Jazz from Geoff this week reviews last week at Hedsor Jazz and looks forward to next week! Just like I usually do!

Last weeks session, very much organised at the last minute due to Alan Grahame being still in a recovery state from The Winter Ailment, had Robert Goodhew playing alongside Terry Hutchins on guitar. It was a tremendous session, with Robert in great form. I know I have written about him before, and I still wonder why he isn’t now famous. He is such an accomplished young player. His feature in the second set, “Spring is Here”, was beautiful, and brought out the very best in all of the “boys in the band”. Over the years, since Vasilis introduced him to us at Hedsor, Robert has gained in musical maturity. It would be wonderful to see him gain as much appreciation as Vasilis himself now does.

This week we have two musicians coming who really don’t need much plugging from me. We have Lester Brown on trumpet and Kelvin Christiane on reads, both well respected by our Hedsor Jazz Audience. And there may be more, like 2 reeds in one mouth! It has happened at Hedsor Jazz before! There might even be someone to sing, but, it is jazz and therefore all improvised (but behind a framework of organisation!).

Our bass player last week was Steve Riddle. Two weeks ago he was so well dressed when he arrived I thought he might have mistaken the venue. Last week, as you might be able to see from the photos below, he was dressed in his motorcycle leathers! No, we aren’t the Ace Café and the story is that his car refused to start. He managed to organise a friend to bring an amplifier for his electric bass stick, and came on his motorbike with the stick bass strapped to his back! He had recovered enough by the second set to actually play his wonderful bass solos! Back in the 50’s I used to travel to gigs with a drummer! Easy enough with a trumpet, BUT we went by Underground!!

Don’t forget that Thursday Week we have a very special night with Sue Greenway and Mike Wills playing the music of Zoot Sims and Al Cohn. One or two of you have now notice the deliberate mistake in the poster for this event. When asked “one m or two” I managed to make it two! I’m sure the music on the night (not “of the night”) will be worthy of at least two m’s so do come yourselves and bring a friend, that would be MMMarvelous!

Thinking of gigs and travel arrangements in the 1950’s, I watched again last night a BBC 4 program called “Smokey Dives..jazz faces and places”. All wonderful nostalga, and you definitely would not get away with it now! I don’t know if it is still, or ever has been, on YouTube. It was a film made in 2001 and I had it recorded from a 2010 broadcast. If anyone wants to borrow a DVD of it let me know, it’s an hour long program but it does show what the jazz world was like in my earlier days.

One final mention. I purchased a cd this week, one that has been around for some time with different artwork, but all of a famous (but until last week not owned by me) recording from 1957. “Stan Getz and JJ Johnson at The Opera House” is a recording of two live concerts from promoter Norman Granz days. It is great jazz, live performance by musicians who had played with everyone and pretty well knew everything. On these two occasions they were invited to sit down and play together, and just like at Hedsor, there was very little pre arrangement. But they all got it right. It is wonderful mainstream fed bop!!

My copy is on Verve 831 272-2