Lets start with a little look back to last week. 

Lots of disruption caused by snow AGAIN.

SO thanks go especially to the band who were all there before the audience (in every sense of the word “before”). Then thanks again to you, our intrepid audience. At least 20 of you made it, and we did have a very good sociable and musical evening. Sensibly due to the falling snow we shortened the evening by half an hour, this for the first time EVER! I do hope all of you got home safely.

Below are my photos of the evening (well of the band anyway), albeit a little on the colourful side as for some reason my camera refused to flash (too cold for a flasher?) and it managed the evening  all on “night time” settings.

Now there is a little story associated with the request that was played in the truncated second half. Our “celebration” quintet don’t often ask for, or get requests from, the audience for tunes to be played, something that we often did at Hedsor in the past. Once Upon a Time one member of the audience, who sadly is no longer with us, used to bring a list of tunes every week and hand them to Clive! However the (verbal) request made last Thursday came from me, and this is why.

My request was “I Can’t Get Started”, a popular song, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by Vernon Duke written in 1936.

It became very popular around 1938 when it was played and recorded (in fact twice) by trumpet player and band leader Bunny Berigan (it had originally been sung by Bob Hope in the 1936 Zeigfeld Follies)!

Now, I usually try and listen ever Saturday to BBC Radio 3’s “Jazz Record Requests”, and the second Bunny Berigan version of the tune has become the most requested tune on that program. 

However a couple of weeks ago a request came in for a song by Nancy Wison from an album she recorded in 1961 with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. The song was “Happy Talk”, which in fact didn’t have Cannonball Adderley on it anyway (it did have pianist Jo Zawinul, an Austrian pianist who later came to fame with Miles Davis and later with "Weather Report")!

So what is the link to my requested song? On the LP release of Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley that “Happy Talk” tune is on, “I Can’t Get Started” is played as an instrumental on side 1! No singer, no trumpet! I just thought it would be fun just to see what “our” band of musicians made of it. Didn’t they do well!! And my thanks to Kelvin Christiane who took up the challenge made by me during the interval!

"That" LP Cover

So what of this weeks Jazz at Hedsor?

This week clarinettist Martin Nickless was supposed to be joining forces with vibraphone star Alan Grahame. Sadly for us, he has “had” to go on a cruse! In his place, with feet firmly on the ground, will be guitarist John Coverdale. On keyboard we will have Ken McCarthy, plus of course a bass player of their choice and the drummer of ours, Martin Hart!

So as the used to say in the first days of coffee bars “be there or be square”!

PS. I have NO IDEA why some of the blog text this week has been published with a white background. I didn't request that one!