Hedsor Jazz this week will be back to the "normal" of a session by the Clive Burton Quintet. This week with a guest bass player, as Ken Rankine is gigging in London with Vasilis Xenopoulos, who is taking a night off from his tour with "The Wind Machine".

So come along and hear and see who will be behind a double bass this week!

It was good to see so many at Hedsor last week for Jezz Cook. A very nice set, but less Django than I had hoped. Jezz hadn't brought the correct guitar for that style of playing, but he did manage 2 tunes, including "Nuages". Next time, we will have to persuade him to come prepared! It is always nice to hear some of the old jazz styles being performed.

Yesterday I had the very pleasant task of accompanying a friend for his choice and purchase of a new set of Hi Fi equipment. We had a very enjoyable 2 hours whilst we listened to different combinations of equipment until the right sound was reproduced that resulted in a very dented credit card. 

In order to do this we had chosen by listening in the morning on my equipment at home   to some CD's to take to demo the new kit (we went to Eton's Richer Sounds, and found them very helpful indeed). We then played them again in Eton on various set ups and proved yet again the law of diminishing returns.

CD's Listened to this Week

One of the CD's we took was a very simple recording by vocalist Georgia Mancio with Nigel Price on acoustic guitar with Julie Walkington on bass. It is an excellent CD in every way. Great voice, great guitar playing, and a very clean sound. I may have mentioned this recording before, but it would be a very worthwhile addition to anyone's collection. It is called "Come rain or Shine" and is numbered as roomspin 41.See artwork below.

Another CD I have listened  to this week, again by a lady singer is one by Sarah Moule called "A Lazy Kind of Love". A slightly older recording than Georgia's (2008 against 2013) but again nicely recorded with husband Simon Wallace on piano but also with appearances by Mike Outram on guitar and Alan Barnes on various saxophones. It is always nice to hear Alan out of his comfort zone, he doesn't get to fall into some of his usual cliche's and plays with some freshness which is both appealing and a reminder of what he was like when we were all much younger! A recording well worth looking out for. Probably purchasable on line, it is a self produced album with the memorable CD number of RAM001!

Well that will do for now. Don't forget live jazz needs a live audience, and with the interior of the Hedsor Social Club being refurbished, it is now an even better place to come and listen to it. And at only £6 to get in. I know that some of you find it difficult to understand that we do actually pay the musicians to play for us! (I also admit, we don't pay them enough!!).

Look out for posters coming soon about our future guests, which makes coming to Hedsor an even bigger bargain.