Marketing Birmingham, the public-private partnership responsible for ‘improving national and international perceptions’ of the city, is to be scrutinised by the Council’s Regeneration O&S Committee later in the year.

The Council reduced its shareholding in Marketing Birmingham to 49% in 2007, in order to give the partnership greater autonomy, and it currently provides the organisation with £1.968m in funding per annum.  In return, Marketing Birmingham agrees to:

• Improve the value of the events and conference sector by £25m per annum.
• Improve perceptions of Birmingham as a visitor destination.
• Improve business perceptions of Birmingham as a ‘place to do business’.
• Increase the number of visitors to the city.
• Increase the economic impact of leisure tourism.

The most recent monitoring report, for 2007-08, showed Marketing Birmingham reaching the majority of its (16) targets. It failed on just one - that of ‘improving the perception of the city as a visitor destination’ – with a recent survey ranking  Birmingham as 6th against a target of 2nd. There are clearly still plenty of people around unaware as to how much the city has changed over the last 20 years.

As part of the review, the Committee will approach the usual big name quangos, public bodies and ’partners’ and ask them to share their experiences of working with Marketing Birmingham and no doubt there will generally be a postive story to tell.

My suspicion, though, is that smaller organisations and events inevitably end up getting squeezed out by these bigger names. These bodies don’t often get much in the way of funding from the council and rely heavily on ‘help in kind’ instead. It’s essential, then, that the review gets as wide a variety of responses as possible. I’ll be pressing to make sure, for example, that we talk to organisers of some of the festivals that take place throughout the city.

Any ideas, comments or suggestions would be gratefully received.

BCC agreed this week to sign a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Sustrans on the North Birmingham Walking and Cycle Route.  This will unlock £650,000 of Lottery grant funding and enable work to start on the £2.654m route, which will run from Pype Hayes to Sutton Park. Connecting links will join up Castle Vale, Walmley, Good Hope Hospital and Falcon Lodge.

Good to see some of what is known as the ‘People’s Millions’ being spent in Birmingham.

The money will be spent on traffic calming, road crossings and public art – the design of which, it seems, will involve local schools. Sustrans are very keen on a branded ‘Portrait Bench’, to link their schemes across the UK. Hopefully this won’t be too perscriptive, and schools will get the opportunity to play a meaningful role in the project.

With the NUJ claiming to have seen ‘internal company documents’ that suggest the Birmingham Post might become a weekly or bi-weekly paper, it’s a good time to remind ourselves of how important the local media is for democracy.

The FT’s Jonathan Guthrie wrote an interesting article on this last week, which began with the assertion that ‘dissent is the essential business of journalism’. He went on to praise our very own Paul Dale, of the Post, for his uncovering of a report that poured scorn on the notion that Birmingham’s Central Library was suffering from ‘concrete cancer’.

Good local scoops, Guthrie argues, bring scandals to the notice of the national media. We all lose out  in the long run if the local media is downgraded.

Ten good reasons to visit the Birmingham International Jazz Festival this year (3rd – 12th July):

1. Festival Poet Steve Steinhaus will take you on a tour of verse straight out of the Beat Era, all wrapped around the history and heroes of jazz and blues. And what’s more, he’ll be doing it for free, on the bus. (10.30am Fri 3rd July on National Express Buses, free).
2. Pee Wee Ellis at Star City. Reedman/composer/arranger and MD for the late James Brown, Pee Wee Ellis deserves the title of ‘The Man Who Invented Funk’. (7pm Sun 5th July at Star City, free).
3. Browns Brass Band at Snow Hill Station. Continuing the festival tradition of great music in unusual locations, Arthur Brown’s brass section will be entertaining travellers in the Colmore Business District. (8am Tues 7th July, free).
4. Nomy Rosenberg Trio. Sensational Dutch gypsy guitarist, and direct descendent of Django Reinhardt, Nomy Rosenberg will be making his UK debut in Birmingham. (5pm Fri 10th July at the Waters Edge Bandstand, free. Plus other dates).
5. The Botanical Gardens Allstar Jam Session. It was a jam session that started the festival off in 1984 and to celebrate 25 years of bringing jazz to Birmingham, this year’s event will see Digby Fairweather leading an outstanding line up of some of the biggest names in UK jazz. (7pm Thurs 9th July at the Botanical Gardens, £10. Tickets from 0121 454 7020).
6. Festival Ale ‘Digby’s Dilemma’. This year’s official festival beer will be brewed by the Urban Arts Bar at The Lord Clifden, and will also be available at the Hotel Du Vin and The Brasshouse.
7. Hot D’Jazz Trio of Cracow. One of the many international acts at this year’s festival, Hot D’Jazz are a regular on the festival circuit and have played with the likes of Nigel Kennedy and Ronald Anderssen. (1pm Sat 4th July at the Round Room, Museum and Art Gallery, free).
8. Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. Last time the great Kenny Ball came to play in Birmingham, he played to a sell-out (paying) audience at the Symphony Hall. This time he’ll be paying Star City, for free. (7pm Fri 3rd July).
9. Jazz in Lee Longlands furniture showroom. Midlands based Millenium Eagle Jazz Band play classic jazz from the 1920s-1940s, in the unlikeliest of musical venues. (4.30pm Thurs 9th July at Lee Longlands, free).
10. Art Themen at the Waters Edge Bandstand. An event that symbolises what this festival is all about – world class jazz at an accessible venue, totally free. (1pm Sat 11th July, free). 

