Tuesday, March 11, 2008


Todays Nag will be a short reminder of the next few events in my jazz calendar, starting with:-

Thursday, Hedsor has no actual guests. Mike Wills our regular, and restored to health saxophonist, will be with us for the next few weeks on Thursdays, so do come along and hear some of the harmonies that he and Clive create between them. Last week was a real joy!!
Usual start time of 8.30 pm, usual entry fee of £3, usual raffle hilarity, lets hope that more than the usual suspects turn up!!

Fifield on Sunday, will be a repeat of Thursday, with the exception that it is free to get in, and is funded by a more valuable raffle!! Oh yes, the start time is 8 pm, not 8.30 pm. The landlord likes to get to bed early on a Sunday!

Monday the 17th is our regular Guitar night at Hedsor, with James Fenn in the chair. He brings quality players with him, so come and pay your £5 and see who he brings with him this time! Please tell your friends about this event. We have enjoyed some remarkably talented evenings on these Mondays, but without an increase in audience numbers, this event will have to close (unless I can find a rich sponsor!).

The BIG jazz event in my year, and this time also for Hedsor, is the Cancer Research Jazz Concert on FRIDAY 28th March. Easter will be over, so you wont be "lent" on, but we do want a good turn out for this fundraiser. Remember ALL the profit goes to Cancer Research UK. It promises to be a great evening musically, but we all have more fun when there is a big crowd. This year, joining in the "Dixieland to Swing" theme will be the wonderful Lynn Garner. Tell your friends, print the poster (attached) and put it up for all to see, lets make this one SPECIAL.

A couple of CD's with guitar themes to them have been liberated as far as my cd player this past week, one of them so surprising I couldn't believe it had gone unnoticed in the sales stock for so long.

Guys and Dolls was a super show that I first saw when I was still wearing short trousers. It has some memorable tunes, many of which have become jazz standards. So, perhaps I thought that Harry Allen and Joe Cohn were just going through the financial motions when they recorded a whole album of the songs. I do mean songs, because Rebecca Kilgore and Eddie Erickson join Harry and Joe alongside Chuck Rigg on Drums and Joel Forbes on bass to add the words to the music! It's a wonderful album. Harry Allen is of course well known for his middle period style sax playing, melodic, swinging, punchy sometimes, but always tasteful. Joe Cohn on guitar I hadn't heard so much of before, and is perfectly well suited to join Harry as the front line. For me, for a lot of reasons, the best track on the album is "Sit Down Your Rocking The Boat", but they are all there, "If I Were A Bell", "Luck Be A Lady Tonight", "I've Never Been In Love Before" etc, etc. It's on Arbors Records Jazz Label ARCD 19354.

The CD that had literally been knocking about in the bottom of the box is one by, I presume, a German Guitarist Wolfgang Muthspeil. I don't have any sleeve for this, and all the music looks as though it has been written for or by Wolfgang himself (I may be wonderful but I could be wrong!), Its a trio format, and is a great funky fusion sound. It's called "Bright Side", and is on a label called Material Records and was released in 2005. I'll do some more research before next week, but do look out for it, or him, because its terrific modern jazz.

Well, that's it for now folks,

Turn out for live jazz, or it will get turned off. "thejazz" closes at the end of the month!

Geoff C
http://jazzfromgeoff.blogspot.com/

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