All That Hedsor Jazz

This week the blog is all about The Things to Come, in black and white of course. Things past will be in colour!

Below is our current artists booking List, do make a note of it, and it would be good if you could support ALL of our gigs, but don’t miss any you particularly fancy! All guests are backed by our rhythm section, usually led by Martin Hart on the drums.

THIS WEEK, May 2nd, we have guitarist Jezz Cook who is bringing “our” saxophonist Mike Wills with him from Oxford.

May 9th another session with “our” trumpet man Lester Brown alongside guest saxophonist Duncan Lamont jnr. They worked wonderfully well together last week, the photos of that are below.

May 16th  the amazingly youthful Alan Graham on vibes with another stalwart, guitarist & John Coverdale

May 23rd Lester Brown with saxophonist Mark Aston. Anyone who saw Mark and his vintage baritone last time wont want to miss this.

May 30th  Guitarist Max Brittain and a surprise guest, well he is to me at the moment!

June 6th  Trumpet ace Stuart Henderson & Duncan Lamont jnr. A great combination, who have played Hedsor together before. Was that Christmas? I may be wrong, I have been in the past, but come along and tell me. Pay your money at the door first though!

June 13th This is another very special evening, as we have managed to book guitarist Nigel Price.

June 20th Yet to be arranged.

June 27th another very special evening with two musicians who haven't been to Hedsor before (yes, some musicians have still to experience our discerning  audience). Trumpeter Ian Smith (who has played trumpet with talents as varied as Gwyneth Herbert, Hank Wangford and Michael Horowitz. He has lectured on Modern and Renaissance Poetry at universities on both sides of the Atlantic while also playing jazz regularly with some of the leading players in Britain and Europe) so say’s his CV. He will be together with Ollie Wilby on tenor sax. Ollie comes highly recommended by Duncan Lamont and has been a member of Ray Gelatos Jazz Giants, so put that gig in your diary.
  
July 11th  We are putting together an evening featuring Latin Jazz, with Mike Wills, Jezz Cook and Lester Brown with additional percussion from Mike Jeffries.

Aug 1st A Very Special evening of music from the Duke Ellington Songbook with singer Sara Moule, her husband Simon Wallace on piano and saxophonist Dave Bitelli. Hear them at Hedsor, it's cheaper than the London places this set has been played at!

August 29th  Stuart Henderson & saxophonist Tolly. Now you know this will be good, and you don’t really need me to spell out Tolly’s name do you? Yes, well it’s  Anatoliy Vyechslavov. You just have to come back from your holidays for this one!

One final booking for now, December 19th is our Christmas Party and we are again indebted to our sponsor for our guest will again be singer Tina May.

Below are photos from last weeks session.

One Eye for the Dots!

Paul Kelly, the new festival organiser has emailed this afternoon to say that 

Swanage Jazz Festival Tickets will be on sale as from 6pm tonight.

www.swanagejazzfestival.co.uk

PayPal and Credit Cards only

Weekend Stroller Tickets will be £75 each

Geoff C

A short Easter “recovery” blog today. Purely advertising and recapitulation!!

First the advertising bit. 

This Thursday we have with us “our” Lester Brown on trumpet and with him our guest is that lovely saxophonist Duncan Lamont jnr. A well tried and well loved combination of musicians so one to beckon you to come out.

Now the recapitulation!

Yes, last week I played truant! Those of us who have family who live at a distance just have to make the most of the time when they can come and visit, and so it was for me last week. 

BUT to lighten my page this week we have photos from Geoff Swaffield.

Do look back on last weeks blog for some of our future dates. 

May 2^nd is a local election day for some of us, but we have Jezz Cook coming with our very own Mike Wills, so Thursday week you can vote for J A Z Z 

Late today Martin Nickless was offered more work on an existing contract away from his home base. Therefore he will not be able to be with us on Thursday as published.

We are indebted to saxophonist Robert Goodhew for stepping in to this gap at such short notice. Those of us who heard him last week will be only too pleased to have the opportunity of hearing at Hedsor again so soon. Guitarist Terry Hutchins will be with him, as he was in February

Jazz from Geoff this week will major on forthcoming events. So to start with I will recap on last Thursdays events!

