I have been writing this blog, (https://jazzfromgeoff.blogspot.com), since around August 2005. 

Back in the day I had a lot to write about. You can look back via the app (https://jazzfromgeoff.blogspot.com/2005/08/), but just in passing, there were more local jazz events to go out too, including jazz at The Old Bell at Wooburn, The Fifield Arms at Fifield, and of course Hedsor, initially at The Garibaldi, and then to The Hedsor Social Club as it was then.

And there were jazz festivals galore. Mention back then in the blog of Brecon (now going again) Marlborough, and of course Swanage. Looking at my photo taken in Swanage that year there is Alan Barnes, but also on stage it looks like trumpeter Steve Waterman. They have both played Hedsor this year! Back in 2005, we would have been astounded if such stars had come to Hedsor!

Then there were the CD reviews. New stuff on cd to be listened to each month! Our sale of second hand CDs was started around that year as well, and they sold for £5 each then! Now maybe I can get £1 each for them (all the money does go to Cancer Research UK, and I have around £70 to pay in at the moment).

Yes you can stream your favourites now, but in a way actually owning the music, even in such a small way as by purchasing a CD, made you listen and value the music far more than listening to Spotify does. AND I must be one of the small army of people who listen when I can to the “live” broadcast of “Jazz Record Requests” on BBC Radio 3 every Sunday afternoon. To me there is something of a feeling of kinship with all the other listeners when doing so at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon. It may not be what Sundays are designed for, but still, it does bring to me a feeling of community to listen together with others.

And so to October 2025. Jazz in Hedsor is still going, but not at Fifield or at Wooburn Green.

But jazz in Hedsor is only just about surviving. 

Last weeks excellent session, with Pete Rudeforth on trumpet and Sue Geenway on reeds with Ester Ng on bass, all stars in there own right, pulled in 13 paying public to listen. Yes we paid the band, AND I apologised to the band for the non audience. Sadly they had seen that phenomena elsewhere before. 

Hedsor Jazz is carrying on weekly, and we have plans in place on December 18^th for a Christmas party! 

But we will have to charge those who come a bit more every week. 

From this week you will have to pay at the sign £12 per person to come in and listen. I know it is inconvenient, and we do only take cash.

Coming this week, October 2^nd, 2 more star players will be with us at The Hedsor Bar. Stuart Henderson on trumpet and Alam Nathoo on reeds. They are both absolutely wonderful musicians, and even at our increased entry fee, it is a bargain to see such quality in a little village like Hedsor, with club bar prices and free car parking.

Stuart and Alam

 

But don’t forget where it is, you would pay much more to hear jazz of this quality at London’s South Bank. AND at The Hedsor Bar, you can actually talk to the musicians and buy them a pint. Try that in Wembley Stadium. Oasis? No water!! 

 

WATER? Hedsor Wharf on the other hand became a river crossing around 1579 but became unused after 1830!

 

Pictures various below.

Good Tuesday bloggers. And as I write, a nice bright sunny morning.

First a bit of the not nice news.

As I have been hinting these past few months in this blog, Hedsor Jazz at a £10 entry fee hasn’t been paying its way. Even with an attendance of 20 people per week (and often we have had less paying entrants) we have been loosing money every week.

So sadly, from October we are putting our entry fee up to £12 per week. Yes, it does mean coinage, as we do only take cash at the door and it will be inconvenient, but we didn’t want to increase our charge to £15 (easier to handle notes!) for a weekly event. If there are 2 of you, we thought the increase would be just too much. Even at £12 per week, if we only get 20 paying attendees, we wont make enough money to pay our way, but it will go some way in helping us keep going.

We don’t intend to drop the quality of the music, I think what we get at Hedsor is amazing.

We still aim to have quality names like Bruce Adams and Art Themen (both together at Hedsor Jazz on October 16^th) amongst our guest list, and unless we can have a really interesting smaller band (like Alan Barnes and Dave Newton as in August) we intend to have a Quintet to provide the music (usually 2 at the front and 3 at the back!!). If you are a Jazz Angel (a monthly subscriber) you may want to adjust your gift to compensate. We hope you wont, but we realise that you can, and may need to in these difficult (especially for those of us on a pension) times.

So having got that bit of unpleasantness off my chest (of drawers?) look who we have coming this Thursday, September 25^th. On reeds multifarious, Sue Greenway from Oxfordshire, and on trumpet, ex Chris Barber, Pete Rudeforth. They are the 2 at the front, and included in the 3 at the back we will have on keyboard our musical director Ken McCarthy. We look forward then to a truly great evening, provided to us by well known and experienced musicians.

If you haven’t been recently why not give us another try. 8pm till 10.30pm with a ½ hour break for conversation at 9.30pm. Free car parking, club bar prices.

For our first £12 evening on October 2^nd we will have two favourites of ours at the front, Stuart Henderson on trumpet and Alam Nathoo on reeds.

