It’s that Nagging Blog again!

But why? I hear you cry.

Well the primary intention of my almost weekly blog is to encourage you and to nag you, into listening to JAZZ.

AND especially to get you to listen to LIVE JAZZ played by real people, who eat and drink, and very often can converse with you. AND who play musical instruments in a group in a publicly accessible place!!

BUT Best of all I would be ever so pleased if you came and listened to all of that at The Hedsor Bar on a Thursday!

If you felt like coming out to Hedsor THIS Thursday you would find a couple (well, five really) who will entertain and amuse you with the same quality of performance as if you went to London’s West End and paid out a lot of money. Who are they? Well first of all there is singer and actress called 

Jenny Howe http://www.jennyhowe.com/ Go one, risk a click and find out more about her. She has been to Hedsor Jazz before and we are delighted to invite her back.

She will be accompanied out front by a wonderful saxophonist called

Duncan Lamont Jr  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqC_XifpJGE  click and see and hear more about Duncan. BUT he has been a great supporter and friend of Hedsor Jazz.

Jenny and Duncan at Hedsor in 2024

They are all kept propelled buy our rhythm section which includes Ken McCarthy on keyboard, Peter Hughes on bass and Mike Jeffries on drums. I can assure you that if you search out those names for yourselves on your favourite search engine you will find that they are all a prodigious talent.

At Hedsor Jazz this week you can hear all five of them for just £10. And you can park your car for free! Try that in London. Oh by the way we don’t have a congestion charge or Pollution tax to bother you either. If public transport is your thing Bourne End Railway Station is a short walk way. Route Planner tells me it is 5223 feet!! Alam Nathoo does sometimes come to play The Hedsor Bar on foot!

Last week we had just 2 players for your £10! But it was still incredible value for money because those 2 happened to be Alan Barnes and Dave Newton.

My photos below cannot give any clue as to the sheer musical experience we had (you missed it??). These two world class musicians have duetted together for over 45 years, so they are in practice! Alan is also an experienced musical host, who told us stories about the music, about themselves, and some even about US!! Dave appeared to play with his entire body (as a member of the audience said) and certainly we all wondered how he got all of those notes out of his keyboard. It was a great night, supported by a great audience.

We at Hedsor Jazz will try and bring music like that to you every week, just as we have been doing since 2002. But to continue to do so we need YOU as an audience.

Like many regular public events our audience has shrunk since covid. People have got used to simply not going out. Tinned TV, tinned music and tinned beer (!?) all delivered to your residence has meant that our jazz audience has shrunk, and we really are in danger of not being able to continue. So please do try and support live jazz. Especially Live Hedsor Jazz.

The bill of fare for the next 4 weeks is shown in the poster below. Please display to the public!

As someone who has a huge collection of tinned music at home, I do sometimes get to play some of it!

One CD recently pulled from the shelves has an unlikely title. “Piano in the Background” is a Duke Ellington Orchestra CD from the later end of his career, recorded in 1960 (he died in 1975). The Duke was never self effacing, but this album was released just before a trio album called “Piano in the Foreground”! 

The first track is a slightly shortened version of one he originally recorder in 1946 called “Happy Go Lucky Local”. This tune was later identically copied by another musician and released, as his work, as “Night Train”!

The album does go on to include some other well know Ellington works (“Rockin’ in Rhythm”, and “Take the A Train” for example), but they are all performed with such vitality that it reminds me of how great a debt we own to Duke Ellington and His Orchestra in showing us what big band jazz can be like and how exciting it can be. It is an excellent, well recorded release. My CD copy is on Columbia Legacy 512919 2 but I know that it was re released in 2018 on vinyl.

 

 

That’s it for now folks, See you ALL on Thursday!

Hi, time for a little light blogging.

Life has been a bit hectic of late, and apart from trying hard not to miss a Hedsor Jazz Thursday, I haven’t had time for a lot of listening. I do have a lot of recorded music at home here in Cronin Towers and of late I have kind of ignored it. Later in this edition I will write up about part of my collection.

First though I must highlight this coming Thursdays Hedsor Jazz on August 14th. It will be a truly special evening as we have one of Britain’s busiest and very affable jazz saxophonists Alan Barnes coming to Hedsor to play duets with his Leeds collage room mate pianist Dave Newton. 

Yes Hedsor will have just 2 musicians playing on Thursday. But what musicians!

In order to help me celebrate two of life’s milestones, 87 years of life and 66 years of marriage, I have invited Alan and Dave to come and play duets for me, and any of you who would like to come along.

Alan has been to Hedsor a number of times before, but it will be the first time Dave has come to us. The evening will be intimate, enthralling and a truly wonderful experience. Two musicians who are at the top of their game and who have known each other for over 40 years.

On Thursday August 14^th we have the Alan Barnes & Dave Newton Duo

​Alan Barnes and David Newton have been playing duets together for over 40 years. These multi award-winners cover a vast repertoire from Louis Armstrong to Chick Corea and play with an empathy that can only come with long experience. The emphasis, as always, is on swinging, accessibility and interplay. Expect a hugely entertaining programme of straight ahead jazz flawlessly played and interspersed with lots of anecdotes. And that is from their web entry!!

