“Artist and enthusiast led, we are people who love the music and genuinely want to spread the word to Scottish music-lovers and get more of the creative jazz talent living in Scotland heard.”
- The Jazz Forward collective
During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, three musicians and a music writer began to improvise.
Along with the constraints of both the pandemic and pre-existing limitations, they formed a jazz music agency which would be run as a collective.
They named it Jazz Forward, and created an equally forward-looking, sunny logo for their collective.
How did Jazz Forward come about?
The Jazz Forward members: Malcolm MacFarlane, Fiona Mactaggart, Sophie Bancroft and Marianne McGregor
The European jazz industry’s biggest annual gathering is a conference called jazzahead!, which usually takes place in Bremen, Germany. But in 2021, the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns across various countries meant it was instead held online.
Having received bursaries through Creative Scotland and Glasgow Jazz Festival to allow them to attend, it was at the 2021 jazzahead! conference that three Scotland-based, established musicians, band leaders, composers and educators met: Sophie Bancroft, Malcolm MacFarlane and Marianne McGregor.
At jazzahead! it was suggested that it could be useful to have a music writer join the collective, and so Scotland-based jazz enthusiast and writer Fiona Mactaggart was brought on board.
So began over a year of regular Zoom conversations among the group, where they shared ideas, celebrated the strengths, networks and resources of Scotland’s jazz infrastructure and also acknowledged what it was missing, and exactly what they wanted to do to support jazz in Scotland.
Meet the members
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Marianne McGregor is a prominent new voice in the Scottish Jazz Scene.
Highly acclaimed ‘Best Vocalist’ at the Scottish Jazz Awards 2021, McGregor continues to gain recognition for her powerful voice, improvising and original songs.
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Heralding from one of Britain’s top jazz families, with brothers Tom and Phil Bancroft, Sophie’s early part of her career saw her performing jazz vocals around Britain and Europe at major jazz festivals and clubs, and on regular broadcasts for the BBC.
She has gone on to have a highly successful career as a singer-songwriter with a unique blend of jazz and folk influences. Her most recent CD Monday Nights with her duo Bancroft & Lyne is receiving critical acclaim.
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As a jazz guitarist he has gigged, toured and/or recorded with many musicians from all over the world including Jamie Cullum, Barbara Thopson, Tam White, Barbara Morrison, Salena Jones, Stacey Kent and many others.
He is also part of a duo with Ross Milligan, with their work together described as ‘new Contemporary Scottish.’
Find out more on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland website.
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Having worked for around three decades as a clinician in various specialities in the National Health Service and in Australia, Fiona gained a place on a Serious/Jazzwise jazz journalism course in London in 2017 to pursue her lifelong preoccupation with music.
She composed music - some of which was played in Glasgow, Edinburgh and New York - and began regularly writing about music, exploring, supporting and promoting the Scottish scene.
Fiona has since founded Scottish Jazz Space, has written for Songlines, Jazz in Europe and Jazzwise and is a regular contributor to London Jazz News. She is a committee member at Women in Jazz Media, an international organisation of creatives which won the Jazz Media Award at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards 2021.
Jazz Forward’s Aims
Jazz Forward aims to develop a structure for, and represent some of the highly talented jazz musicians and bands in Scotland today, who are writing and performing their own, original music and songs. They want to regularly showcase this new music to an audience that is Scotland-wide and beyond.
Jazz Forward’s Values
Diversity of Jazz
Scottish jazz is a very broad church, engaging with many different types of music, from Scottish folk (such as Fergus McCreadie) to classical music (Seonaid Aitken) and hip hop (AKU!).
Nevertheless, the members of the collective all saw that the jazz scene in Scotland wasn’t as representative of the musicians, their talent and the wider cultural world as it could be, and wondered if sometimes the public and funding decision-makers were not fully aware of the breadth of quality jazz being produced in Scotland today.
Jazz Forward saw the collective as an opportunity to set up and maintain a structure that would showcase the true quality and scale of jazz music in Scotland.
