A NEW jazz archive celebrating Southend’s rich jazz heritage has been launched aiming to hit the right notes with music fans by providing them with a place to enjoy their favourite genre of music and carry out research.

Jazz supremo Digby Fairweather decided to set up the centre in the Beecroft Art Gallery, in Victoria Avenue, as an additional venue for the National Jazz Archive (NJA), which was set up in 1988 in nearby Loughton.

However, Mr Fairweather has ambitious plans to expand the Southend base and turn it into a hub where visitors can come to look at memorabilia, carry out research or socialise while listening to live performances by local bands.

And the archive has a range of interesting artefacts from some of the jazz greats, including one of Wonderful World singer Louis Armstrong’s trumpets, John Dankworth’s first piano and items from Humphrey Lyttleton and Nat Gonella.

A number of these jazz stars, including Armstrong and Count Basie performed in Southend in the 1960s when places such as the Odeon and Cliffs Pavilion were prominent jazz venues, while the town itself has also produced a number of notable jazz musicians, such as Kenny Baxter, Steve Fishwick and Mick Foster.

“There are some pretty amazing research collections here. We would like it to be a jazz centre where people come out to socialise, but it is also a very interesting research centre for everyone from students to top journalists,” Mr Fairweather added.

The Loughton archive was founded in 1988 by Mr Fairweather, but there is not enough space for the sheer amount of material in there.

The Southend counterpart, which will be run by volunteers and open initially only on Saturday, will feature a research facility, with a wide-range of books, periodicals, records and unpublished material.

The NJA has agreed a ten year deal on the archive with Southend Council with the aim to develop the archive as a cultural centre for Southend offering outreach projects and programmes to raise the profile of jazz and social history in the community.