Sadly (for more than one reason) I was unable to attend Hedsor Jazz last week, but Tracy (the lady near the front who takes your money) I have a couple of photos from the night. I am told by our musical director that it was one of the best nights we have had this year! I’m literally gutted that I wasn’t there!

Martin Dunsdon

Matt Hill

Stuart Barker

You will note that Matt Hill appears to be much younger than the picture of him in last weeks blog! Two trumpet players with the same name! The one above is the one we had!!

A Special Notice

A Jazzy Christmas with Paul Edis & friends - 5th December, Holy Trinity Church Cookham  Join us for a sparkling collection of Christmas hits reimagined as swinging big band numbers, sambas and much more. Performed by some of the leading lights on the UK jazz scene including Paul Edis (piano), Jo Harrop (vocals) and Vasilis Xenopoulos (sax), don’t miss this fabulous way to kick off the festive season...

 

 

Join us on Friday 5th December at 7.30pm

 

 

Tickets £15 Doors Open at 6:45PM Starts at 7:30PM Bar available before and during the interval Buy online or call Ros on 01628 476963   Holy Trinity Church Cookham SL6 9SP

Hi Everyone,

I’m sure when I was young time lasted longer!! Now after many life years my time seems to go by like sand through the fingers. You never seem to have enough. You can never save time, or make up time. You cannot go back in time and correct your mistakes (no, I am not admitting ever making mistakes, although there is enough evidence to contradict this!).

But how can it be that it’s Tuesday afternoon again. BLOG DAY!!

So lets try and live again, through the gift of memory, (that’s human memory not Microsoft’s!), the past jazz week, and remind everyone of what could be another memory landmark coming up for you on THURSDAY!!

So just to complicate things even more let’s put the last thing first!

This Thursday, SEPTEMBER 18^th, we have a return of that fine saxophonist and sometime member of the Glen Millar Orchestra, Martin Dunsdon. Another Guildhall School of Music graduate, as is our keyboard man Ken McCarthy. Martin is becoming a regular Hedsor musician, and is very welcome back with us again. The photos below are from one of his previous Hedsor appearances.

He will be joined by a trumpet player that I seem to have missed, Matt Hill. He HAS been to Hedsor before, but it was on one of those rare evenings when I wasn’t there!! Below therefore is a photo of him culled from off of the www.

 

Looking back to last weeks session it seemed to have all the makings of the unusual, when at the start of the evening it was apparent that we had NO DRUMMER.

So for the fist 4 tunes we had Al Pirrie and Nigel Fox hiding behind Lester Brown and Al Nicholls. Musically they were not hiding but coping remarkably well. Then, having flow in straight from Jersey (?) but with a delayed flight, we had a drummer, who set up very discreetly whilst the music flowed on. He joined in (very appropriately) part way through Duke Ellington’s “Do Nothing ‘till You Hear from Me”.

From then on we all realised what we had been missing...Elliot Toms on drums.

 

The rest of the evening was as you would expect. Al was in his usual booting form, and Lester was at his very best. A great evening was had by all.

BUT only if you were there!!

You still have the opportunity of getting to Hedsor Jazz in September, and we have some treats coming up in October:-

Oct  2^nd  Stuart Henderson trumpet with Alam Nathoo reeds

Oct 9th   Lester Brown trumpet, Duncan Lamont reeds, Dennis Smith drums,                                                                 

Oct 16th - Bruce Adams trumpet with Art Themen reeds

See you soon

 

Geoff

  

Tuesday again, and signs that Autumn is approaching. We also have signs of Hedsor Jazz’s run up until Christmas, so do keep eye on this blog for news of who and when, and perhaps even IF!

Coming this Thursday, September 11^th, we have a pairing that worked very well last month, so we have invited them back. Al Nicholls will be booting up his tenor sax, and he will be swung along by “our” trumpet man, Lester Brown. Not only that (them?) but we have a return of one of our one time regulars in the shape of Nigel Fox on keyboard. Add to the fray on drums a rare visitor to Hedsor Jazz, Elliot Toms.  Come along and cheer them on.

It just shows you that when the school holidays are over, our musicians take there places at holiday resorts up and down the country!

Photos below from the last time Al and Lester were with us.

 

You will observe that last time we were “experimenting” with setting up the band at the bar end of the room. We did this for a number of weeks, but it is thought for more than one reason better to revert to having the band at the entry door end of the room. Musically the sound is better (there are 3 reflective surfaces to surround the band) and less noise interference from the bar.

 

Last week’s session with Stuart Henderson and Alam Nathoo was again a master class in jazz improvisation, both melodic and chordal. Both musicians well know (to us) technical mastery was pushed along by our guest drummer for the evening, Dennis Smith and that well worn set of braces Peter Hughes. They were of course all kept in tune by our regular pianist Ken McCarthy.

