Election over and with no other preoccupations 

we are now rushing towards Christmas.

As this will (probably) be my last blog before January may I wish all of you a Very Happy Christmas time, and a New Year full of all the things you like best.

In that I also hope that at least some of what you like best is Jazz at Hedsor, because we have agreed to be at The Hedsor Club for 2020! We have a program for January and look forward to not only seeing YOU all there again in January, but maybe some new faces too. Even some not so new faces would also be most welcome!

January 2020

  9 th    Lester Brown + Mike Wills

16 th    Kelvin Christiane +   Nick Mills (tmb)

23 rd    Stuart Henderson + Tolly

30 th    Sue Greenway +   Mike Wills

One last plug. Thursday is our very special Christmas Party, with Tina May and Duncan Lamont Jr heading the guest list. Poster below, some tickets are still available.

I want to thank all of you who come so regularly to support our Live Jazz. Thank you to all the many who not only come and pay to listen but who come and help both before, during and after every Thursday event. I am not going to pick out names for special mention, except one.

MARTIN HART

Not only is he our regular drummer, but he looks after the programming. He also does the bulk of the announcing in his own unique style too. In all he ensures that what you get for your entry fee is a quality product. 

Thank you Martin for all your hard work.

Many of you know that our entry fee doesn’t always cover our weekly costs. Hedsor Jazz has been supported for over 15 years by an organisation called Jazz Angels. These angelic people regularly directly debit money into an account that makes good any income shortfall and ensures our ability to book ahead. If you would like to be part of that angelic assembly please contact Jazz Angels treasurer John Dutton, and he will tell you more and get you to sign a Direct Debit mandate.

A brief recap on last Thursdays session. OK It was election night and our audience was slightly thinner on the ground. BUT the music was very good indeed. Jezz Cook and Mike Wills gave us a fresh look at tunes all written by guitarists. I congratulated Jezz at the end of a very entertaining  evening and he said it had been a great rehearsal!! 

My photos of it are below

Don’t forget that a performance is made up of two halves, the performers AND THE AUDIENCE. Without both, you cannot have Live Jazz!

Well there you have my end of year blog. 

Festive Greetings to all you jazz fans.

This issue of my blog will be pretty boring! 

Most of it I have said before, so it will be repetitive. Repetitive reminders are called nags. My reminder lists are called Nag Lists, JAZZ nag lists!

So NAG NUMBER 1

Thursday 12^th YOU MUST GO OUT AND VOTE. In my view it is a democratic right that should not be forgone.

NAG NUMBER 2. Second thing to do on December 12^th is to come out and support live jazz at HEDSOR JAZZ. Jezz Cook and Mike Wills (guitar and reeds) will try and enlarge our knowledge of the tunes written and played by jazz guitarists over the years.

NAG NUMBER 3. THE THIRD thing to do on Thursday is to ensure you have a ticket for our Christmas Party.

This year the entry price of £10 will get you in to the music and it will get you a plate of buffet food, but this year IT WONT GET YOU A RAFFLE TICKET. This Christmas we are going to sell you raffle tickets for a quality draw (Did I hear strains of Rolls Royce Corniche?) and ALL the money raised will be going to charity which will include Cancer Research UK.

Our star guests are on the poster above, others I’m sure will appear just to be part of our happy throng. It will be a wonderful night of live jazz as we celebrate Christmas at The Hedsor Club, a place we have been enjoying live jazz every week in since 2002. We will be there again in 2020, and our fist gig is on January 9^th with Lester Brown + Mike Wills…The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet, a fitting start to a new year of live jazz music.

Whats left to say? Well it would be very wrong of me NOT to say what an absolutely wonderful session we had with Ian Smith and Ollie Wilby last Thursday. You could go miles, travel to many jazz festivals and not hear music of such quality. 

