Again this week I will keep it brief ish.

two or three gigs

First. THURSDAY (18th Jan), our guest at The Hedsor Social Club will be none other than that great swinging sax player Al Nichols! Clive promises to be there too, so it should be another great session. its an 8.30 start.

A bit like the sales, when its gone, its gone, and our sessions at Hedsor will not inevitably carry on indefinitely, things don't work out like that. So stay at home and enjoy the TV, and remember what live jazz was all about, or come on out (even if it is dark and wet) and see what it is still like. The choice is yours. And seeing as it will only cost you £3 to get in, what's the problem! You may recall that last week my wife and I were very generously given tickets for the Sound of Music at The Palladium. Well, the cheapest seats in the house were £45, and the place was a sell-out. At Hedsor we are giving away quality live jazz music at only £3 a head. We will of course charge you a raffle ticket to get out, but we wont sell you a souvenir program for £3.50!!

Second. Sunday, Century Jazz's guest at Fifield will be Pete Towndrow

Thirdly, Cookhams fabulous Shirtlifters evening of Winter Ineluctability is on Saturday Jan 27th. Tickets £7, grab one from Charles Benson soon, cause they go like hot cakes.

Home Listening

Something Old, Something New

First the old, and got out of my collection on hearing of the recent death of clarinet player Kenny Davern. A record he made in 1986 with Humphrey Lyttelton on trumpet, John Barnes on various saxophones, Mick Hutton on bass, Martin Litton on piano and Colin Bowden on drums. yes, a really eclectic selection of players. Mick Hutton is more of an outright modernist, and Colin Bowden used to be Ken Colyers drummer, a very New Orleans style player. But the overall product really works. Its been reissued on an Upbeat CD (URCD138) called "This Old Gang of Ours" and is timeless jazz. It swings, and Bowden on drums to me is outstanding. He propels it all. Martin Litton is well know for his academic work on 20's and 30's jazz, John Barnes and Humph can play anything from trad to swing, and to hear tunes like "A Porters Love Song to a Chamber Maid" without its vocal makes you realise what a good tune it really is. Go out and find it!

The new one is the latest from the Matt Wates Sextet, called "Plum Lane". Matt writes nearly all his own material, but an outing on Jimmy Rowles "The Peacocks" just shows us he knows how to play other peoples tunes as well! The Line up Is Matt on alto and flute, Martin Shaw on trumpet, Steve Kaldestad on tenor, Leon Greening on piano, Malcolm Creese bass and Steve Brown drums. Its very smooth jazz, full of harmonic flavour, played by people who make it all sound so easy. The great thought about it all is that mostly they are young men!! During their lifetime at least we can be assured that there are people who will be able to play jazz, even if they have no place to play it! Its on the audio-b label as ABCD 5019. www.audio-b.com will get you more info.

Well, that's it for now, the blog will have the CD artwork.

Geoff C

http://jazzfromgeoff.blogspot.com