Reports in local media both print and online suggest that a new Belfast city centre jazz club, Jaxx, is to launch this week, beginning with a private bash on Saturday with a band to include Derry jazz icon, saxophonist/clarinettist Gay McIntyre. The Fountain Street club is to open to the public from Saturday 12 October. Trumpeter Rick Swann is the club’s artistic director and the club is the brainchild of Sean Murray, of Murray Hospitality Ltd, who according to nigossipguy.com “developed the concept following a dinner in Belfast city centre when he and his wife couldn’t find a music venue where they could relax and enjoy a drink at affordable prices.” Swann, a former member of the Ulster Youth Jazz Orchestra, comes highly rated by fellow musicians contacted by Marlbank and has been touring with the bespoke Louis Armstrong Satchmo show this year with trombonist John Trotter, Gay McIntyre, guitarist/banjo player Jon Somers, bassist David McCracken, and drummer Rebecca Montgomery. Belfast is crying out for a fully functioning jazz scene, and the seeds towards this aspiration have been sown over the last year by a new crop of players led by the DanaMeilana 6, who have released JazzNBelfast [reviewed here http://www.marlbank.net/reviews/872-on-the-cusp], gigs at McHughs, Berts jazz bar in the Merchant Hotel, Jazz Day at the Black Box in July, and the Brilliant Corners festival in the spring. Jaxx adds to this momentum.
Stephen Graham
Rick Swann pictured

3 October update: The club now has a website: http://www.jaxxjazzclub.com

5 October update: The Jaxx house band besides trumpeter and artistic director Swann is pianist John Scott Trotter, double bassist David McCracken, and drummer Tim Rooney. The club runs on Saturdays and tickets are £5.