A Little Afternoon Blogging!

Because I have a change of personnel for this coming Thursday to announce! 

We ARE back to our usual Quintet format after last weeks excursion with John Coverdale on guitar. As you may recall, last week I was only allowed to attend for part one of the evening, but what I heard was very enjoyable. This week, I hope to stay for the entire evening and listen to the Clive Burton Quintet, with Martin Hart back on the drums, Mike Wills back on the reeds, but with Phil Berry on bass in place of Ken Rankine, who is playing away this week!! Our usual start time and admission fee apply (8.30pm and £6).

Obviously, being confined to home for the last 3 weeks I have had plenty of time to listen to recorded jazz. Most of what I heard was via Spotify and headphones. I was amazed to learn that I could find that Al Fairweather from the 1950’s was available, as was Alan Elsdon from the 60’s and 90’s!! One album of Alan’s stands out, he recorded with clarinet legend Edmund Hall in 1994! Well worth searching out.

BUT yesterday real listening took place. A new to me double album by Al Cohn. Called “Night Flight to Dakar” and recorded in 1980 in Senegal (West Africa) it is a really exciting find, released on CD in 2015 as an SACD as Xanadu Master Edition 906075, (available via Amazon for just over £17).

You may think that being recorded in West Africa that the recording would be less than Hi Fi, but it is in good stereo, and is a great piece of jazz.

With Al are Billy Mitchell also on tenor sax, Dolo Coker on piano, Leroy Vinnegar on bass and Frank Butler on drums. None of the band may now be with us, but on their dates in Senegal they were vibrantly alive.

Tunes include a super piano feature on “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Out”, (originally a feature recording by Louis Jordan) for Dola Coker, “Robbins Nest” from the Count Basie repertoire and a version of Oscar Pettifords “Blues in the Closet” that you may find hard to recognise from the version played by Clive Burton’s Quintet!! All the recordings were “live” with an obviously delighted audience!

Altogether a great find.

Oh, by the way, thinking of Africa, if you can rush away on an aeroplane for about the next 20 hours or so, you will be able to catch the music festival just about to start on the French administered euro friendly island of Reunion!!

TTFN

Geoff

First of all I must say a great big "THANK YOU" for all the kind thoughts and prayers that have come my way since I managed to get myself into Wexham Park Hospital with pneumonia. Cards, visitors, flowers and even chocolates have all come my way since May 8th. I can say that I am now well on the way to recovery, still a bit week, find sleep more often than I used to, but I am slowly "getting there" as "they" say.

I managed to miss our Cancer Research UK fund raising evening with Karen Sharp and Stuart Henderson, but Jan Burton kindly took some photos of the evening, which are below.
 

Karen Sharp and Stuart Henderson

The Band

Gospel

FOOD!

I wont ramble on in my usual fashion this week, I am being kept a beady eye on by Mrs Cronin, who has had a lot to do whilst I have been away, and doesn't want to do it all again soon!

THIS WEEK at Hedsor we have that lovely friend of Hedsor Jazz John Coverdale coming to play alongside Clive. Also we have Mike Jeffries on drums replacing Martin Hart, who has managed to squeeze in ANOTHER short holiday.

Our usual start time and admission fee apply, and no, there wont be any food!!

You might like to know that we raised £200 for CRUK on May 8th, and Dee and I will be going along very soon to give a cheque to the Maidenhead branch, who, if you remember, supported us so well at last years St Pirans jazz day.

Since I "turned" 70, I have tried every year to sponsor a Hedsor Jazz evening near my birthday. Of recent years I have celebrated survival rather than age. This year it seems more appropriate that ever, and on August 11th Hedsor Jazz will be supported(?) by Tracey Mendham and Alan Grahame. Now where do they get their energy from!!

God bless you all, and thank you again for all your support over the last couple of weeks.

For those of you who are not nagged by me, 

and who only get to read about Hedsor Jazz via this blog, then here is an update!!

This Thursday, as well as Mike Jeffries replacing Martin Hart on drums, Phil Berry replacing Ken Rankine on bass, we have Kelvin Christiane this week on Tenor replacing Mike Wills! Together with Nigel Fox on keyboard, and adding in our leader, we have THE CLIVE BURTON QUINTET!

More info about Kevin (who has been to Hedsor before) can be found at 

http://www.kcmusic.co.uk/pages/recordings.html

A Few Words about 

This week at Hedsor Jazz.

Apart from the usual suspects in the front, (and even on the keyboard, new readers can always look back to previous blogs to make sure they know who are our usual suspects) we have changes to drums, as again we have an absent Martin Hart, and his usual sub will be with us (Mike Jeffries), but with Ken Rankine still trying to sing along with the Maltese, we have on bass Mr Berry!

Weymouth beach, Bank Holiday Monday!!

I haven’t listened to much recorded jazz whilst out and about in dreary Dorset (well pretty cold Dorset anyway) but one I purchased in Bridport Market fills in the odd niche. Simply called “Mainstream” it has 6 tracks by Vic Dickenson with 2 different line-ups, but included in your listening will be Joe Thomas on trumpet, Buddy Tate, Buck Clayton and Dickie Wells too! It was recorded in good quality stereo in 1958, and is 6 tracks of very good quality jazz. I will endeavor to include a photo of the cover for your delectation (no scanner to hand!).

Its on the KOCH JAZZ label KOC CD 8511

Next week of course we have our Cancer Research fundraiser. Karen Sharp and Stuart Henderson being our special guest. Ticket are £10 including a buffet, and the session starts at 8pm. If you haven’t yet got a ticket from either Hedsor on a Thursday, or from Cookham’s Stationery Depot, then there will be an opportunity to purchase some on the night at the door. Early birds catch the worms, so first come first served.

Sorry for the slightly scrappier blog, but I am limited to access!!