Little jazz at the Bath music festival this year and none at the once proud Pavilion above 

The Bath Music Festival, which began yesterday and continues until 2 June, used to be a significant force in promoting jazz in the south-west of England. But not any more, as this year’s programme under a new director more than underlines. Norma Winstone at the Guildhall and Belgian ensemble Flat Earth Society at Komedia are the only artists booked from the genre at a festival that used to hold major double and triple bills at the Pavilion and concerts at the Guildhall and other venues over the late May bank holiday weekend as its main jazz focus. The festival’s artistic focus in the past also did much to stimulate much needed interest in the wider European scene when few festivals of its kind in England outside London presented jazz from the continent, particularly from France and Italy. A new artistic director has substantially changed the policy at the festival this year and locals aren’t happy. An open letter to the chief executive of Bath Festivals by local resident Tony Pugh published in the Bath Chronicle in April for instance made this point: “The festival website claims that ‘our festivals champion diversity’ but I would suggest that this year’s programme is at odds with this. It has a distinct lack of musical diversity as jazz, world music and rock hardly get a look in.” The change in policy lies squarely in the hands of the new artistic director Alasdair Nicolson, previously of the St Magnus International Festival in the Orkney Islands, who has downgraded jazz at the festival. Unless Nicolson has a change of heart jazz at the Bath festival will go down the plughole while he’s in charge. Stephen Graham