Hedsor Club was used as a recording studio last Thursday afternoon. Charlie Wren was using “Our” Band for a jazzy track that will feature in a forthcoming album of her songs. 

She liked the jazz sounds she has heard at Hedsor in the past, and put together a mixture of people she has used on her recordings before together with some of our familiar faces. 

Four of the familiar faces stayed on and played in the evening (Martin Hart, Robert Goodhew , Andy Crowdy and Nigel Fox) and for her recording she added in guitarist John Francis. 

Those of you who were at my birthday concert last August will have heard her song before. “Right Note Wrong Time” is a very clever amalgam of jazz tune titles put together to tell a story about love. 

I never ceased to be amazed at the effort that is put in to every issued recording. Gathering the material,  selecting the musicians, getting it recorded, producing artwork for the CD, getting sleeve notes written , it goes on. The CD's have to be manufactured, and the promotional materiel put out. 

Well,  Recording setup was 2pm and rehearsing the song started about 3 pm. The final touches were added in to the recording at 5.10pm. The song lasts 8 minutes! Those of you who were there in the evening heard a version of it performed without the guitar solo. It was a fascinating experience to be the tea boy for the afternoon. 

Photos from the afternoon from my camera are below:-

Added in to our evening mix from the afternoon's recording session last week was trumpeter Andy Gibson. We also had a surprise visit from pianist Alan Berry. Alan used to be the regular pianist with the Lennie Best Quartet back in the days of jazz at Maidenheads “The Bell” pub in the 1970’s. He is still playing regularly around London. He has managed a visit to Hedsor all of 3 times since!

Photos from the evening including some from Geoff Swaffield, are below:-

So what is coming up at Hedsor Jazz?

This week, April 18^th our guests are Clarinettist Martin Nickless and guitarist Terry Hutchins

April 25^th Saxophonist Duncan Lamont Jnr will be keeping Lester Brown, our regular trumpeter, company.

May 2^nd guitarist Jezz Cook will be bringing along our very own Mike Wills on saxophones.

May 9^th Lester Brown will have a front line partner, but we haven’t booked them yet!

May 16^th Yet to be confirmed but we hope to have Alan Grahame back with us (he was in our audience last week).

May 23^rd Lester will be joined again by Mark Aston on reeds.

Further ahead we have managed to book guitarist Nigel Price for June 13^th. I also think we have managed to book reed player Ron Drake for June 27^th 

August 1^st we have singer Sarah Moule coming with husband pianist Simon Wallace and saxophonist Dave Bitelli (who is replacing my previously advertised Dave Lewis) to pay tribute to Duke Ellington.
 We are working on one or two other special evenings, so keep the eyeballs pealed! Every week we have a quality product at Hedsor Jazz. Please keep being a quality audience. Even though I enjoy recorded jazz (and when you are incapacitated it is a joy to be able to hear recorded music from the past) but NOTHING beats Live Jazz.

OK, my blog is supposed to be all about jazz! Many times it is all about Hedsor Jazz. But today I must share with you this weeks saga!

On my way to Hedsor on Thursday the turbocharger in my car decided to malfunction such that I only had non turbo engine power. Nice mechanic Ryan came and fixed it for me on Saturday morning. On Saturday lunchtime I broke a tooth from my denture. Difficult to eat until it was repaired, and after a bit of searching I found the very helpful Maidenhead Denture Studio. Monday morning by 9.30 am it was repaired. Excellent service, see the card below.

My mother used to say things always happen in three’s. On return from the denture studio my wife decided to go shopping, whereupon we discovered a very flat rear tyre on her car. Today nice mechanic Ryan came and repaired the puncture.

However I was able to tell him of the third problem! Yesterday evening the grill element of our cooker became “detached”! Our guarantee on the cooker expires on Thursday this week…BUT it will be repaired under guarantee. Phew.

Now for the Jazz.

