Nigel Price’s Grassroots Jazz charity, fundraising campaign to support grassroots jazz venues - Saxophone Raffle, one week to go.

Friday, September 02, 2022

Guitarist Nigel Price has begun a fundraising campaign to support grassroots jazz venues. The latest fundraising initiative is a saxophone raffle with three great instruments among the prizes..

Nigel Price writes;

Hey jazz fans and jazz musicians,
I need your help.
There are just 7 days left on this saxophone raffle, which also has Ronnie Scott’s memberships, Isle of Wight Jazz Weekend tickets and Dawkes event tickets. Every entrant also gets two free album downloads from legends Tommy Smith and Dave O’Higgins. (sign up to the mailing list required).
Massive thanks to Dawkes, Tom Headwind, Jim Thorn , Peter James and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club for their kind donations of these mega prizes.

Anything you can do will help secure a more optimistic future for out struggling grassroots jazz clubs.
Remember - a couple of the clubs on the list at the bottom would NOT be running now if it were not for the generosity and passion of jazz fans.
Thanks in advance. x

Guitarist Nigel Price has begun a fundraising campaign to support grassroots jazz venues who failed to qualify for any help in the Culture Recovery Fund as we came out of the pandemic.

The latest fundraising initiative is a saxophone raffle with three great instruments as prizes. There’s also the chance to win one of three deluxe Ronnie Scotts memberships and tickets to the Isle of Wight Jazz Weekend.

Follow this link to enter:
https://raffall.com/.../enter-raffle-to-win-grassroots...

Without any formal company structure, permanent premises, or the requirement for the minimum grant of £50,000 from the Culture Recovery Fund, most clubs simply did not tick the boxes and have therefore ended up with nothing.

The small clubs within the UK’s grassroots network are the arteries that supply the veins of our precious jazz infrastructure, and we ignore their plight at our peril.
What sort of future are we going to be leaving for our young jazz musicians address this problem now?

“True society is achieved when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”
- Ancient Greek proverb.

Audiences, and therefore revenues, are still down on pre-Covid levels and our network of passionate volunteers has never been so embattled. They don’t need a huge amount of money, but they need some.

One thing has led to another and there is now now a registered charity - Grassroots Jazz 1197449 https://www.grassrootsjazz.com which has already begun to issue grants, usually of £2000 to give our heroic volunteer promoters a bit of breathing room whilst we recover.

Clubs helped to date:

Swansea Jazz Club
SoundCellar, Poole
Jazz at Merchants Hall, Glasgow
St Ives Jazz Club
Bennigan’s Bar, Derry
Scarborough Jazz Club
Spike’s Place, Brentwood
Chesterfield Jazz Club
The Bebop Club, Bristol