WORLD-RENOWNED musician Digby Fairweather has been instrumental in preserving Southend’s jazz heritage and history - and is now taking it a step further.

Over the years, Mr Fairweather has worked extremely hard to promote the borough’s jazz culture. In February 2016, he founded the Jazz Centre UK, located in the Beecroft Art Gallery, in Victoria Avenue, Southend.

He said: “We’ve never had a centre such as this one in the UK before despite the fact that jazz music in some form has been in Britain for well over 100 years.

“In all that time there’s only ever been one previous attempt in London in l982 but it collapsed.

“It’s taken exactly 30 years for my great Board of Trustees and outstanding volunteer team to start to put things right.”

Now, Mr Fairweather is expanding by opening a jazz heritage museum which will have a jazz cafe and heritage room.

“The museum will be a centre for jazz collections and the music’s history, as well as encouraging more people to appreciate the genre.

When they open, jazz enthusiasts will find a treasure trove of jazz memorabilia, from the Twenties to the present day, including the Humphrey Lyttelton Archives and the “Louis Armstrong Special” trumpet designed and played by the late musician himself.

Mr Fairweather added: “We’re putting the finishing touches to the heritage exhibitions and our jazz cafe.

“People will be able to come in five days a week from October 7 to listen to jazz in comfort, pick up a book or magazine and watch our spectacular ‘visual images of jazz’ display on our newly-designed screen.

“I think it’s very exciting because there’s a huge revival in jazz at the moment. We have great patrons supporting us.

“Among them are Jools Holland, Sir Van Morrison, Sir Michael Parkinson, Dame Cleo Laine, Paul Jones and our good friends Chas and Dave, who played a charity concert for us recently to raise funds to help upgrade our premises.

“So I think we are on the brink of something really big and Southend Council deserves all our thanks for making it happen.

“It would be a colossal injustice if we didn’t have a jazz museum.”

Mr Fairweather said the musical genre had been on the decline when the Beatles took the country by storm in the early Sixties.

After the Beatles’ heyday, rock and pop dominated the Seventies music scene, and jazz continued to be sidelined.

Mr Fairweather said: “Over the years the music industry had pushed jazz aside but it still thrives. Basically jazz is a self-expressive art, and the music comes from the human soul. You are playing from the heart. It has survived for more than 100 years and I believe it will continue to do so.”

Mr Fairweather quoted the words of trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, who said: “Jazz is like a rock pool. When the tide of musical fashion come in the rock pool is hidden for a while.

“But when the tide goes out, there’s the rock pool again, brimming with life and activity.”

The Jazz Cafe and Heritage Room will open on Saturday, October 7. Sir David Amess will be at the opening at 11am to cut the ribbon.