Using less elegant language, it was a bril evening!

My photos from last week:-

One musician who has entertained us at least 3 times this summer has been singer Nanci Zhang.

Sadly for us she has now returned to New Orleans but hopes to return before this year ends. She holds Hedsor Jazz in high esteem (as we do her), she called it a special place, and we hope to see her again soon before too long.

 

I have a large collection of recorded music here at Cronin Towers, and usually don’t get to play a 10^th of it in any given year, but I was nudged (I was searching for the lyrics of “I Want A Little Girl”) into digging out a CD recorded in 1971. Tune titles back in the days when the tune was written ( little own when it was performed in 1971), we less thought of as being means of leading one astray!)

 

Those of you who lived in the area around that year will perhaps remember Tuesday evenings of jazz at “The Bell” in Maidenhead. Top rate players played there, just as they do for us a Hedsor now, with The Lennie Best Quartet as the backing. One guest band came regularly, The Alex Welsh Band! All of them were stars, and this week I pulled out a 1971 recording. It is a live recording of the band in full cry performing in Dresden. They were all great musicians, and generated a great sense of fun as well. Bridging traditional jazz tunes like “Dippermouh Blues” to swing titles like “9.20 Special”. But they also included what you can only really refer to as vaudeville tunes. On this recording they can be heard performing (in the local language) “If I Had a Taking Picture of You”.

One member of that band DID perform for us at Hedsor. Trombonist Roy Williams came to us I think 3 times, before a stroke curtailed his performing career.

I will say though that playing that CD again brought back the fun and the joy of those long gone years right into my front room.

Details below:-

The first blog of September, and believe it or not the Jazz Angels are already planning our Christmas Party (December 18^th).

And yes, I will mention what is coming to Hedsor Jazz this Thursday. BUT this week’s blog is largely taken up with a look back.

First, a look back at last Thursdays Hedsor Jazz concert.

I will comment that initially the music was competing with the bar crowd next door. I really hope that the amount of noise was compensating the Hedsor Bar with a large spend AT the bar, because it was LOUD!

Our concert last week was a really fun session led by “our” trumpeter Lester Brown, with assistance at the front from reedman Martin Dunsdon. Al Pirrie, Ken McCarthy and Mike Jeffries played in support from the rear. All were joined for part of the evening by our American guest singer Nanci Zhang. She will be sadly missed when she goes back to New Orleans, but she did sing about missing it!!

Photos below.

 

Looking forward to This Coming Thursday (September 4^th) we have one of those pairings that we did have a hand in creating. Stuart Henderson on trumpet and Alam Nathoo on tenor sax have, as individual players, often inspired us and caused us to wonder at there amazing musical skill and abilities, but towards the end of last year we paired them for the first time. The result was such that we decided that we must do that much more often. This week that pairing is back and we are adding in a guest drummer. Dennis Smith has (in the nicest possibly way) played around us for years! He was associated with Marlow Jazz 30 plus years ago and has been a stalwart of the West London jazz scene for even longer. An excellent drummer with a keen sense of humour, please come and welcome him to Hedsor Jazz.

 

Our sessions at Hedsor were started by the late Clive Burton in 2002, initially in “The Garibaldi”, and then after some months we moved across the road into what was then “The Hedsor Social Club”. Sadly for all of us, Clive died in October 2017. He was a warm and friendly character, playing trombone with great dexterity. He was also a great compere, and many of his catch phrases are fondly remembered (“you can tell he’s no athlete”, as a raffle prize winner moved to collect his prize). He was also a bandleader who always encouraged young talent to perform and often invited them to do so.

My reason for writing about him today is that I was recently given about 3 years worth of old Jazz Journals going from 2016 to 2018 and in looking through them I found a tribute to Clive written by Saxophonist Simon Spillett, one of those young people Clive encouraged.

On further reading, in a Jazz Journal published a month later I came across a letter that I had written in response to Simons tribute, (something I had completely forgotten writing), together with another letter from someone who used to come to Clive’s gigs before they moved to Somerset, (and he still reads this blog, hello Alan Bond). I thought I would risk prosecution in actually reprinting as a jpeg both letters (from the same JJ page!).

 

The photo in my letter came from the party at Hedsor we put on to celebrate Alan Grahams Life in Jazz. AND the photo with Clive blowing a pink trombone that was in the Simon Spillett letter came from a jazz festival we put on at St Pirans School in Maidenhead when Clive was asked to play a plastic trombone being promoted by Dawkes for young people to play. Clive did so, for a complete tune!

Today (well probably Thursday) we will be starting the creation of some new memories, things to talk about and write about in years yet to come. How fortunate these days that we do have both photographs and recordings of gigs we have been to in our past for us to dig out and relive both the successful and also less successful, “days of wine and roses”!

 

See you at The Hedsor Bar for another memorable jazz Thursday, don’t be late we start at 8!!