Hedsor Jazz is certainly back with a vengeance

Last weeks gig was another where wonderful music was played. Almost every week now it seems to me to be a bit like looking into Tutankhamun's tomb. Every week, we “hear” wonderful things!

With Lester Brown and Duncan Lamont jnr. last week and with a surprise appearance of Ken McCarthy on keyboard we had a very good session, again where the Hedsor faithful were introduced to some new tunes. There were a lot of interesting harmonies played, especially during Ken McCarthy's feature number, a piece by drummer Victor Lewis which had a lot of similar harmonies to a Pat Metheny style composition. I must mention the superb solo during this tune by our bass player Peter Hughes. As he had not seen or heard the tune before, his constructive solo was brave and well executed. I know that the usual time for a chat is during a bass solo, but do listen out more, sometimes they do surprise us!

Another joy from having Duncan with us is the enormous amount of information he can give us about the tunes being played. AND when, outside of a cinema, did you last hear some of the music from a Laurel and Hardy film!

Some of my photos from the night are below.

I cannot stress often enough how lucky we are to have such quality music being played for us at Hedsor Jazz.

Below you will find our program for the next few weeks, together with a message about the raffle from our treasurer.

Forthcoming Hedsor Jazz Gigs

All our featured guests are backed by the Rhythm Section of The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet led by Martin Hart on Drums.

All of the evenings on this list start at 8.30 pm and have an entry fee of £7

January 2019

31^st Lester Brown trumpet with Kelvin Christiane on reeds

February

7^th Martin Nichless clarinet with Alan Grahame on vibes

14^th Stuart Henderson trumpet with Simon Spillett on tenor sax

21^st Terry Hutchins guitar with Alan Grahame on vibes

28^th Lester Brown trumpet with Kelvin Christiane on reeds

March

7^th Sue Greenway reeds with Mike Wills on reeds

(once upon a time we called this 2 tenors for a Fiver, but our entry fee went up!).

14^th Andy Gibson trumpet with Duncan Lamont jnr on reeds

All these gigs are performed at The Hedsor Social Club, Hedsor Road, Bourne End, Bucks SL8 5ES

The Raffle

A Message from our Treasurer                                                   John Dutton

john.dutton16@googlemail.com

For a trial period of approximately one month we are not going to run a raffle at Hedsor Jazz.

The reasons for this are:-

Our room rent at Hedsor Club has risen for 2019 by £500 and we still think we get very good value from The Hedsor Club. Their costs have gone up too! However despite this increase we do want to retain our current entry fee of £7 as well maintaining the high quality of our jazz. During 2018 the raffle has cost us over £100. Although an integral part of our evenings for so many years the raffle is a fun thing, not a fund raiser. If enough jazz evening people would like to retain it, we will do so, possibly by only using donated prizes (Even Poundland prizes are going up in price!).

We do want to retain the fun factor for our evenings as well as the high quality of the music. Many of our costs are fixed, but if more jazz lovers could be persuaded to come regularly, then all will be very well!

If you could email me with your thoughts on the raffle, then in March we will make a final decision on this, perhaps using the raffle only for our fund raising evenings.