Saturday, June 20, 2020


The Blog Has Returned!
Saturday, 20 June 2020

First of all, thank you to all who not only missed it, but were kind enough to email me to find out if I was OK! Well, as many of you now know, I wasn’t!

At the end of May I went down with pneumonia, and after two visits to A&E and three ambulances, I came out of hospital on the 8th of June. I am gaining strength now little by little every day, and it’s time I started to share my love of jazz again, and my hope for a return to Jazz at Hedsor.

I had a number of “get well soon” cards during the last 3 weeks, thank you to everyone who sent me one, but one in particular I am going to share with you all.

It came from Martin Hart, who isn’t only “our” drummer at Hedsor, but an exhibition level photographer as well. For me he has summed up our local jazz experience in a group of photos, and it, and the thought behind it, almost made me cry.

Martins Card:-

In the card Martin not only asked me to get better (!) but said how much EVERYONE was missing Hedsor.

I think that statement alone is an indication that we will start again at some point, and hopefully not too far into the future. We ARE hoping to have discussions with Hedsor Club in the next couple of weeks, and IF distancing in pubs is reduced to 1 meter, we feel it could be possible, depending on you, the audience feeling safe enough to attend. Do let me know your thoughts via email to Octogeoff (as below).

BUT in the meantime have you found jazz music online or on radio? Do share the experience with us by emailing me at Octogeoff@outlook.com and I will spread the word. I do have other email addresses, and I know some of you have them, but for this purpose please use Octogeoff.

Here are a couple I have found and enjoyed in this recovery week.


This is a quality recording by Wynton Marsalis's The Lincoln Centre Orchestra. OK, a little long in its introductory speeches, but extremely well recorded both in sound and vision.  The music is great big band and will occupy your isolation time for about an hour and a half!

Next, a 3 ½ minute track by Vasilis Xenopoulos, again very well produced with excellent sound and visuals.



Another piece of music that is not far from jazz, and does in fact have a great jazz guitarist performing, can be found on YouTube:-



This is a great sample for you to experience Youn Sun Nah, a Korean singer. Here she is singing with Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius. If you like that, there is much more out there for you to find.


 I enjoy her singing, and I enjoy Ulf Wakenius as well, and they were originally brought together on ACT records

Before becoming ill I was keeping myself busy transcribing some reel to reel tapes into CD's, and I came across one, recorded in 1966, that I mentioned in a recent blog (19.5.2020). If someone could give me advice on the copyright of recordings off BBC Radio that long ago, I would love to share it with you all. I have 78 minutes of it, and given a reasonable freedom from being sued, I could put this into my DropBox folder for you to share. Again use Octogeoff as the email address for your response



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