Wycombe Jazz Festival celebrating music and community in 3rd edition
The festival will showcase a range of up-and-coming and established artists, while raising money for charity
Wycombe Jazz Festival returns for a third year, celebrating music and communities from Buckinghamshire and beyond.
With a lineup of artists, up-and-coming and established, from across the South of England, the festival caters for young and older audiences in a space dedicated to the arts.
The Wycombe Arts Centre is established locally as a charity helping artists showcase their work, while helping the community thrive.
This event will be no exception, embodied in a historical part and building of the town.
Darrel Carter, who works at the Wycombe Arts Centre, said: "Here, it's kind of our job to put it forward, however, I would say the area is predominantly rock based and indie based."
"Especially if you go back a few years, jazz scenes were thriving all around the country and London obviously has always been a hotspot, but we like to see it come outside of London and be established in other areas as well."
"And that's part of our role as the Arts Centre to help push the jazz scene within the area."
The festival was born three years ago from artists Semper Azeez-Harris and Stephanos Karageorgi.
Initially starting as Catch 22 Jams, a monthly jazz session still held at The Frontroom, the pair decided to launch a festival to celebrate what jazz has to offer beyond London.
Semper Azeez-Harris said: "There's lots going on and we're really keen to make sure that it's not just London that has a jazz place, it's also Wycombe, which has been a big part of what we're trying to do."
"The big thing about doing anything like this is about perseverance, determination and a bit of resilience. These things don't happen overnight, there is no secret it's pure hard work."
"And also support, which I must say, Chiltern Railways have been instrumental as well in helping us as well."
Stephanos Karageorgi added: "I think it's been quite noticeable at our past few Catch 22 monthly events that people have actually said 'I came all the way from London for this', and I think that's really showing that of course people from Wycombe go into London for a night, but actually, through at least in part what we're doing, people are coming out from London to come here and we really want to push this area as a destination for live music."
While the music is the primary idea behind the festival, its organisers wanted to give back to the community by raising money for charity.
This year's funds will be allocated to Wycombe Homeless Connection, a charity supporting those sleeping rough in the town.
Semper Azeez-Harris said: "In our last one, we wanted to make sure that we were interacting more with the community, but give them back as well and so it was a really big part to get involved with Wycombe Homeless Connection, which we have done."
"When you go through Wycombe you notice there is a big issue with people being homeless, so we were really keen to help them."
You can find out more about the festival on the Wycombe Arts Centre website.