Great news that funding is now on the way for a town centre manager in Sutton Coldfield.

Sutton Observer

Sutton News

Recruitment will begin once the contract’s been finalised. And given the size/status of the centre the position will probably be advertised nationally as well as locally.

The ‘Big City Plan’, Birmingham City Council’s award winning, twenty year development masterplan, presents a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity for residents to have their say on the future direction of the city centre.

It’s also likely to start forcing us to make some tough decisions. Take the ongoing debacle over noise and the Rainbow pub in Digbeth, for instance.

According to the plan, although Digbeth has ‘limited residential, retail and office development’, the area has seen ’signficant development in the arts, media and craft industries’. It has also ‘developed a music and media industry’ and ‘has the makings of a new creative quarter’.

The plan also makes reference to the unique urban structure of the city centre - there are distinct quarters around  a modestly sized ‘core’ and over the next 20 years it’s likely that these surrounding quarters will grow in importance. Everyone who lives in the city knows what to expect in the Jewellery Quarter, for example, or in Eastside.

And Digbeth, of course, is the interesting and edgy part of town. It’s not Broad Street but neither is it the leafy suburbs. And whether it was quieter five years ago than it is now is largely irrelevant. Why, then, did the council, when granting planning permission for new flats in the area, not look ahead and make sure that the developers fitted the new blocks with a level of sound proofing suitable for living in the middle of the second largest city in the country?

Over 115,000 visitors, enjoying 200, mostly free, performances at 50 plus venues across the city – last year’s Birmingham International Jazz Festival was, as always, a resounding success.  Music lovers got to witness shows by an eclectic range of top class national and international acts and the city got to throw a big party and welcome visitors from as far afield as Australia, South Africa and the USA. And in 2009 the event will be celebrating its milestone 25^th anniversary, a testament to the hard work of the organisers as well as a sign of the huge support and goodwill the event has enjoyed over the years.

That the event would one day be celebrating its 25^th anniversary would no doubt have been far from the mind of festival director Jim Simpson as he organised the M&B Jam Session that started it all, back in 1984. Held in Birmingham’s Cannon Hill Park and fronted by the late Humphrey Lyttlelton, a privileged audience of 800 jazz lovers were treated to a now legendary session from star names such as Digby Fairweather, Dick Morrissey, Randy Colville and Peter King.  With Harvey Weston on double bass and Johnny Richardson on drums, the performance was recorded on Richard Branson’s mobile 24 track and went on to become The Sunday Time’s ‘jazz record of the year’. The International Jazz Festival kicked off in earnest the following year and has gone on to become the largest, free jazz party in Europe, attracting a total audience so far of over 3 million visitors. And, in celebration of its quarter century milestone, the festival goes back to its roots this year with an equally star studded jam session to be held at the city’s Botanical Gardens on Thursday 8^th July. Digby Fairweather will head a line up of some of the biggest talents in jazz, including Art Themen, David Newton and Val Wiseman. It’s shaping up to be one of the hottest dates in this year’s musical calendar.

Although most of the gigs take place in the usual locations – in the pubs, bars and concert halls across the city – a defining feature of the festival over the years has been its determination to take jazz to unusual settings. So this year, there’s jazz at Snow Hill Station, courtesy of Becky Brine, and Browns Brass Band; performances by Digby Fairweather and Craig Milverton in the Museum and Art Gallery, and poetry by Steve Steinhaus on the city’s buses. New venues this year include the Star City multiplex as well as The Barber Institute of Fine Arts and furniture store, Lee Longlands.

This year’s festival promises to be just as exciting as ever with the high calibre of performers continuing the festival tradition of ‘real music, properly played’. Artists include: Alan Barnes, Alex Price Set, Art Themen, Becky Brine, Bruce Adams, Dave Green, David Newton, Dave Shepherd Quintet, Digby Fairweather, Enrico Tomasso, Eric Delaney, Europa Jazz Band, Fabulous  Boogie Boys, Garry Allcock All-Stars Big Band, Greg Abate (USA), Hot Djazz of Krakow (Poland), Ian Bateman, Indigo Blues Band, Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen, King Pleasure & the Biscuit Boys, Kings Bruton Big Band, Mark Nightingale, MJHQ, MYJO, Nearly Dan, Pee Wee Ellis [USA], Petra Ernyei [Czech Republic], Ralph Salmins, Simon Spillett, Tipitina and Val Wiseman.

www.brumjazzfest.blogspot.com

Final dates announced for The Specials 30thAnniversary Tour. A shameless nostalgia trip it may be, but their gig in Birmingham in April was still the best I’ve seen this year:

Live in 2009