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After much procrastination I am bringing my Jazz diary of the 2025 Upon Jazz festival to the world. Post-Covid, the festival has changed somewhat due to various reasons, whether it be running costs, bands retiring or passing, changes in the audience for multitude of reasons, and perhaps just availability granted by the Town itself. So gone are the marquees on the field, the stage under the bridge, and the boat trips running on the afternoon, now the festival is in town itself setting up stages in the local hostelries and social spaces, proving a mix of ticketed and free gigs across the town, and an increase in sales and footfall for the local businesses. The downside to this is that because Upton is an old town with many old buildings, the capacity for the venues is a lot more limited than before meaning that on occasion it is entirely possibly to find that the gig you hoped to attend is at capacity. The limit on capacity seems likely to me as to one of the primary reasons as to why there are a limited number of tickets available each year, (though having a sell-out festival is also good PR).
On the plus side, this means a more focused and more intimate series of gigs and performances, and a chance to engage with far of the crowd than you might usually do, plus free gigs is good window dressing to attract new patrons. I myself made the decision to book accommodation in the town of Upton itself as opposed to being sightly outside the town itself. This is partially because the two places I would regularly use for accommodation have since closed their B & B options, partially because after a day at a Jazz Festival and the revelry that involves, the mile walk back to your digs is somehow a much longer walk than the mile going to it.... But the main reason was, there was a massive complication with the booking I had already made, and there was in-town accommodation available at a decent price, so I snapped it up as accommodation at festival time is about as common as rocking-Horse dung.
The festival was once again blessed with a weekend of good weather which always helps with the general mood of the festival on the whole, and there was a good mix of familiar bands/musicians and ones new to the festival, including a musician who reached out to me via social media looking to see if I could point him in the direction of securing a few gigs at the various festivals I attend. There was also a small degree of market research going on for myself as well, at this point I was looking to book myself an October holiday overseas as a bit of relaxation before the start of the madness that is the Christmas Coach season at work, and I saw an advert for a Spanish holiday with nightly music by one of the bands at the festival, so I thought I would check the band out and see if that was what I would be doing. Did it go this way? Well no, in the end I decided that I didn't fancy it, which I will go into a little bit at the appropriate time, and decided to go to Mexico which has been on my "to go to" list for quite sometime now.
Over the course of the festival I ran into a few old friends include a fun, slightly crazy (in the fun sense) lady whom I met through trombone player Mike Owen at a gig at the Little Upton Muggery back in 2023. Mike introduced me to the young lady with this heart warming description, "This is my mate, he's an absolutely slag for Jazz, he whores himself around as many gigs as he can." I am so going to have that as my epitaph. One day I should actually find out what her name is as I can't keep calling "crazy lady in the blue dress" can I?
You will notice that the gig news dries up a bit towards the end of diary, and this is entirely down to me making a few cock-ups a long the way with gig timings and locations, details of which I shall go into as I get there.