Fair Access to Jazz
Scotland’s population is mostly city-based, so there was a sense in the jazz sector that people living in more rural places, for example the Highlands and Islands, did not have as many opportunities to experience the diversity of Scottish jazz. Jazz Forward aims to include regional areas in its tours, with bands ideally performing in smaller or atypical venues such as libraries or schools.
The Timeline
Wednesday 2 June 2021
First Zoom meeting of Jazz Forward attended by Malcolm, Fiona and Sophie.
Friday 18 June 2021
Marianne joins Jazz Forward.
Saturday 14 May 2022
Inaugural Jazz Forward gig took place at Lochwinnoch Arts Festival; gigs occurred in various venues thereafter.
Sunday 1 October 2023
A Jazz Forward gig at Soderberg, Edinburgh
Original Jazz
There’s a lot of original jazz being created in Scotland but it doesn’t always find its platform, with many jazz musicians finding it increasingly difficult to present their newly composed, original music.
Over the last decade in Scotland, some have noticed a gradual trend towards tribute concerts and bands, which has been noted by commentators in other countries too, such as in the work of respected US jazz writer Ted Gioia.
Firmly believing that creativity in music – and indeed all aspects of life – is essential for a healthy, thriving society, Jazz Forward aims to address this by strongly encouraging original jazz work.
Gender representation
Pursuing a career in music in the UK can be tough, especially so in jazz where many musicians need to take on a second job to make ends meet, and women working in jazz report more difficulties impacting their careers than men do.
Jazz Forward member Fiona is an active member of the award-winning Women in Jazz Media which supports women in jazz journalism and in the wider jazz industry. Jazz Forward plans to, whenever possible, invite women-dominated and women-led bands to perform, as a means of addressing this gender disparity.
Multi-generational representation
Music should be by and for all, but in the creative industries there are many anecdotal reports that ageism can impact jazz musicians’ careers.
Jazz Forward wants to give a platform to some of those who at present feel that they may miss out on work due to their maturity.
Gigs would be intergenerational, with concert programmes that include younger and more mature musicians playing together. Jazz Forward’s Sophie Bancroft is a strong advocate for music for all age groups, working with community choirs for mature singers, as well as with singers living with dementia.
Education and Audience-building
Jazz Forward plan to introduce an educational arm, focusing on exploring the creative process in song and music writing or experiential learning for audiences.
The aim is that audiences may engage deeply with jazz, deepen their level of understanding, enhance their enjoyment and make it more likely that they will attend a jazz gig in future, take up an instrument or join a choir.
“Incredible cross-section of talent.”
“Beautiful mix of styles and material - superb quality.”
“Really enjoyed the diversity, chat and extraordinary talent."
- Audience feedback from Jazz Forward performances in November 2022
As part of their pilot project, Jazz Forward started up a podcast where they celebrated their love of the genre, revisited their musical influences and shared tips on songwrighting and improvising.
Developing Jazz Forward ‘slowly but surely’ was the plan, and getting the structures and processes right while reacting to changes happening in Scotland post COVID-19 took precedence over speed.
£12,000 funding from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Organisations was awarded to the group in April 2022, and marked an essential step in starting up the new agency.
It allowed Jazz Forward to launch with a highly successful mini-tour last November.
Specifically, funding was useful in paying for marketing, hire of the venues as well as for professional filming of the Jazz Forward bands.
Since then, there have been several gigs around Scotland with either the Jazz Forward all-star trio of Marianne, Malcolm and Sophie, or with the bands they each lead: The Marianne McGregor Trio, Malcolm MacFarlane and Ross Milligan, and Bancroft and Lyne.
What’s next for Jazz Forward?
Having recently reviewed their aims and values, the collective affirmed their commitment to these, as well as to continuing to react to the changing context for jazz in Scotland.
Education will be a key part of Jazz Forward’s work through 2023 and into 2024, as well as continuing to take their message of positivity, and diversity in jazz around Scotland and hopefully one day, beyond.