The last time I heard them together was at The Swanage Jazz festival in 2024. They filled the marquee and held everyone’s attention. To have them in the Hedsor Bar will give everyone a chance to hear the music in proximity. Don’t miss out.

 

Last week we had an excellent evening of music presented by Al Nicholls and Lester Brown. A different style from the week before with Bruce Adams and Duncan Lamont Jr. It’s not often we start off an evening with “The Sheik of Araby”, include Basie’s “9.20 Special”, and conclude with Ellingtons “Cottontail” BUT we did last week. And you missed it?

My photos are below.

 

 

Now what was the CD that caught my attention last week.

In the Cd’s for sale box was a quartet album on the Concord label by The Frank Capp Trio with saxophonist Ricky Woodard and it reminded me of a CD it took me a long time to find in the late 1990’s.

Drummer Frank Capp led a big band called “Juggernaut” in 1977. I did eventually find a copy of the CD I wanted which was called “In a Hefty Bag”. This was quickly followed by another CD even more simply called “Juggernaut” where Frank was joint leader with pianist Nat Pierce in 1994.

Playing the quartet album featuring saxophonist Ricky Woodard for the first time so inspired me that I dug out both big band CD’s and played them again after a number of years of them staying in the rack. They are great examples of West Coast big band music.

Both are truly excellent, and playing them led me to pull out another that had laid idle for some years, the Thad Jones, Mel Lewis orchestras CD called “Central Park North” this time recorded in New York in 1969

Details and cover art are below

The Frank Capp Trio with Ricky Woodard   Concord CCD 4469

The Frank Capp Juggernaut “In a Hefti Bag”  Concord CCD 1655

Capp/Pierce “Juggernaut”  Concord CCD 4040

Thad Jones. Mel Lewis “Central Park North”  Blue Note 7243 5 76853 2 0

 

Finally just a little advance notice about two gigs already booked for September 2025

Sept 4^th   Alam Nathoo tenor sax with Stuart Henderson trumpet

Sept 11^th Al Nicholls tenor sax with Lester Brown trumpet and Nigel Fox keyboard

 

  

 Even the most carefully crafted plans of mice and men do sometimes have to be changed. 

And so it is with Hedsor Jazz's plans for August 7th.

Very sadly neither saxophonist Alam Nathoo NOR trumpeter Stuart Henderson can make that day. BUT we have been able to book two other favourite players in their place. They play a style different to that of Alam and Stuart, but saxophonist Al Nicholls is a wonderful player and a long associate of us at Hedsor. And he will be joined by "our" Lester Brown on trumpet.

So it will still be three trumpeters in a row. 

So to clarify August below is a revised poster for you to print off and publish.

 Many thanks.

 Goodness Gracious, at long last a blog from Geoff!!

Yes, a number of weeks have gone by since my last attempt at information and amusement via blogspot has been fingered via my keyboard.  But it has to be done today, only to say you may NOT get one next week!!

Excuses are around. First it was The Swanage Jazz Festival (which I will write more about soon), then a short holiday break looking after a very bad tempered cat whilst my daughter was in Greece. The cat and I were in Ipswich!!

Next week may be missed as my Granddaughter is getting married and I will be in Gloucestershire!!

Nonetheless what happens at Hedsor Jazz does carry on almost relentlessly! And ALWAYS with great quality.

And what a quality product we have for you this week. For the third week in a row we will feature a trumpet player, and this week it is Bruce Adams. He is a wonderful player in a kind of bravura style, blowing top notes with real aggression, especially as he is a really nice bloke, do buy him a pint!! This time he is being partnered at Hedsor Jazz with one of our long standing supporters, saxophonist Duncan Lamont Jr. Behind both will be the usual suspects acting as the Hedsor Jazz rhythm section! Do come, both musicians have a great musical heritage, and putting them together should create some magic.

 

Sadly I was unable to make last Thursdays session at Hedsor. Tracy told me “Thursday was very good    see the tune list”!!

So you shall!!   It went like this:-

 1. What is this thing called love 

 2. Stomping at the Savoy by Edgar Samson 

 3. Little Sunflower by Freddie Hubbard 

 4. Sandy by Clifford Brown 

 5. Soulful Bill 

 6. Green Dolphin Street 

 

 1. Strolling by Horace Silver

 2. Ode to a flugelhorn by Clark Terry 

 3. Everything I Love by Cole Porter 

 4. Some other time by Leonard Bernstein 

 5. Minor Chant by Jimmy Smith Back at chicken Shack 

 6. Take the A Train

And they were all played by

Stuart Henderson 

Martin Dunston 

Peter Hughes 

Nigel Fox 

Mike Jeffries 

The previous couple of weeks I did manage to get to The Hedsor Bar sandwiched between my away days.

So my photos below are for July 10^th which had saxophonist Mark Aston paired with guitarist James Fenn. James had recently returned from a gig at Glastonbury and Mark was about to go to Swanage (I did go and see him there, more about Swanage in a separate blog later in the month, probably the month of August!)

