Peter Slavid has a few reflections for LondonJazz on the Jazz Collectives Day which he organized at Kings Place on Saturday.

There’s no doubt that over the last 10 years, the growth of “collectives” in the jazz world has been a major factor in revitalising the UK jazz scene.

“Last week for the first time a short conference brought eight of these groups together to discuss common issues. Supported by Jazz Services and the Musicians’ Union the groups discovered a lot of common ground, and shared information on how to move forward.

Musically the groups vary across a number of jazz genres, but all the groups have in common the fact that they are run by and for the artists, often with significant help from volunteers. Activities range across playing, recording, teaching, promoting, running venues and record labels and much more.

This is an important movement, which already represents hundreds of our top musicians. There are plans in place to involve other collectives who weren’t able to attend on the day.

It will be interesting to see how this develops and what influence this “coalition” is able to have in helping the artists to thrive and develop.”

Those represented were:

F-IRE

Loop

E17

Jazz Umbrella

WayOutWest (all London)

JET (East Midlands)

EFPI (Manchester)

LIMA(Leeds)