Music Features

The Lord Mayor gives a speech

Herb Geller, New York alto saxophonist and one of the great living legends of jazz helped launch the 2007 Birmingham International Jazz Festival.

He played the first of his eight free Birmingham festival shows on Friday morning 6th July 2007. He was accompanied at Wine REPublic by Fidgety Feet, a Dixieland band from Leicester.

Herb's performance was the first of the festival. Over the next ten days there will be 100 hours of live jazz across the city. Musicians and bands from the USA, Spain, France, South Korea, Hungary, Poland, Holland, Czech Republic and Venezuela will be lining up alongside the best from the UK.

Herb Geller at the festival launch

BBC WM's Breakfast Show, presented by Phil Upton, broadcasted live from the launch event.

"It's a festival we've grown to love"

Lord Mayor Councillor Randal Brew was among those who gave a brief speech at the launch. He said: "It's a festival we've grown to love over the years in the city, and this is the 23rd. I am absolutely amazed that we have more than 190 events over the next ten days and that we have some 80 bands as well.

"I'm used to seeing jazz [bands] in cellars and restaurants, but I'm told that if I go to a certain supermarket up in Edgbaston I can see them even while I'm shopping, I can see them on the Metro train - you can't avoid them.

Jo Tidman, Phil Upton & Leonie Collier

"And I understand that they're even going to be on the beach in Chamberlain square. And I hope the sun shines on them on that particular occasion."

Steve Dyson, editor of the Birmingham Mail, praised Herb Geller and spoke of his newspaper's delight at being involved with the festival.

He went on to dedicate the festival to the memory of George Melly and "at the same time to dedicate it to the great way that jazz brings together youth and old age, and the way that it gives people a second and an extended life."

Text and photos by Ciáran Ryan