This Week at Hedsor Jazz and Other Things!

This Thursday will be a standard issue week!! Mike Jeffries will be on drums as last week, and next week, and the rest of the band will be our usual suspects.

There are a number of “special” events coming up in the next few months that I have enough detail of now to be able to promote. So sharpen that pencil (or better still find the pen) and write them in your diary NOW.

May 12^th at 8pm we have Karen Sharp and Stuart Henderson coming with the Clive Burton Quintet. This is our Cancer Research UK Concert for this year, and will be starting at 8pm, and with a buffet as well all for that amazing price of £10 a ticket.

August 11^th at 8pm we attempt to celebrate another year of GC survival. Again, a buffet, and this year my guests so far booked are Tracey Mendham and Alan Graham. £10 will be the ticket price.

Both of those events are at The Hedsor Social Club, but in September I am organising a concert at Cores End Church on Saturday 17^th. The extra special guest for that evening will be singer Sarah Moule. With her will be Mark Aston on saxophone, John Coverdale on guitar, Nigel Fox keyboard, Ken Rankine on bass and Mike Jeffries on drums. Mike lives nearer to that venue than any other that he can possibly play at! All the others have to travel!! Kidding aside, it should be a super gig. The church acoustics are really good, they promise a snack to eat at half time (and that will be for the audience!) and again the tickets will be £10 each. 8pm start.

So you can see that even if I haven’t been writing blogs as regularly as I should, I have not just been sitting on my prostate!!

I have listened to 2 CD’s this week that are both really rather special. They are both modern Jazz Orchestra rather than Big Band, they are both superbly well recoded, they are both American and the music on them is wonderful. You need to sit and listen to appreciate them properly, they deserve more than being the background to your magazine!!

The first one I listened to is the latest from The Maria Schneider Orchestra. Called “The Thompson Fields” the compositions relate to family land in her home state of Minnesota, and the titles are all about memories of events in her experience of that state. All the compositions are new, and show a jazz orchestra in perfect form. The booklet the CD comes in is also a beautiful production, far and away a better piece of art than that which wraps most CD releases. Its on artistShare records AS0137.

The second album listened to contains some reworking of Gil Evans tunes. Called “Lines of Color”, it isn’t quite as lavishly wrapped, but it is superb as a work of art anyway with a good and informative booklet. The orchestra is conducted by one Ryan Truesdell, and on further investigation I now realise why the two albums both drew me in. Ryan also helped in the production of the Maria Schneider CD! I think if you enjoy one, you will enjoy the other, just as I did. The Gil Evans is more easily accessible because we know some of the tunes. It is however astonishing when you realise that this CD was recorded live at a concert. The musical precision is remarkable. It to is on the artistShare label as ASBN 0133

Enough from me for now, I'm off for a long lie down, 

TTFN

Geoff C