HEDSOR JAZZ

We are in that odd period between the sadness and loss of Clive Burton, our bandleader at Hedsor for over 15 years, and our celebration of Christmas.

For me, the past week has been doubly difficult, as after Clive’s funeral last Monday, I travelled down to Portland to visit Ken Rankine’s sister Linda.

Ken passed away last September and his funeral was on November 9^th 2016. His grave is now complete and last Thursday, in a gale, I said another farewell to him.

But, as the song says, “We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start right over again”. On the horizon there is our Christmas concert and tickets at £10 each will be available from this Thursday. I will bring some poster with me as well on Thursday, and if you could take one and display it for the pubic to see it will help our advertising department no end.

Our regular band has decided that in future it would like to be known as “The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet”, and drummer Martin Hart will be telling us more about that on Thursday as well. It will be a lasting tribute to Clive, who will be in all our memories for many years to come. Our guest this week is guitarist Terry Hutchins who was last with us in September.

We are busy booking ahead into 2018 and I can tell you that we have a prestigious guest coming in January. On 25^th Jan 2018 we will have clarinettist (and singer!) Julian Marc Stringle coming.

http://www.julianmarcstringle.com/

Not that we are lacking in talent for our remaining gigs this year. On December 7^th we have saxophonist Sue Greenway,

 and on December 14^th, Mike Wills is getting together with clarinettist Alvin Roy. 

December 21^st for our Christmas Party you will all know by now that it will be celebrated with world-renowned singer Tina May, together with Alan Grahame and saxophonist Duncan Lamont Junior.

Hedsor Jazz has had some knocks in this last year, but we will be carrying on, and with your support, carrying on with added vigour. 

Hedsor Jazz 21st November 2017

A sad day to blog, but I feel it only fitting.

I think we gave Clive a good send off yesterday. As I have said more than once, he will be greatly missed. Thank you to all who came to say your goodbyes. There must have been around 200 of you; there really was no room for all in the crematorium chapel.

The wake in the Caversham Working Men’s Club was a joyful affair, just as the event in the chapel had been a dignified one. Much music and conversation. So many familiar faces, and, as usual, not enough time to say hello to everyone. I was particularly pleased that 2 members of the management of The Hedsor Social Club came to pay their respects. I assured them that it was indeed our plan to carry on in to 2018, they had not been sure that we would. We can only do that through your continuing support.

You can! As this Thursday our guest is reed player Kelvin Christiane, (yes he was at the wake)! I’m sorry for once I wont be able to be with you. It is another thing that is sad but true, but it is now a year since the funeral of Ken Rankine, and I am going to Portland to visit his sister Linda.

Below a few of the photos from Geoff Swaffield taken at Clive’s wake. Below that is a copy of Clive’s order of service.

And an advance notice, Thursday 30^th November our guest will be guitarist Terry Hutchins.

Hedsor Jazz Wednesday, 15 November 2017

My blog is a day later than usual, and it will be a bit shorter today as well.

Tomorrow night we have trumpeter Lester Brown coming to join our regular quintet. If my memory is correct (unlikely!) Lester was last with us on Election night last year. He’s a very accomplished player, and I for one am looking forward to seeing him again. As usual our entry price is £7.

We are making every effort to broaden our advertising, and we are getting some assistance with SOCIAL MEDIA!

OK, some of you are EXPERTS, in that but I am not, and Charlie Wren BSc (Hons), MSc. From the Directorate of Student Services of Brunel University has volunteered to give us a hand with this. She will be with us tomorrow, with a friend with her camera, to start us Twittering on Facebook, or something like that.

Most of you know already that Clive Burton’s Funeral is on Monday 20^th at 1.45pm in Reading Crematorium. Jan wishes to thank the very many of you who have sent letters, cards and personal messages of sympathy. I spent some time with her this morning and saw many photos of Clive, some with Jan, most with a trombone, that she wanted to reminisce over. One was in pride of place alongside Clive’s LP collection. 

It was Clive playing that pink plastic trombone at The St Piran’s Jazz Festival.

On Wednesday I am travelling to Portland to visit Ken Rankine’s sister and to visit Ken’s grave. It is a year now since Ken died.

Due to Clive’s passing Hedsor Jazz is changing. We now have a guest every week, but we hope that we can continue to provide the same great entertainment as we have done for the last 15 years. You can always keep in touch with who is coming by reading my blog, so do let others know that we are going to carry on.

Well that’s it for now. Below are a couple of photos kindly provided by Geoff Swaffield from last Thursdays session that we had with the amazing Alan Grahame as our guest .

We had 2 other sit in guests last Thursday, Ken McCarthy and Andy Crowdy

Hedsor Jazz

Thanks first to all who came last Thursday. It was a wonderfully enjoyable musical evening, with the sounds of Django Reinhardt reproduced by Jezz Cook, Bill Medcraft et all.

Photos of the night via Geoff Swaffield

We did of course have to pay our tribute to Clive Burton who had died only 2 days before. Mike Wills did a wonderful job with his tribute, and in the minutes silence that followed you could have heard a pin drop throughout The Hedsor Social Club. 

Hedsor Jazz will not be the same without Clive, with his humour and his information about each tune played. He made all of us his friends, an that has made Hedsor Jazz the warm and friendly club that it is. We will carry on, and others will come who didn't ever meet Clive. However, I am sure that the music and the friendships will still be of the same high quality.

Tomorrow night we have a return of that lovely man Alan Grahame. Alan on Vibes will be accompanied by our regular guys. 

I should also mention that on Sunday 19th November, Alan and our regular guys will be playing a lunchtime set at Marlow's British Legion Hall. They will be recreating the sounds of the Benny Goodman Sextet, see advert below.

One final point today. If you turn back a page you will see the details of Clive's Funeral.

Jan is suggesting that anyone who would like to donate for a charity in place of flowers (only family flowers at the funeral), should do so for The Lymphoma Research Trust and can do it via the funeral director:-

A B Walker and Sons, Eldon House, 36 Eldon Rd, Reading RG1 4DL,

Tel: 0118 957 3650

TTFN

Details of Clive Burton's Funeral

I have just received from Jan Burton details of Clive's funeral, which she has asked me to blog.

It will be on November 20th at Reading Crematorium at 1.45pm

Details of the crematoriums location can be found at

http://www.reading.gov.uk/cemeterycrematorium

Would you please pass this information on to all who may not read either my blog or get my nags. Many thanks.

Geoff Cronin