Hastings has never exactly suffered from a shortage of musicians.
Jazz players, bands, venues and audiences are scattered across the town, so perhaps the surprising thing isn’t that Hastings has a jazz festival. It’s that it took this long to get one.
For co-founders Barnaby Davies, Simon Hersh and Mike Willis, Hastings Jazz Festival grew from a simple idea: bring that talent together, put great musicians in front of audiences and create something good enough to become part of the town.
Simple ideas, of course, have an irritating habit of becoming complicated once you try to make them happen.
It started with a Jam
For Barnaby, a lifelong jazz enthusiast and trombonist, the roots of the festival lie in the monthly Jazz Jam.
Local musicians wanted somewhere to play, so he created one. But the Jam quickly became more than another gig.
Jazz demands improvisation, and improvisation requires the occasional willingness to make a complete arse of yourself in public. The trick was to create a room where that was allowed.
“Playing jazz is scary to some people,” Barnaby says.
The Jam became a place to experiment, learn and, crucially, get on stage. Young musicians began arriving with their parents, playing alongside more experienced performers and returning month after month noticeably more confident.
You can practise at home. You can study technique. But sooner or later you have to stand in front of actual human beings and play.
That matters.
Three people, three very different jobs
As the local jazz community grew, so did the ambition.
Barnaby brings decades of enthusiasm, knowledge and connections across jazz. Mike brings his own musical perspective and deep links with Hastings. Simon plays drums with two local bands but, perhaps rather usefully when somebody has to pay the musicians, is also a finance professional.
“We’re three very different people with three very different strengths,” Barnaby says, “all of which are needed to put on a great Jazz Festival.”
And that combination matters because festivals are curious things. On stage they are art, energy and spontaneity. Behind the curtain they are spreadsheets, contracts, ticket prices and someone quietly wondering whether the numbers add up.
The awkward bit: money
Great musicians need paying. Venues cost money. Production costs money. Pretty much everything costs money.
Ticket sales alone rarely cover it without prices creeping upwards and accessibility heading in the opposite direction.
“You want something that is inclusive. You want something that’s accessible,” Simon explains.
That is where sponsorship becomes important.
Not as corporate decoration. Not simply as another logo squeezed onto a poster. But as part of the financial architecture that allows independent cultural events to happen.
As Barnaby puts it rather more directly:
“Without sponsorship, without finance, there is no festival.”
Support gives the festival room to bring established performers to Hastings while keeping space for emerging musicians, local talent and grassroots events such as the Jazz Jam.
It also means the people creating the festival can concentrate on making it better rather than simply making it balance.
Keeping the door open
That community element is precisely why MYA Consulting is supporting the Jazz Jam at this year’s Hastings Jazz Festival.
For us, it is not simply about sponsoring another event in our home town. It is about supporting the bit where culture actually starts: people being given the opportunity to participate.
At the inaugural festival, Barnaby remembers that alongside the excitement around established artists, people kept asking one straightforward question:
“Can I play?”
That might be the most important question of all.
A successful festival needs recognised artists and audiences. But if it also creates the space for someone younger, less experienced or simply brave enough to pick up an instrument and have a go, it begins to do something more interesting.
It becomes part of the cultural life of the town.
Building something worth keeping
Barnaby and Simon want Hastings Jazz Festival to grow, but not simply for the sake of getting bigger.
The ambition is to build something sustainable. Something musicians want to play. Something audiences want to return to. Something Hastings can genuinely call its own.
The ingredients are already here: remarkable musicians, independent venues, enthusiastic audiences and a town with creativity seeping out of almost every crevice.
The rest takes organisation, commitment and, yes, money.
Because culture doesn’t appear by magic.
Someone has to play it.
Someone has to organise it.
Someone has to turn up.
And occasionally, someone has to help pay for it.
MYA Consulting is proud to support the Jazz Jam at Hastings Jazz Festival, helping keep the stage open to the musicians who might be headlining it tomorrow.