Update – 18th July 2021

We are very sorry to announce that the 2021 Classic Jazz Party is being postponed until November 2022. All of us on the organising committee have really tried to stay optimistic through the summer, hoping that the Covid-19 situation would quieten down now, but with cases once again on an exponential rise, the chances of us putting on a safe festival have gone down by the day.

The continuing travel restrictions mean we would not have been able to bring you the “international” part of the Classic Jazz Party with musicians from overseas, and it is financially better for us to cancel now rather than risk the plug being pulled closer to November with any potential restrictions/lockdowns being brought back in. 

Everyone at the jazz party knows how disappointed you will be to read this. We were really encouraged by the amount of you who asked us to hold on to your ticket money from 2020 (which feels like a lifetime ago) but we are just going to have to hope that next year will bring us the wonderful music we have all been missing, and a long-overdue chance to pay tribute to our friend Keith Nichols. 

Refunds

As with last year, we are happy to refund your ticket money in full, or we will hold on to it for 2022. To obtain a refund, please write to us at wbjazzfest@btinternet.com, telling us how many places you’d like refunded and how you paid. We will also be in touch with everyone directly to double-check everyone’s wishes. This will be a big task, so please be patient if you don’t hear from us initially. 

The Village Hotel

Please contact the village hotel directly to sort cancellation and refund enquiries. The best number for this is 0191 270 6491. Do make sure you speak to someone who is actually at the Village Hotel, as we found a few people had problems sorting refunds when they were directed to the national central booking line last year who didn’t know about the jazz party.
We are aiming to host the 2022 festival around the same time, with the first weekend in November pencilled in. Let’s pray to the jazz gods that it can finally happen!

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The globe’s foremost gathering of specialist Classic Jazz musicians and fans; a three-day concert series featuring live music of a rarely heard quality and authenticity, performed by a truly international roster of world-class performers.

A unique event like none other in the Jazz festival calendar, the Party was first founded in 1990 by Mike Durham in Whitley Bay, near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, and has grown bigger and better with each successive year.

Held over a long weekend from midday on Friday until late on Sunday evening, the Party takes the form of a series of special themed concerts chosen and curated by the musicians themselves (see Concert Themes for forthcoming programme) and drawn from the canon of the first 40 years of jazz.

At the end of each day, musicians and audience relax and enjoy themselves at the legendary after-hours jam sessions in the hotel’s bar, often going on into the wee small hours.

The concerts take place in 4-star luxury, with audience members being assigned to cabaret seating of 8 to a table. A twice-daily rotation system is in place to ensure that everybody gets a good view.

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