Twenty years of Play Jazz Weekend – courtesy Rachel
Everyone at Jazz Factory will know Rachel Kerry as an enthusiastic and accomplished tutor for many years, and most will also know that she runs the Play Jazz Weekend at Wiltshire Music Centre every year during the second May Bank Holiday. But few will know that this year was the twentieth anniversary of Rachel’s running this event (PJW was previously run by JF tutor, Pete Sneyd , a few years ahead of Rachel taking it over), with every single one from 2006 having been organised by her pretty well single-handedly, save for the help of her partner, Mike , over the weekend of the event. I myself was totally unaware until I attended last Sunday’s PJW showcase in the WMC auditorium, which Rachel had modestly described as a sparsely attended public performance. In fact, there were a large number of attendees from the public, certainly more than for JF’s end-of-term bashes. And the standard of the performances by each of the four groups was uniformly high, thanks to the high quality of the players and the expertise of the tutors, Joe Bradford and Riaan Vosloo, both occasional tutors for us on Mondays, and Kevin Figes and Jim Blomfield.
So very well done, Rachel, for her masterminding of PJW over so many years, and may there be lots more to come! Her achievement was marked by the students arranging a floral tribute and a card signed by all this year’s participants, as shown in the photo below.
Andrew Gaulter – Treasurer
