Arts / Tributes to ‘one of a kind’ Jeff Merrifield
TRIBUTES have been paid to well-known member of the local music and arts scene Jeff Merrifield, who has passed away.
Merrifield more recently was a lead trustee of Jazz and World Sounds (JAWS), but he stepped down from that role last year.
Earlier this year he also launched a fundraising campaign to record his own album – at the age of 81 – that would be inspired by horror-fantasy fiction.
He also co-hosted the Jazz and World Sounds evening programme on BBC Radio Shetland alongside Joy Duncan.
Merrifield – who had the moniker Dr Jazz – had many decades of involvement in community arts, while he also wrote plays and books too.
Speaking to Shetland News in 2023, Merrifield said he had called the isles home for around 15 years.
“I came to Shetland because I was fed up of putting on jazz gigs in Essex,” he said.
“I’d been doing it for far too long and needed to get on with my writing work.
“I wanted to find somewhere quiet and secluded where I could go away and write, and so I came to Shetland.”
JAWS said Merrifield’s death had left them with a “profound sense of gratitude and sorrow”.
“There will be much written on Jeff’s many achievements in music, on his writing, on his influence here in Shetland and the wider music and literary community in the coming days,” it added.
“We wish it to be known that Jeff passed away peacefully at home on Thursday evening in the company of his beloved wife Dawn, to whom we extend our deepest condolences.”
Perhaps one legacy of Merrifield’s involvement in the local music scene will be the many visiting musicians he brought to Shetland, not just in jazz but also acts such as The Blockheads.
Davie Gardner described Merrifield as “one of a kind” as someone who was a “wonderful and inspiring character”.
“His knowledge and understanding of, his support and enthusiasm for and sheer love of music (and for those who make and create it – and indeed people in general) knew few equals and he will be missed in so many ways,” he said.
Merrifield was among those who originally set up The Bop Shop on Lerwick’s Market Street, when it was used as a home for the Shetland Jazz Club – prior to the group becoming JAWS.
Eight years ago he passed the premises onto the “next generation”, with the building now hosting a pop-up record shop every month.
The current Bop Shop committee said Merrifield was an “absolute powerhouse for ideas and always made his ideas happen with buckets of enthusiasm and an unshakable can-do energy”.
“Jeff had an insatiable passion for music, he brought world class artists to Shetland and also encouraged so many fledgling local artists to get up and play too,” the committee added.
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