Well, at least its a day earlier than last week. My drains are working this week!

Gigs

Tomorrow night, The Clive Burton Quartet at The Hedsor Social Club, 8.30pm till 11pm, entry £3, Raffle, cheep booze, lemonade.....something missing? Oh yes, GREAT JAZZ, and sometimes an audience worthy of the performance!! You can also buy second hand jazz CD's at this gig now. Very reasonable prices!

Sunday Century Jazz at The Fifield Inn, 8pm till 10.30pm. Entirely funded by the raffle, which obviously needs jazz fans to buy the tickets of!

Tuesday 4th April (already!), Mo's Jazz at The Bourne End Community Centre. 8.30pm till 11pm. £3 at the door includes a raffle ticket. If someone lets me know who is on, I'll tell everyone! But if you can turn out for this gig, it is one of he wonders of Buckinghamshire. Always good value, you even get sustenance at half time!

Whilst mentioning The Bourne End Community Centre I Must mention the Cancer Research UK Jazz concert on Friday May 12th. as it will be held there. I have some tickets (£10 each), and so do Crocks and Crystals in The Parade, Bourne End. If anyone can usefully promote this event via a notice board that people see, contact me as I have some A4 poster.

CD's

I'm a great Duke Ellington Fan, a lot of famous musicians from a more modern era are also fans of this elegant bandleader who arguably was also one of America's greatest 20th Century composers. I'm sure most of you have heard, or heard of, The Lincoln Centre Orchestra as led by Wynton Marsalis. They have performed and recorded The Duke's music a number of times with great effect. In 1998, Wynton composed and performed a suite of music very much in the Ellington tradition called "Big Train". It was first performed in The Lincoln Centre, New York, and subsequently recorded in the December of that year. The CD was issued in 2000, and you may have missed it. But I recommend that you now go out and search for it. Its a wonderful orchestra (with Scotland's own Joe Temperly on baritone sax) full of "names" and if you like Ellington's sound (perhaps as it might now be) and trains, then this is one for you. For Blog readers, you can see the cover artwork, hopefully sufficiently well to read the "track" titles! Sony Music (Columbia) CK69860

Another Scottish gentleman who is having something of a revival is Bobby Wellins. He came to prominence with Stan Tracey in their recorded version of "Under Milkwood" back in the 1960's. He sort of faded from view, but is now very much back in the forefront, having recently done a tour with Stan recreating "Milkwood" (some of us saw it last year). He is playing even better than before, and a new CD is out on Trio Records TR 572 called "When the Sun Comes Out". Here he is teamed with Spike Wells on Drums, Mark Edwards on Piano and Andy Cleyndert on Bass. A good mixture of tunes, well played and recorded, live, at the Appleby Jazz Festival last July.

So there you have it. All these people giving of their best so that you can still listen to wonderful jazz! But I wouldn't be doing a nag justice if I didn't make you feel uncomfortable by saying "Do you?"

TTFN

Geoff C