Tag: Giles Peterson

Manchester Venues 163 to 165 – Jazz Festival

The HOME complex in the centre of Manchester is in effect three venues rolled into one and has five cinemas, two theatres and a decent 500 square metres of gallery space contained within. They encompass all stages of the delivery as they cover the commissioning, production and presentation of those aforementioned artistic pursuits. The modern building is situated on Tony Wilson Square and is a stone’s throw from the old Hacienda nightclub site and was opened in May 2015 at a cost of £25 million.

Home Complex. Image Credit hotels.com

It was a joint venture between the Cornerhouse cinema and arts centre next to Oxford Road station and the Library Theatre company and both organisations then relocated into their new home. The Cornerhouse was famous for hosting the UK premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and was the first public gallery to display artefacts from Damian Hirst. I have sampled a couple of cold ones in the bar that used to be located there prior to its closure.

HOME has inherited several patrons including film maker Danny Boyle, actresses Meera Syal and Suranne Jones and musician Phil Collins. It is a busy old spot as they host 10,000 events annually and it has been included in the TimeOut’s list of the Top 10 cinemas in the UK. They are commendably forward thinking environmentally as they stand as carbon literacy champions.

I have never yet actually visited one of their arts events, but I have devoured a pizza in their café if that counts! I have also basked there in the summer on their outdoor tables and recall watching Coco Gauff’s first dramatic appearance at Wimbledon on one of the big screens.

In this quarter which is classed as being located in the Oxford Road Corridor you would also find the large Gas Works Brewbar, built on the old Gaythorn Gas Works which contains an in-house brewery, shuffle boards and a large seating area outside. Simon Wood’s restaurant used to be located here prior to its recent closure but there still remains Hakkapo and the Indian Tiffin Room.

Manchester Jazz Festival. Image Credit manchesterjazz.com

The longest running festival in the city is the Manchester Jazz Festival which was first staged in the summer of 1996. The first event took place in St Ann’s Square and was jointly organised by Manchester City Council, Musicians Union, Northwest Arts Board and a local brewery. It was a very small scale venture with only nine bands and a DJ on the roster. The first year coincided with the IRA bombing, but commendably the inaugural event was rearranged and staged a few months later.    

The annual event is run as a not for profit charity venture and has grown considerably over those intervening years, with an international exchange organised to mark the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester. In 2005 further exposure was gained when BBC Radio 3 chose to undertake a live broadcast on the launch night. The most recent edition featured over 60 free and ticketed events incorporating multiple venues and they will celebrate their 30 year anniversary in 2025.

Now I have to be upfront and confess that Jazz is my least favourite musical genre, however when I noted I was in that very area on the sunny opening night and there were free gigs on prior to the event I was attending, the ‘gig addict’ in me knew I had to take advantage of these free hits!

Thus, on the night on the seventeenth day of May 2024, CCTV would have picked up Marcus, Uncle George and I mulching down to the Manchester First Street Main Stage. In a very busy area, a band called Mangorata were performing. The 6-piece jazz fusion band derive from Leeds, where they met initially as students at Leeds Conservatoire and a year earlier, they had released their self-titled album.   

Heading further away from Whitworth Street West you then arrived at Manchester First Street (Ask Garden Stage) located on James Grigor Square. Mr Grigor was a renowned 19th century botanist from East Anglia.

James Grigor Square. Image Credit alamy.com

The band on stage were the Gaz Hughes Trio, with Gaz being the original drummer for the Matthew Halsall Band and one of their early albums was nominated for a MOBO and they won Best Jazz Album at the Giles Peterson worldwide awards. On a personal level he won the people’s vote for Jazz Drummer of the Year in 2019.  The trio is completed with Andrzej Baranek on piano and Gavin Barras on double bass.  

The final venue of the day was inside the bar area at Manchester Home Stage where we witnessed Secret Night Gang, a local jazz, funk and soul act who had recently released their second album ‘Belongs on a Place Called Earth’.   

Leeds Venues 20 to 22

I am this week returning to and completing the story of my visit to the Live at Leeds festival in 2021. This is a multi-venue wristband event with venues dotted all around the city and we walked and walked that day, covering around 27k steps.

The next site we visited was Leeds HiFi situated on Century Road. The precursor to this venue was the Underground nightclub as when that club closed its doors for the final time in 2000, the three original promoters moved lock stock and barrel into the new basement venue. They transferred all existing staff and retained all the original club nights in the new building.   

Leeds HiFi. Image Credit Ents24.

They hold a suite of DJ and live gig nights and reside mainly in the funk and soul and roots domain. Amongst others Nightmares on Wax, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and 6 music’s Giles Peterson have appeared there. They have also held comedy nights with Alan Carr and Reginald D Hunter having graced the stage, and weddings have also taken place there.

It is a small venue that has a nice vibe about it combining a nightclub feel with a traditional downstairs gig room, and this is reflected in its previous local awards for ‘Best Nightclub’ and ‘Best Live Music Venue’. The band on stage at the time of our visit were a local act called Van Houten and they provided a pleasing slab of slightly wonky dream pop, their sound reminiscent of Swim Deep and Fatal Charm. They released their self-titled debut album in 2019 and have just penned a decent new single titled ‘Coming of Age’.

We then sallied over to Leeds Headrow House which has a long previous history as a former textile mill and latterly an Inland Revenue site and is located in one of the oldest parts of the city. It now encompasses four floors housing an award winning restaurant called the Ox Club, a large beer hall, two roof terraces and a 150 capacity gig room.

Leeds Headrow House. Image Credit inyourpocket.com

There is also reputedly a large and probably spooky Civil Defence bunker located underneath the site. On stage that day was a rhythm and blues artist called Mysie from London who has had support slots with Corrine Bailey Rae.

Situated nearby on Cookridge Street is the Leeds Nation of Shopkeepers. Its current moniker provides a clear clue to its previous heritage as during the 1950’s it was known as Harris Grocers. It then morphed into the Corner Shop and the Courtyard Bar until rebadging under its current name in 2009. It has a locally renowned outdoor courtyard area known as ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ and the establishment went through a major refurbishment in 2017.

‘Garden of Earthly Delights’. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

They have a regular pub quiz night every Monday and have an all-day ‘foodie’ reputation. They have DJ nights and also live music in the multi-functional 850 capacity arts space. In those early days the likes of Willy Mason, James Blake, Death Grips, Darker My Love (who I sadly never saw) and Two Door Cinema Club played there.

Upon entering I thought it was a tidy eclectic setting, but extremely busy. On stage I could just witness a portion of the set from a London emo band called Sad Boys Club, who last year released their debut album ‘Lullabies From The Lighting Tree’.