant Jazz nights. The scene could not operate without the support of long-running venues such as Ma Boyles, Frederik’s Hope Street Jazz and Petit Cafe, which currently boast 4 jazz nights a week and showcase some of Liverpool’s finest musicians.

One of the most recent developments is the creation of a jazz-specific filter to fine-tune where exactly in the region live jazz performances are hosted. This filter has partly evolved from a PhD project by Fran Mills at the University of Liverpool, who is investigating the vibrant and tight-knit Liverpool jazz community. It aims to collate data on any venue that has put on a jazz gig or jam night at any time in the last 12 months, so that information on jazz in the region can be easily found all in one place.

This project relies on local knowledge as well as intelligence from music venues, so if you or someone you know is aware of anywhere that does a jazz night that isn’t listed on the venues map using the ‘Hosts Jazz Music’ filter, then please get in touch with the team via this form, or by e-mailing info@lcrmusicboard.co.uk.

We are particularly interested in widening our knowledge beyond the city centre, so any information on jazz nights across the entire Liverpool City Region is much appreciated!