Manchester Jazz Festival 2017: Secret Salon

The details of the secret finale were kept so tightly under wraps that the gig was undoubtedly the most hotly anticipated of the final weekend. Sold out just hours before the doors opened, queues of people surrounded the circumference of the Salon Perdu with an atmosphere of intrigue and excitement beginning to develop ahead of the doors opening at 8.30pm. And we were not disappointed!

The daytime venue was transformed into a nightclub of the past, with character actors in costume from every decade of history and booths of games, photo props and of course Wychwood brews at the bar. Portrait artist @jessicaonpaper was present, offering free portraits to the evenings guests, and the wonderful Horse Orchestra were wandering about amongst the audience getting us hyped up for another set from them during the evening. Handing out raffle tickets, gold and silver tickets, the character actors made the evening a consummate performance, as did our beautiful Madame Perdu, a fabulous character who reportedly had been travelling with the tent since 1917, the release of the first jazz recording! The evening focused on the development of jazz over the last 100 years, and was excellently conceived. Dinosaur pianist and trio leader Elliot Galvin served as our cocktail pianist for the evening, playing jazz standards with a modern flair, intermittently between Horse Orchestra and amongst improv scenes from our character actors.

A special mention deserves to go to our spoken word artist for the evening, whose name we unfortunately were not provided with! However, the artist was a wonderful sport, agreeing to an improv rap with Horse Orchestra drummer Rune Lohse providing a beat. He was so enthusiastic about bringing spoken word to the world of jazz, and so passionate about the roots of hip-hop that he was genuinely endearing, not simply because he silenced the whole spiegeltent with his incredible talent.


This was an evening of sparkling excitement, glitz and glamour, and a perfect finale to the days performances. The only thing to complain about is that The Big Brass Love-In began at Matt and Phreds at 9.30pm, and the Secret Salon did not finish until 10.30pm, meaning that to stay at the Salon (rightly so!) meant that the first set from Llareggub Brass Band was completely missed! A small price to pay for a fabulous evening’s entertainment.