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Tuesday 2nd July Covent Garden Jazz Marching Band

July 2 @ 4:00 pm – 7:30 pm

The Covent Garden Jazz Marching Band

Left to right, Alan Bradley, Dom Coles, Eric Gilchrist ,John Wacher, Chris Gower, Phil Brown, Emile Martyn, Tim Wacher, Digby Fairweather, John Keen, John Beecham, Max Brittain, Chris Hodgkins, Karen Sharp, Julian Stringle

“The annual Rent Ceremony is a weird and wonderful occasion when the Chairman and Trustees march around the Piazza, accompanied by the Town Crier and a jazz band, to pay the “peppercorn rents” of five red apples and five posies of flowers for the buildings, known as The Protected Lands, on which the Trust owns a 150-year head lease.” 

The Covent Garden Jazz Marching Band took part in the Rent Ceremony for 20 years. A “somewhat unique one-off group”, the band started out with just six musicians and in its last year boasted fifteen.

Peter Butler of Jazz & Jazz  has documented the Annual Rent Ceremony and the  Covent Garden Jazz Marching Band for a number of years and you can see his archive with video clips here: A weird and wonderful occasion in Covent Garden