Hi Everyone, the last blog of 2025! Wow how did that one go by so quickly?

Just to remind you all that our first gig of 2026 will be on Thursday January 15^th, where Hedsor Jazz will host saxophonist Frank Walden together with his colleague from “The Filthy Six”, guitarist James Fenn. A very suitable high profile event to start off our 2026 season.

Also just to remind you that our initial gigs for 2026 are going to be every 2 weeks, and the second one of the year will be on January 29^th, when we will have that wonderful swinging saxophone sound of Al Nicholls.

All our gigs are under the musical directorship of pianist Ken McCarthy, and our entry fee will be £12 per person, using CASH payment please. We are trying to keep our costs down to a minimum and don’t want extra bank charges if we can avoid them.

2025 Hedsor Jazz had some memorable gigs, with some great names helping us keep live jazz alive. In no particular order, but Alan Barnes and Dave Newton helped to distract me from the increasingly large number on my birthday cards that arrived in August. Steve Waterman and Gill Cook, Bruce Adams and Art Theman, Duncan Lamont Jr and Jennie Howe, Al Nicholls, Nigel Price, all came and helped us in the joyous creation of jazz music at Hedsor. And who can forget our Hon Chair, Vasilis Xenopoulos!

There were also names less well known, but there is a name that those lucky enough to have heard him more than once very much appreciate, Alam Nathoo, who during 2025 collaborated almost every month with Stuart Henderson to bring broad grins to many faces. Alam also has the ecological advantage of being able to walk to our gigs!

Thank you to all of you who have played for us, some at short notice, some almost every week. Those regular names include Ken McCarthy, Al Pirrie, Mike Jeffries, and Martin Hart. There are many others, we thank you ALL.

We aim to keep this same high standard going into 2026. We would like you, our audience, to come out and enjoy this music too. Audience, musicians and organisers are all needed to be joined together in the creation and presentation of our jazz experience.

Do look back on previous blogs issues. You can go back many years and see the changing faces and comments.

Yes, you will see many faces, pictures taken over the weeks and years to add visual colour to my text.

I do still have cd’s, many thousand of them, and I do still enjoy playing them. But comment on them less, as fewer are now bought and sold to comment on.

BUT, and it is a big but, the living performance is far better than the historic, however important some of the recordings may be. Last night I listened to a Buck Clayton recording made in 1959. It was live, before an audience in Stockholm. It wasn’t seminal, not one you just must have, but pleasant to listen to again. However I am looking forward to meeting again and listening to again the living musical creations of Frank Walden and James Fenn on January 15^th.  

Only by coming out to listen to them will you find if their music will be truly unmissable!

So God rest you merry gentlemen (and ladies!) as we enter 2026.

Geoff Cronin