e17 jazz was set up at the start of 2008 by saxophonist Carlos Lopez-Real, to galvanise the local scene around the many top UK jazz musicians living in the Walthamstow area. We run as a mutually supportive collective with many musicians contributing to our day to day running. Our aims are:

* To promote the arts with particular reference to jazz.
* To raise awareness and understanding of jazz through concerts, education work and collaborations with other arts groups.
* To increase participation in it, through supporting players and composers, and by expanding the audience.


As well as promoting weekly gigs at The Walthamstow Cricket Club, for which we receive funding from PRSF / Jazz Services, we recently hosted our first one-day festival, funded by the Arts Council, which featured a substantial new commission by Liam Noble for our large ensemble. Aside from our own members, other leading local players appearing at the gigs include Julian Siegel, Jonathan Gee, and Tim Giles.

We’ve been involved in a number of collaborations with local partners including the McGuffin Film Society (we composed, improvised and performed music for their silent film night), Apex Arts (who funded us to explore musical relationships with the Asian community), Friends of Lloyd Park (with whom we co-promoted the summer ‘jazz in the park’ day, drawing an audience of close to 1000), and The William Morris Gallery (with whom we’re currently exploring intimate new performance opportunities as part of the ‘museums at night’ initiative).

For information on Membership, the structure of e17 jazz and to download a copy of our constitution, please click here.