This Thursday afternoon (April 11^th) a private recording session is taking place in Hedsor Club and in the evening we are utilising some of the musicians on that session for YOUR entertainment. So, with Nigel Fox on keyboard and Martin Hart on percussion (posh drums!) we have bass player Andy Crowdy, saxophonist Robert Goodhew and trumpeter Andy Gibson. It should be a good evening of jazz, just so long as that recording goes to plan!!

Last weeks session more than lived up to its promise. What a lovely set of tunes and improvisations from all present, (even if the bass player, depping for Steve Riddle who also had a car problem, initially went to the wrong venue)!!

We did have a surprise guest to play the bass for a couple of the second half tunes, Terry Davis. Close scrutiny lower down the page will reveal that he will be playing for Mark in May.

It was a wonderful session with “our” Lester and saxophonist Mark Aston as the front line. I think everyone went home happy.

I just had to take more than one photo of Marks baritone sax. It was a vintage model from around 1928 (Conn “B”?) and sounded wonderful, a cross between the baritone sound we are used to, and a bass saxophone, which we hardly ever hear played these days.

Mark has recently given up his day job and is able to concentrate more on his jazz life. He now runs a monthly jazz session at Strawberry Hill Golf Club, Wellesley Road TW2 5SD. Take a look at http://buytickets.at/marksmusic

Photos below are from the other Geoff (Swaffield)

Another item of interest came my way this week. When I write and enthuse about something, I use simple language! (No rude or loud comments please). Some magazine reviews however write for people from another planet, or perhaps for people who inhabit a higher plan. Just check out the redacted article from a very well known music magazine. Only performers names have been removed!

Just to remind you, simple, pleasurable, tuneful, JAZZ can be heard every Thursday at Hedsor Jazz. Have I hit that square? Or is it just me that is!

Geoff’s Blog this week will really be brief! I might have sprung forward an hour, but I feel I’m still catching up on that lost hour of sleep!

However, looking forward we have on Thursday a first time! “Our” trumpet player Lester Brown (now a much changed man..he is newly married!) has been to Hedsor many time, so it cant be his first time. Saxophonist Mark Aston has been to Hedsor many times as well, so it isn’t his first time either. BUT it will be the first time they have played at Hedsor together!

They do however play regularly together in another band so it will be interesting to hear what they do together at Hedsor Jazz. I anticipate a bit more mainstream jazz than bop, perhaps even the odd traditional jazz tune. BUT I have been known to be wrong before (not often!!).

One of those trad tunes may contain the lyric “I may be late but I’ll be up to date”, (if they play "I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate"!) as sadly Thursday afternoon I have to go to the funeral of an old work colleague, but I do hope to get to hear this first time combination.

I’m reading a Peter Robinson book at the moment, one of the latest in the DCI Banks series.  One line from it hit home this week, “I don’t recommend getting old”. I will say however, that it is better than the only other alternative!

Looking back (which all of us aged people can) last weeks session was as good as I had built it up to be. The combination of Stuart Henderson and “Tolly” plus “our” rhythm section was top class. I did record it, and it will be available via my DropBox folder and the link. With DropBox you cannot use the link directly, you do have to copy the link and past it into your internet search engine. You should then get all of the music, and the art for a cd cover if you want one.

DropBox Link 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hzmgn4mot2lt5k6/AAAgQIpocibk2FYFJWSpQmrka?dl=0

Some picture from last weeks session (mine and Geoff Swaffield’s) are below.

Just to put the speculation to bed, Tolly is Ukrainian! His name….Anatoliy Vyechslavov

A few forthcoming gigs to put in your diary, all with Nigel Fox keyboard and Martin Hart drums unless they put in deps or as stated otherwise:-

April 4^th   Lester Brown trumpet with Mark Aston saxophones Steve Riddle 

               will be on bass

April 11^th Robert Goodhew saxophone, plus as yet to be arranged guest. 

              Andy Crowdy on bass

April 18^th Martin Nickless clarinet plus yet to be arranged

Into the future I have Nigel Price guitar booked for June 13^th

On August 1^st we have singer Sarah Moule with her husband Simon Wallace on keyboard and David Lewis on sax doing their Duke Ellington night. Do look them up on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjFS1-TygQ4

December 19^th will be our Christmas Party, again with singer Tina May as our guest.