As the arts funding climate darkens, and the daily clamour mounts to stop cuts (excuse me, how could the Royal Opera possibly function without its ten salaried Press Officers?), please can we spare a particularly sweet thought for those who produce hundreds and thousands of gigs without it.The five year-round jazz venues in London - Ronnie Scott's, Pizza Express Dean Street, 606, Vortex and Bulls Head- all unfunded, host jazz virtually every night of the week. If you do the same maths I do, the total number of gigs at these five venues alone must approach THREE THOUSAND in a year.Concerning the Arts Council funding which does go into jazz promotion and capacity and infrastructure building, low in comparison to most other art forms, RAM postgrad student trumpeter Jack Davies has been trawling ACE documents, and come up with SOME STATS.
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