The couple behind Malaga's growing global jazz scene

Lara Bello and Rajiv Jayaweera are two of the musicians behind Malaga's recently formed Amajazz association which meets every Thursday at La Polivalente in Calle Lagunillas in Malaga city.

Lara, 45, is originally from Granada where she has been involved with the music scene almost her whole life. Rajiv, 44, was born in London where he spent the first six years of his life before his family, who have Sri Lankan heritage, moved to Melbourne, Australia.

Lara started to study classical music and violin, but soon knew that she was drawn to more modern and jazz styles. She says that when she was growing up there "were not so many schools in Granada with modern music or jazz". She was looking for somewhere where she could explore different styles and moved to Barcelona to study jazz.

When Lara started to perform she said it was "not any specific style, they were my own songs, some more classical, some flamenco". She has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, at the Damascus International Jazz Festival in Syria and at festivals in China and Colombia, to name a few.

The singer-songwriter recorded her first album in 2009 and moved to New York in 2010. "I already knew some people there as I had been before," she says.

While in 'The Big Apple' she founded and directed the Al Andalus Festival and was curator and chair of programming for the city's Latin Jazz organisation.

Like Lara, Rajiv was also involved in his local music scene, playing drums, piano and trumpet at school and going on to tour in Australia and Europe with different jazz bands before he moved to New York in 2011 to do a Masters in Jazz Studies.

While Lara is a singer and composer, Rajiv's main love has always been the drums. He has toured extensively around the world, performing at the Lincoln Centre, The Cotton Club, the London Jazz Festival and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival among many others.

That shared love of jazz and experience of travelling with their music brought the pair together in New York, through mutual friends. They stayed until 2020 when they made the decision to come (back in Lara's case) to Spain.

Since then they have firmly established themselves on the Costa del Sol's music scene. They both perform, together and individually, locally, around Spain and in different countries in Europe. Their latest project is Amajazz, which they co-founded with Malaga saxophonist Enrique Oliver.

Lara and Rajiv say of the motivation for setting up the association, "There are not so many places for musicians to perform in Malaga" and they wanted to provide a space for them.

However, they are keen to point out that Amajazz is a lot more than a space for musicians performing. They say that anyone who is a lover of jazz music, but not necessarily a musician, is welcome to join and that they organise a range of activities related to jazz music including talks, forums, classes.

They currently meet at La Polivalente in Calle Lagunillas every Thursday evening but their "long term goal is to find a more permanent venue". They say that members reflect Malaga's international community and the association is "open to everyone who wants to join".

This month they will be hosting Argentinian musician Guillermo Klein with a series of concerts, workshops and talks. They are also keen to make women in jazz more visible, and are hoping to bring in female jazz musicians in the coming months.

When they aren't working with the association, Lara is busy working on her next album and composing music for other projects including the Granada music and dance festival.

Rajiv performs with different groups in and out of Spain and is always on the lookout for musicians who are interested in playing here.

"Malaga is a good spot to be in and the airport is well-connected," they agree.