Jazz, Sofas, Old Friends and the Day Mrs Olley Set Harvey Norman Alight

I missed Friday’s festival launch because I was in court. By Sunday, the music was playing, old friends were appearing between the sofas and even the fire alarm wanted to join in.

The Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival was officially launched at the AC Hotel in The Mailbox on Friday, and by all accounts it was splendid. I say “by all accounts” because I was not there. While decent people listened to music and exchanged civilised conversation, I was in court fighting Birmingham City Council over a legal matter. That tale will be fully reported in GRIT at the proper time. Win, lose or draw, you are going to enjoy my take on it. For now, Friday offered me legal submissions, reserved costs and all the charm of municipal conflict, while everybody else got jazz.

The launch brought together two former MPs, Labour’s Khalid Mahmood and Liberal Democrat John Hemming, along with Cllr Deborah Harries, Birmingham City Council’s Cabinet Member for Culture and Heritage. Seeing those names together revived a lovely political memory. Nearly 17 years ago, Deborah worked in the council’s press operation when Birmingham’s children’s services were under fierce scrutiny. Khalid, then the MP for Perry Barr and never likely to tiptoe past an argument, was refused entry to a council press briefing.

Khalid reminded me later on Friday what happened next. He protested, naturally, but accepted the instruction on one condition: if he could not remain because he was an MP, John Hemming could not remain either. John was then the Liberal Democrat MP for Yardley, so out John went as well. It was a gloriously Birmingham solution. Equality had been achieved, though perhaps not quite as anyone intended. Years later there they all were again, no briefing dispute and nobody being shown the door. Politics moves on, memories soften and jazz appears capable of granting an informal amnesty.

Now in its 42nd year, the festival has again spread music across Birmingham and beyond, with more than 170 performances at more than 100 venues, most of them free. But “free” is not “costless”: musicians need paying, equipment needs moving and organisers need to retain what remains of their sanity. Jim Simpson and his team put live music where people live their lives, including, on Sunday, the sofa department.

By Sunday I was more than ready for my own festival experience. Harvey Norman in Sutton Coldfield was a considerable improvement on Friday’s courtroom atmosphere. Nobody produced a summons, nobody referred me to a statutory provision and the only thing being reserved was possibly the extremely comfortable sofa on which I sat. The Australian retailer opened in April, reviving the old BHS premises at Gracechurch and establishing its UK headquarters in the Royal Town. Sutton has almost acquired its own John Lewis, although Mrs Olley will search in vain for the frock department. It is good to see our cousins from Down Under investing rather than merely arriving to recover the Ashes.

The performers were John Hemming and the Jazz Lobbyists, with Lorraine Olley on vocals. Their promise is “great music, no political agenda”, reassuring when the pianist is a former MP. John arrived armed only with a keyboard, while Mrs Olley sang beautifully. I am not an entirely independent critic, but marriage must permit a little bias when the evidence is plainly in my favour. I listened from one of Harvey Norman’s very fine sofas. This was not idleness but serious product testing in support of local investment. The sofa was admirably suited to jazz, although I stopped short of asking whether it would fit through our front door. That is how a free concert becomes a major household purchase.

Then came the sort of bonus no programme can promise. I bumped into my old friend Lisa, whom I had not seen for years. She once worked as a PA to a director I knew well and now sells sofas, very nice sofas, as I can testify. There she was looking younger than she did all those years ago, delightful for Lisa and mildly irritating for the rest of us. Also there was one of Birmingham’s favoured sons, Basil Gabbidon, founding guitarist of Steel Pulse and a true regent of reggae, supporting the music with his delightful wife, herself a singer with a magnificent voice. They are family friends, and seeing them added another layer of warmth. The best musicians turn out for other musicians too.

That is the real value of the Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival. The music draws you in, but the people make the memory. It turns ordinary spaces into stages and routine outings into reunions. Someone testing a sofa may rediscover an old friend. A former MP may play piano while another remembers the day he had him removed from a council briefing. A man who spent Friday fighting the city council may spend Sunday listening to his wife sing and remember that Birmingham, for all its arguments and absurdities, remains capable of immense warmth.

Then, right at the end of the set, the fire alarm went off. Mrs Olley and the Jazz Lobbyists had spent the afternoon setting the place alight, and the alarm appeared to take the compliment rather too literally. There was no smoke and, as far as I know, no fire, but better safe than sorry. Musicians, shoppers, old friends and assorted members of Birmingham’s political and musical history calmly made their way outside. Nobody panicked, nobody argued and I resisted the temptation to carry the sofa out with me.

So the afternoon ended not with a final chord but with an alarm bell and the audience politely leaving the building. Birmingham rarely allows a good story to finish without one last unexpected detail. When friends meet, hearts warm. When the band begins, old battles lose their sharp edges. And when Mrs Olley sets Harvey Norman on fire, even I know it is time to get off the sofa.