In fact Ollie Wilby did travel miles to play next day in Italy, leaving the UK at 5.30am! The quintet blended very well, especially as Ian had the habit of only calling the tune! Key and tempo were left a bit in the air, and there was at least one false start. But I would bear that for the kind of music, information and fun that it all gave us last Thursday.  It was improvised jazz at it’s very best, I just hope that you didn’t miss it! My photos of the evening are below.

Well there it is, a boring nagging Jazz from Geoff.

There May be one more in the pipeline for next week, but I may (!) just have to succumb to CHRISTMAS. I could even have succumbed to Tina May by December 25^th!

One final thought. IF you would like to put fingers to keyboard and tell me the gigs you have enjoyed most at Hedsor Jazz during 2019, I will enter your prose into the blog, so get keying in! If you need any reminding on who played when you can always look back at previous blog issues, all of its pages are still available to view right from its inceptions in its current form in 2005!

Please email me your prose to geoff.jazzsuspect@gmail.com

A NEW DIRECTION 

FOR DECEMBER 12th!!

Just when we all thought we had learnt what manouche meant, and were looking forward to an election night of "IT", I have had an email from one of the vital performers, and I reproduce it below:-

Thanks very much for this – but I’m afraid a bit of correction is needed to the blurb about next week!  We won’t be doing an evening of gypsy jazz (well, one or two Django tunes) but we’re doing a special guitar night devoted to tunes written and made famous by guitar players – so it’ll be almost a history of jazz guitar i.e. featuring tunes by Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Wes Montgomery and more!  A real treat for guitar fans (hopefully the Django fans won’t be too disappointed!)

Cheers

Mike

So, even MORE reason to vote early (for Christmas?) and to come out to Hedsor Jazz.

If you want to start filling in your diary for January 2020, below are the first Thursday gigs of the New Year

January 2020

  9 th    Lester Brown + Mike Wills

16 th    Kelvin Christiane +   Nick Mills (tmb)

23 rd    Stuart Henderson + Tolly

30 th    Sue Greenway +   Mike Wills

The excitement is building! We have navigated our way passed Black Friday and Cyber Monday but we still have a few things to anticipate. The quickening of the pulse CAN carry on, the slowly rising thrill of coming events is ever growing.

Do I mean the Election….NO.

But I do mean the last 3 weeks of Hedsor Jazz 2019.

And the first of the those 3?

This week on Thursday December 5^th we have back with us at Hedsor Jazz trumpet player and raconteur Ian Smith together with saxophonist Ollie Wilby.

Last time at Hedsor they played some truly wonderful jazz for us. Those of you who saw Ian again with Martin Hart at Woodley will have also enjoyed the rapport Ian had with pianist Ken McCarthy, and I can reassure you that that will again be possible this Thursday at Hedsor, BECAUSE Ken is our pianist again for this week.

For the Thursday of 2019’s election night (December 12^th)we have organised a suitable diversion. Yes, go and vote by all means, but DO come out to Hedsor Jazz whilst we all wait with eager……(now what is the word I’m looking for, I am tempted to say “dread”!!) for the result. December 10^th could well be remembered for an amazing night of manouche!  Gypsy Jazz but played without a gypsy in sight! Guitarist Jezz Cook and our long established reed section Mike Wills will be entertaining us alongside our regular Hedsor Jazz Rhythm section.

And finally our last session before 2020 will be our Christmas Party. All you need to do is buy a ticket and all the info is on the poster! Tina May with Duncan Lamont Jnr plus our rhythm and possibly some other sitters in, so do join us for a fun night of jazz to prep the way to Christmas. One special addition to our party this year, a special paid for raffle has been arranged, and all takings from that will be going to Cancer Research UK.

Last week we were entertained by saxophonist Frank Griffith accompanied by Lester Brown. A solid session of modern jazz with a few, perhaps less than modern, jokes throw in. Also “thrown in” were quite a number of Christmas quotes (but we wont tell the copyright companies if you don’t! Otherwise 4 people may be in for a spot of bother!). I think everyone left with a smile on their face, it was great fun, and I think Frank had the longest commute for this gig ever, he came down from Liverpool especially for it!

My photos of the evening are below.