TALK show legend Sir Michael Parkinson is such a lover of jazz that he has pledged to donate the proceedings of his forthcoming show in Southend to a musical charity based in the town.

An Evening With Sir Michael Parkinson will come to the Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff, on Saturday, December 3.

The event will give the veteran broadcaster the opportunity to meet with his good friend, Rochford-born cornettist Digby Fairweather, 70.

Such is the extent of their friendship, Sir Michael has pledged to give his fee for the show to Jazz Centre UK, based in Southend.

Sir Michael, 81, said: “I am doing the show for Digby Fairweather, a dear friend for many years who I admire very much, but I am mostly doing it for jazz, the music I love most of all. Jazz is the foundation of all popular music and I’m very willing to do anything to help make The Jazz Centre UK in Southend work.

“My show is a celebration of all the people I’ve interviewed, some funny, some sad, some outrageous and some musical.”

Echo:

Firm friends - Digby Fairweather and Sir Michael Parkinson

The Jazz Centre UK, based in the Beecroft Art Centre, in Victoria Avenue, Southend, opened in February as an independent charity to supplement the work of the National Jazz Archive; a storehouse of jazz information and documents, which is based in Loughton and was founded by Digby in 1988.

The Jazz Centre UK, a newly-registered charity and also the brainchild of Digby, is the first jazz centre of its kind to open in the UK.

Currently it houses a cinema, an extensive range of jazz books, journals and films as well as objects including Louis Armstrong’s trumpet and Sir John Dankworth’s first piano.

Plans for its growth include a full jazz heritage museum, an art gallery, a research centre, a jazz cafe and a sound archive of recorded jazz.

It is also working on an exciting and ambitious project to build a replica of London’s legendary 100 Club, (the first jazz club to be opened in Britain in 1942 in Oxford Street), in the open atrium adjoining the Beecroft Arts Centre.

Digby said: “I see Sir Michael quite a bit, because we are old friends and back in the Eighties he was one of the first patrons of the archive. Recently we met for lunch and I told him about some of the plans for The Jazz Centre UK, for which we need funding.

“He said, ‘would you like me to do my new show for you?’ and I asked him what he meant. And Michael said ‘I’ll present my one-man show, An Evening with Sir Michael Parkinson, free of charge and you can have the money to go towards the plans for the jazz centre’.

“He also said ‘whatever you want me to do in terms of promoting The Jazz Centre UK, then you only have to ask’.

“Of course I’m absolutely thrilled by Michael’s generosity and support for our plans.”

Digby added: “We’ll be having a Christmas party at the Jazz Centre during the day of December 3, which is the date of Michael’s show too of course. We’ll be showing jazz and blues films throughout the day, with live jazz music in the afternoon. It’ll be one heck of a party. Then we’ll all go along to the Cliffs Pavilion to watch Michael.”

An Evening With Sir Michael Parkinson will be taking place on Saturday December 3, at the theatre in Station Road, where he will be in conversation with his son Mike and showing highlights from the Parkinson archive.

Tickets are on sale from £22.50, available via southendtheatres.org.uk or the box office on 01702 351135.