Our sessions
of past few weeks at Hedsor Jazz have been different from our normal sessions
of the past 15 years.
We have always
had guests, sometimes surprise guests, who have “sat in” on the night. For
variety, we have always invited different musicians to join with our regular
Clive Burton Quintet every now and again, but recently, due to Clive’s fight
against Lymphatic cancer, our regular patterns have been disrupted in order to
give Clive the time and space that he needs.
I personally
think we have kept our music program at a very high standard and I hope we will
be able to maintain that standard and that variety.
Last weeks
session alone was worth our car park fee!! For your £7 entry Simon Spillett
played some magnificent stuff. I for one, don’t take Simon coming to Hedsor for
granted. He is a world class award winning player and a great friend to Hedsor
Jazz. You will not get that kind of value, that quality and that consistency
anywhere else and we Hedsor Jazz is STILL a regular weekly jazz venue.
There being a
sort of law, often associated with clods of earth, that not only has Clive been
less available, but our regular reed section has been unable to come during
this same time period and indeed won’t be with us much again before September. But
it has been Hedsor Jazz’s policy to always have at least a Quintet and it may
be that this week we will again have the pleasure of guitarist John Coverdale to help us in this aim.
As our main
man this week we will have American saxophonist, now resident in the UK, Frank
Griffiths. (He is also renowned as the teller of terrible jokes!). He is a
great player though and well well worth
that £7 entry fee. He has also recorded recently with another of our previous
guests, singer Tina May and he MAY (ouch, just practicing terrible jokes!) have
a few of his CD’s with him, which I’m sure he will be able to pass into your
hands for a small fee!
We have
another change this week, and also for the next couple of weeks, in the form of
Ken McCarthy. Ken was with us last week, and indeed often drops by to sit in. However
our regular pianist, Nigel Fox, is taking a few weeks holiday to entertain his
sister who is over from France and for the next three sessions at Hedsor Ken
will be our pianist.
If all of
these changes were not enough there is another change this week. The Red box
will be run by ME!!
Do bear with
us during our difficulties. DON’T take live jazz for granted, do please keep
supporting it, not just at Hedsor. But if you want jazz to continue YOU must
continue to be an audience, and SOMETIMES you might need to be asked to help
with the chores as well.
Recordings
Live stuff
that took place long ago is still around to be listened to. In doing some
research on the Lennie Best Quartet, who were regulars at The Bell in
Maidenhead back in the 1970’s, I came across a link to some tremendous free to
download recordings. Check the link below
So whether
it’s the weather (too hot, too wet, too cold, or just British) keep listening
and supporting our minority interest……JAZZ
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