Notes on the Brecon Jazz Festival (August 8-9, 2026)
August 8 (Saturday). Aberystwyth to Brecon.
7.30 am: I was on the train — the one that I hear from my studio departing at this time in the morning — enroute to the Brecon Jazz Festival. This would be one of the celebrated Harvey Boyz outings, on the occasion of a combined birthday and Father’s Day celebration. That both my sons appreciate jazz, in one form or another, has been a source of pride and joy. 8.00 am: A delayed train from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth held up mine (travelling in the opposite direction) at Machynlleth for nearly three quarters of an hour. (This is a single-track railway, alas.) Fallen at the first hurdle. (Sigh!)
By the time my train arrived at Shrewsbury, I’d missed the connection to Y Fenni [Abergavenny]. During the 50-minute wait for the next one, I had a brief encounter with my Bafta-winning friend, Debbie Moon. She now lives in this fair city. I’d first met Debbie when she was a struggling screenwriter and novelist serving coffee for a living at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre cafe, back in the 1980s. She stuck to her guns doggedly and the rest, as they say, is history.
From Platform 4 I looked across the tracks to Platform 3, and the former waiting room where Arwel Hughes had composed his hymn tune in 1938. Nearby are ornate gates, close to where the non-existent Thomas Thomas died in 1888. Can the ghost of someone who never was, really be seen waiting for his connection still as some have claimed? (See: Summa: diary (July 18-24, 2026).)
I caught the later connecting train to Y Fenni, where I met my sons shortly after noon. Lunch was taken at the town’s Market Hall. My paternal grandfather use to take my cousins and I here most Tuesdays, to see the cattle being sold. We’d always have lunch in the same fish and chip shop (which is now an Anatolian restaurant.) My sons ate at a Malaysian outlet in the market. It reminded me of the hawker stalls I’d enjoyed in Penang and Singapore, several decades ago.
We took a small and full bus to Brecon passed smoking hills in the distance, where fires burned. The town was bristling with jazz enthusiasts (and others, who may have been here for the beer and food, principally). There was a carnival atmosphere that I associate with New Orleans. A ‘good chill’, as they say.
2.30 pm: Our first concert was a blast. The Phoenician Blinds are a band that I’d pay good money to see perform at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. They’re a tight ensemble whose can accelerate from slow and calm to fast and heavy in seconds. The compositions and delivery came from the heart and mind.
Not all music happens like this. Their performance had a sense of urgency. The band established a connection between the players, and between the players and their audience, from the get-go. We were graced. I sat there, with a son either side of me, feeling like a king — beaming.
4.00 pm: Having rested-up at our accommodation (some 20 minutes walk from the town) we headed, via the food stalls, towards the banks of the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, to Theatr Brychieniog. There we heard Emma Smith and Francesca Tandoi. It was only their second performance together. But already they sound like a seasoned partnership. The singing and playing cut to the soul. Both women possessed exemplary stage presence and self-confidence. I was transfixed; putty in their hands.
The gig began nearly an hour late. On the way to Brecon, the band had suffered a combination of travel delays caused by flights problems at Bristol Airport and diversions on the roads to the town, resulting from the hillside fires. Art and life. Never one without the other.
August 9 (Sunday). 8.00 am: A Brecknock morning.
10.30 am: Breakfast in the Cathedral Gardens. The bells were ringing in anticipation of the 11.00 am service. From the building behind me, I could hear the choir rehearse simultaneously. The two sources of music were in tune, and superimposed in my hearing. Elevating.
From there my sons and I walked into town, now quiet before the visitors arrived for the afternoon and evening performances.
The same phenomenon of superimposition could be heard throughout the streets: Open-mic crooners sang popular jazz melodies from the 1950s in the back streets while, at the same time, an enthusiastic if ramshackle group of singers and string players belted out pop hits from the 1960s ‘on the corner’ (as Miles would say). This was jazz Heaven.
We caféd and walked, and caféd and walked, until lunch — taken at a more than acceptable tapas bar. Afterwards, my sons returned home to deposit shopping while I caféd (once again) at Theatr Brychieniog, awaiting their return and the first of today’s two performances.
4.00 pm: Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band was unlike anything I’d encountered before. However, I knew their points of reference. There were elements derived from Fluxus, Captain Beefheart, Cornelius Cardew, Mike Westbrook, and Sun Ra, among others, as well as from physical theatre — lovingly mangled. The performance was like looking-/listening-in on a rehearsal. While attuned to the audience in the auditorium, the band was its own audience. They’d have played like this even if there was no one else present. The bandleader conducted with, what to an onlooker may have appeared to be, vague and dismissive gestures. However, for the musicians (who looked to him intently throughout the proceedings) they represented very specific and precise instructions. He played the band like a musical instrument.
Here was a leader who appeared to genuinely care for his charge (all 25 of them, on this occasion). Fergus Quill allowed each member to be themselves (however idiosyncratic). Nevertheless, he expected a great deal from them, not only as musicians but also as performers, both visually and choreographically. The event suggested a highly-disciplined collective expression that teetered on, but never fell into, chaos — one that was as uplifting as it was fun to witness and, I imagine, to perform too.
We took a walk around the town, ice cream in hands, before attending the last performance of our stay, back at the Guildhall. Dave Jones’s Trunk of Funk is a Cardiff/Bristol based band whose forte is a mode of jazz-funk-rock fusion that arose in the 1970s and early 80s. However, this wasn’t a period/genre tribute band. The members worked compositions — by Marcus Miller, Chick Corea, and Freddie Hubbard, and others — from the inside out. The performance was an interpretation made with heart, intelligence, extraordinary ferocity, and at a laudably loud volume.
Afterwards, my sons and I retired to a decent Indian restaurant and reflected on our two days of sometimes utterly astonishing vision, commitment, and musicianship. It was good to rejoice in, and be grateful for, the gifts and creative generosity of others. By the close of the day, I was emotionally wrung-out. There had been moments of ecstasy over this weekend, and times when our collective humanity was witnessed at its best. In an age where politics and religion often fail us, music, along with the other arts, provide a source of consolation, direction, hope, unity, and optimism.
A Brecknock evening.
See also: Intersections (archive); Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice