Monday, June 19, 2017

Our sessions of past few weeks at Hedsor Jazz have been different from our normal sessions of the past 15 years.

We have always had guests, sometimes surprise guests, who have “sat in” on the night. For variety, we have always invited different musicians to join with our regular Clive Burton Quintet every now and again, but recently, due to Clive’s fight against Lymphatic cancer, our regular patterns have been disrupted in order to give Clive the time and space that he needs.

I personally think we have kept our music program at a very high standard and I hope we will be able to maintain that standard and that variety.

Last weeks session alone was worth our car park fee!! For your £7 entry Simon Spillett played some magnificent stuff. I for one, don’t take Simon coming to Hedsor for granted. He is a world class award winning player and a great friend to Hedsor Jazz. You will not get that kind of value, that quality and that consistency anywhere else and we Hedsor Jazz is STILL a regular weekly jazz venue.

There being a sort of law, often associated with clods of earth, that not only has Clive been less available, but our regular reed section has been unable to come during this same time period and indeed won’t be with us much again before September. But it has been Hedsor Jazz’s policy to always have at least a Quintet and it may be that this week we will again have the pleasure of guitarist John Coverdale  to help us in this aim.

As our main man this week we will have American saxophonist, now resident in the UK, Frank Griffiths. (He is also renowned as the teller of terrible jokes!). He is a great player though and well  well worth that £7 entry fee. He has also recorded recently with another of our previous guests, singer Tina May and he MAY (ouch, just practicing terrible jokes!) have a few of his CD’s with him, which I’m sure he will be able to pass into your hands for a small fee! 
http://www.frankgriffith.co.uk/


We have another change this week, and also for the next couple of weeks, in the form of Ken McCarthy. Ken was with us last week, and indeed often drops by to sit in. However our regular pianist, Nigel Fox, is taking a few weeks holiday to entertain his sister who is over from France and for the next three sessions at Hedsor Ken will be our pianist.

If all of these changes were not enough there is another change this week. The Red box will be run by ME!!

Do bear with us during our difficulties. DON’T take live jazz for granted, do please keep supporting it, not just at Hedsor. But if you want jazz to continue YOU must continue to be an audience, and SOMETIMES you might need to be asked to help with the chores as well.

Recordings

Live stuff that took place long ago is still around to be listened to. In doing some research on the Lennie Best Quartet, who were regulars at The Bell in Maidenhead back in the 1970’s, I came across a link to some tremendous free to download recordings. Check the link below



So whether it’s the weather (too hot, too wet, too cold, or just British) keep listening and supporting our minority interest……JAZZ

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