MANCHESTER Jazz Festival (Mjf) returns this weekend to celebrate twenty summers of jazz over ten days (Friday 31 - Sunday 9 August). Now in its twentieth year, Mjf is Manchester’s longest-running music festival and is one of the highlights of Manchester’s cultural calendar, attracting over 60,000 visitors in 2014.
The New York Brass Band will kick off the festival...
The full festival line-up features 78 gigs, with over 400 artists, from across the UK and abroad, performing in ten landmark venues.
Find big brass-band acts at the Thwaites Festival Pavillion at Albert Square and skillful skoo-be-de-bopping in popular Manchester Jazz haunts such as the Northern Quarter's Matt and Phreds. Artistic Director, Steve Mead will run unique strands to commission new work from talented regional artists with mjf originals and mjf introduces schemes.
Here’s our top five acts to see at this year's festival:
New York Brass Band | Fri 31 July
St Ann's Square
The New York Brass Band will kick off the festival by booming around every corner of St Ann’s Square before moving onto Matt and Phreds in the evening. You will be able to view the band between 5.30pm – 6.00pm and 6.30pm – 7.00pm on the first day of the festival, the 31 July.
Manchester JazzMr Scruff: Keep It Unreal | Saturday 1 - Sunday 2 August
Band On The Wall
Mr Scruff and Kelvin Brown will be hosting a five hour long DJ session in which they will be brewing up a large mixture of genres including jazz, soul, hip hop, funk, disco, deep house, reggae, afrobeat, latin - and many other tracks that simply don’t fit into a genre. Head down to Band on the Wall in the Northern Quarter for this gig. The gig lasts from 10.00pm. Tickets must be bought in advance for £12 each.
Mr ScruffOrquesta Timbala | Sunday 2 August
Thwaites Festival Pavilion. Tickets cost £12/10 and doors open at 8.00pm.
Orquesta Timbala’s big band sensation returns. The Cuban carnival percussion from the North’s leading players, features lush horn arrangements and Afro-Cuban vocals blended with solo and full improvising ensembles. The percussion is a powerful and creative conjunction of all mozambiques, congos and creates an amazing dancing sound that will have you dancing all night. You can catch the Orquesta Timbala in the Thwaites Festival Pavilion on Sunday 2 August for two 45 minute sessions from 8.00pm onwards. Tickets cost £12/10 and doors open at 8.00pm.
GoGo Penguin | Friday 7 August
Thwaites Festival Pavilion on Friday 7 July at 8.00pm for two 45 minute sessions. Tickets cost £14/12 and doors open at 8.00pm.
This home-grown talent has recently become one of Manchester’s runaway successes, recently signed to a Blue Note label, a Mercury nomination under their belt and blossoming international fame. Combining anthemic melodies with dance music energy, their music has a wide appeal and they are sure to give a great performance.
GoGoRobert Glasper | Saturday 8 August
RNCM
Pianist, bandleader, composer, producer and Grammy-winning Blue Note artist, Robert Glasper returns to the acoustic piano trio format that characterised his early breakthrough, with a sound that creates a dynamic and hypnotic tension between free-wheeling improvisation and tight and irresistible rhythmic patterns. His edgy command of both the jazz mainstream and the urban music landscape (characterised by his collaborations with hip-hop and R’n’B stars ranging from Emeli Sandé to Snoop Dogg) has set a new benchmark for jazz in the 21st century.
Robert Glasper 
