Ffeil / File 1 - Women's Jazz Archive/Women In Jazz

The Jazz Heritage Wales Collection (Casgliad Treftadaeth Jazz Cymru) was founded in 1986 as the Women's Jazz Archive by pianist, historian and author Professor Jen Wilson. It is based at University of Wales Trinity St David, Swansea and also occupies premises in the Maritime Cultural Quarter of Swansea, adjacent to the Swansea Museum and the Dylan Thomas Theatre. At its relaunch in 2002, it was renamed Women in Jazz. The organisation became a registered charity in 1998 and has been run since then by a Board of Trustees. Its patrons include celebrated jazz and pop singer Dame Cleo Laine, Paula Gardiner, head of Jazz Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and Huw Warren, winner of the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation. Jazz Heritage Wales (incorporating the Jazz Archive Collection) is the only multi-media resource in Britain which focuses on the contribution made by Wales to British jazz culture. In addition, emphasis is placed upon lesser known aspects of Wales' jazz heritage, such as the rôle played by women jazz musicians and the influence of African-American music within Welsh jazz. The latest in a long line of honours accorded Jazz Heritage Wales was the St David Award for Culture, bestowed by the Welsh Government in 2017.

Blues and jazz singer Blanche Finlay was born in Jamaica to a Jamaican father and American mother. She emigrated to Britain in the 1950s, settling in Manchester. Her early musical influences were Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. She dedicated much of her life to the support and encouragement of others and took on many socio-political rôles, including that of Manchester's Women's Equality Development Officer. She donated many of her stage gowns to the Jazz Heritage Collection.

Anna Ottilie Patterson (1932-2011) was a blues singer best known for her performances with the Chris Barber Jazz Band during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Born in Comber, Co. Down of Northern Irish/Latvian parentage, Ottilie Patterson joined the band in December 1954 and made her first public appearance with them at the Royal Festival Hall, London in January 1955. She was married to Chris Barber from 1959 to 1983 and retired from the band in 1973.

Born in Hertfordshire in 1939 as Elaine Hutchinson, Elaine Delmar is the daughter of trumpeter, vocalist and bandleader Leslie Hutchinson. She studied piano as a child and was singing with her father's band at age sixteen before later embarking on a solo career.