This Week at Hedsor Jazz…….

We have a return of The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet.

Now two weeks ago for our regular guys we only had an audience of 12!

Last week we had an excellent session with Kelvin Christiane in the line-up, and we had almost 3 times the audience from the week before. Now I think that was due to my nagging(!), so I hope that this Thursday, despite a football match on telly, you will turn out in great numbers to hear our own Quintet.

They have been working hard to sharpen up on new tunes, and new arrangements of old tunes too. They are truly an excellent band, and for a very reasonable entry of just £7 you can come and hear great musicians, hear great tunes, drink great beer, and park for free, AND we will throw at you a free raffle ticket too. At the end of the evening, you can actually talk to the musicians who have been generating the music.

You cannot do any of that at Ronnie Scott’s, and you cannot do any of that either from your sofa watching TV. If you are guided enough as to go to a large open air music event you may see the musicians, but probably on a large TV screen, and yes you will hear the music, but through an enormous PA system. Just try talking to the “stars” who performed there at the end of the concert and see how far you get passed the security guys!

OK, Hedsor Jazz HAS some drawbacks. BUT we do now have some pretty nifty lighting, and our sound system is pretty good too. After all, you can hear the brass players without it anyway!

Now there is a big BUT in all this (nothing personal now)! IF you are addicted to performing at Open Mic sessions, we cannot compete with a nearby local pub, one in Hedsor that The Clive Burton Quintet started out playing in 17 years ago. It is all your choice.

SO I look forward to seeing you again at Hedsor THIS WEEK, and every week. Hedsor Jazz is a very rare beast. It runs LIVE JAZZ, of an extremely high standard, EVERY THURSDAY. We have booked and paid for the hall up to and including Christmas. That is our commitment to keeping live jazz ALIVE in Hedsor as we have every week since 2001.

We have a program for every week for the next two months; pick up your events listing this Thursday.

The pictures of last weeks session (above) and of the Quintet Session (top of page) are kindly supplied by Geoff Swaffield.