I made comment to James about his black guitar and he told me that as it was such a hot day he had brought out his carbon fibre model. This is apparently easier to keep in tune on a hot day. It sounded pretty good but he assured me it was a budget model manufactured in CHINA (the country not the material!). I’ll leave you to guess at the concept of “budget” for James!

As I have mentioned Swanage, below my pictures from July 10^th is one of Swanage at sunset!!

 

Mark playing trad BARITONE at Swanage

Swanage at Sunset

The week of July 17^th was the first of the trio of trumpet players, and we were joined by one of Britain’s trumpet educators, Steve Waterman. He is a professor of Jazz Trumpet at Trinity College of Music in London and visiting Jazz Trumpet specialist at The Royal Northern College Of Music and The Welsh College Of Music And Drama. 

His playing is superb and melodic but he is also able to slowly release energy and increase pressure. Some VERY high notes were played!

He was joined on 6 tunes by the Ealing Jazz Festival Star singer Gill Cook, who has Steve on at least one of her CDs

Steve Waterman

 

Gill Cook

Coming in August

We can look forward to more trumpet on August 7^th as Stuart Henderson is reunited with saxophonist  Alam Nathoo. This is a partnership that we put together at Hedsor in January, and we have tried to make the pairing every month since. They both have spectacular ability, and we think putting them together makes for a very exciting evening of jazz.

Stuart and Alam back in February

 

I really do have to ask myself with this kind of performer coming to Hedsor every week why did I go to Swanage for a jazz festival? We have a feast of festival quality jazz every week at Hedsor Jazz.

And just to underline that point on August 14^th two mega festival stars are coming to Hedsor. Saxophonist Alan Barnes and pianist David Newton.

Alan Barnes at Hedsor in 2024

David Newton from his web page https://davidnewtonjazzpiano.com/

Yes this time it is just the two musicians. But they have been playing duets together for about 30 years! They shared the same room at The Leeds Collage of Music! They have been at the forefront of British Jazz ever since.

“Just two instruments” I hear you ask. Yes, but I can assure you that you wont be bored. The skilful interplay and individual improvisation will astound you. To be able to listen to them in the relatively intimate setting of the room at the Hedsor Bar will be a delight.

OK all we need now is for you, not just to read these words, but for you to come and hear the musicians I write about.

Hedsor Jazz! It should not be the best kept secret in jazz!

A BLOG to cover the next couple of weeks, as we have entered the jazz festival season.

Going to jazz festivals used to be a regular part of my summer, with Swanage and Brecon regular parts of each for many years. Swanage still remains for by me, but with my advancing years even the travel to that is becoming a bit of a chore. Having been going for over 25 years one does get to know many jazz fans from different parts of the country and we become a bit like a big jazz family. Chatting over who we have seen and what we think of it is part of jazz festival breakfasts.

If you have never been to a jazz festival do consider it. It can be a very rewarding experience.

However who and what we put on at Hedsor Jazz every week is a bit like a jazz festival. Many of the musicians I expect to see in Swanage we have seen at Hedsor, and some I’m sure will be coming!

We do have listings now for every week for July and August, and they are reproduced below.

We have been seeking better cooperation with the management of Hedsor Bar, and we are going to try out one or two of there suggestions, so please bear with us if the room isn’t as you saw it last time! The idea is to make it less daunting for newcomers to access the room, and to enable late entry without embarrassment. However if we feel that the prime reasons for running Hedsor Jazz aren’t met, we will go back to previous ones, or try a different new one! We want to ensure first class musical presentation and sound so that we can all have a first rate evening out.

 

Last weeks evening out (pictures below) was absolutely first class, with New Orleans singer Nanci Zhang singing for us four times through the evening.  The combined musical abilities of both Alam Nathoo on tenor sax and Tom White on trombone were formidable such that one of our PA loudspeakers collapsed to the floor!!

 

As you will see from the poster art above we have a terrific few weeks ahead of us. Saxophonist and club organiser in his own right Mark Aston will be with us this week, hopefully bringing a guest of his choice.

The following week, pinch yourself, a superstar is coming to Hedsor Jazz. Steve Waterman (https://www.stevewaterman.co.uk/bio) is a professor of Jazz Trumpet at Trinity College of Music in London and visiting Jazz Trumpet specialist at The Royal Northern College Of Music and The Welsh College Of Music And Drama. Not only that but we have joining him Singer Gill Cook. (https://www.gillcook.co.uk/). Steve is featured on one of her albums and I first saw her at an Ealing Jazz Festival singing to hundreds of people. She has sung for me a number of times and on different occasion, and has also been to Hedsor many times. It should be a really great evening of jazz.

Another great trumpet star is coming to Hedsor before the month is out (31^st July). A return visit by Bruce Adams. And he will be partnered with a real friend of Hedsor Jazz saxophonist Duncan Lamont Jr.

All we need to make Hedsor Jazz more perfect is MORE AUDIENCE. Tell you friends and spend just £10 for 2 hours of great jazz. And it is every week!!

Oh, and make sure you keep this blog in your inbox to read next week. I won’t have time to write more and the next blog issue will include my thoughts on this years Swanage Jazz Festival. Take a preview:-

https://swanagejazzfestival.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/SJF-full-programme-2025.pdf