Jazz from Geoff

As the weeks and months go by it is harder to find something to write about in this space. There are things to see on your screen at home, and I will continue to let you know what I have found.

But live and local jazz?

It now seams very unlikely that live jazz will resume at Hedsor in the near future. The risks seem to me to outweigh the benefits. The safety requirement and the control of that safety isn’t just down to the management of The Hedsor Club. I think they have done all that they could to ensure the building is as virally secure as it could be. But to manage people coming in, to ensure only 25 are in the audience, that the audience remain in their respective bubbles, that no bubble exceeds 6 people,  that the separate bubbles stay apart from other bubbles AND that all drinks are ordered and delivered from your table AND that we have to be out of the building by 10pm makes the promoters responsibility a bit hard to swallow. So, be patient, it is all a waiting game, and one day, as the saying goes, all our Christmases will come at once!

I will congratulate Norden Farm, Maidenheads Centre for the Arts,  for their efforts in running an evening of live (and of streamed) jazz last Friday.

It was all a bit scary in as much as almost the entire Norden Farm management team met me at the door, and that my bubble had an allocated table so that we could order drinks before the show and during the interval. Yes, not only did I have a seat in the theatre, but at table for personal use in the bar and dinning area!

But to see Norden Farm with only 30 visitors was kind of ghost like. Norden Farm had done an excellent job of spacing and sanitisation. They had bitten the bullet, and Alan Barnes, I know, was grateful to play to an audience of 30, almost a record for this year. And we were all indoors!!

The band of Alan, who played alto, baritone and clarinet (because it was clarinet practice day, it being a Friday!), Alex Hutton on grand piano, Andy Cleyndert on bass and Clark Tracey on drums were excellent,  as you would expect. Once or twice with less familiar material they sounded a little unsure of what they were collectively doing but on the whole we got a full 2 hours of very good jazz music.

Sitting listening wearing a covid mask was a little uncomfortable, but during the interval at my bubbles allocated table you could take your mask off. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to down my half of IPA!

To hear quality live jazz again, from people most of us have listened to over many  years, (except of course this year of AD 2020), was a true delight.

http://www.woodvillerecords.com/Andrew%20Cleyndert.htm

I have added in a link to Andy Cleyndert, because it illustrates a CD I have been playing recently. The Jay and Kai tribute CD listed at the top of the Woodville page is very well worth seeking out. The first time I played it I played it all through in one go, something I don’t do that often. An excellent CD, and yes, I do still buy them.

When CD’s started to replace LP’s I felt there was a law of diminishing returns. Click and scratch free music, but much smaller artwork and sleeve notes. Let’s face it, some LP covers were great works of art. To now replace CD’s with music streamed via Prime or Spotify, (there are other streaming services!!) with no notes to read at all and no feeling of ownership is, for me, a step too far backwards. Those media do give you a chance to sample music you haven’t heard before, but without a solid purchase the experience has become cheapened too an unacceptable level.

An Original Jay and Kai LP

Alex Hutton (https://jazzinlondon.live/alex-hutton/) is an interesting pianist, a true character. Exciting, sometimes not to the advantage of the tune being played, he is still a musician to go and listen to. He plays with a passion, sometimes even with a frenzy, and although he may knock your socks off, he keeps his on. He does however take his shoes off to play, but I have yet to see his toes play the piano keys.

Norden Farms sound for this concert, (perhaps because it was being streamed), was of a very high order.

So, well done Norden Farm. Like my mum told me in order to be polite, I did write and thank them for their hospitality!!    https://norden.farm/

 

 

 

A better than never late, but late, blog this week. I was enjoying the sunshine too much!

But the weather and the pandemic now seem to be clawing us back into the winter of our discontent. The hopes of summer, of restarting Live Jazz at Hedsor, or anywhere else indoors, are now fading into a winter with not only no live music, but it looks like no live Christmas either.

It has made me realise how important some of our fairly casual friendships are. Seeing people at Hedsor Jazz every week meant a variety of contact. No, not close friendships, but a steady companionship. Most of us don’t know where the people we always chatted to on a Thursday actually live, and certainly we hadn’t shared visits in homes with many of the “Hedsor faithful” as our treasurer likes to calls us. But I’m sure we are all missing that light friendship between us all engendered by our liking for a certain kind of music. One day we will all meet up again, and wont that be fun!

Well we can still share what we can find of that jazz music that is accessible, do check out the links I put up later down the blog.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of you that Ronnie Scott’s was open again last week. I’m going to quote from an email I had from one of my friends who had to be there for his job!!

The Ronnie Scott’s gig on Friday was fun, but I was a bit surprised no one in the audience - or the staff - had to wear a mask. It was a bit busier than I’d expected as well - they’re allowing 110 people in, which is 50 per cent capacity.  The streets outside were packed - restaurant tables everywhere.

Here’s the Ahmad Jamal TV clip that I mentioned. I think it’s from the same show you saw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA9GhIyP_zI&feature=youtu.be

It really is no surprise that with crowded London night life as he experienced, the virus is on the increase.

So his link to Ahmad Jamal, dated as 1959, does seem to be from the same broadcast as in one of last weeks blog links. Some of the bystanders are in the same places!

I have discovered this week on YouTube an in depth series of recordings by an American pianist and a British clarinet player of the works of Jelly Roll Morton. As you may recall, Mr Jelly claimed to have invented Jazz (which he didn’t) but one way or another he did record or write a lot of Jazz tunes before his death in 1941. (I was 3!!). He was certainly in “on the ground floor” listening when very young in places he shouldn’t have been in to some of the early jazz creators, and eventually playing piano himself in some of those same naughty places!

He became one of the names that jazz history is founded on. So, to find on YouTube a collection calling itself the “Complete Morton Project” was an irresistible click! The pianist is Andrew Oliver, and the reedman David Horniblow. The videos were recorded in London in 2018.The sound is pretty good, and it is always interesting to see the inside of someone’s home. Everyone tends to forget the bits visible behind the person being filmed. It has become one  2020’s covid joys to see the interviews for what there is in the background, and here and there in this series of duets, you can see the odd box of , is it “Laithwaites”, visible, and of course a quick scan can be made of the bookcase.

Seriously though, it is a pretty special attempt to play through the Morton repertoire, and I do believe it looks like it was all being done from memory. Ether that or they hid the scores very well.

So go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4NF-ejj1Y434jiGQ5q5z8A and select a few at a time to finish off your evening of TV repeats.

Now it is time for afternoon tea, so TTFN

Geoff C

Don’t forget comment on the blog and jazz in general can be made to 

octogeoff@gmail.com

Go one, you know you want too.

 

It’s that Blog again!

 Following on from last week, where I “cogitated” about the restart of live jazz music at Hedsor Club, I must say that I couldn’t have timed it any worse! The next day the government cast the spell of 6 for meeting people.

BUT to increase ones dilemma, Norden Farm IS still seemingly going ahead with its program, including Alan Barnes for September 25^th.

I have also been informed that there is a rather nice, all be it, out door gig, at The Four Horseshoes pub at Sherfield on Lodden, RG27 0EX, with Peter Bingham on tenor sax., John Clarke on guitar and Marianne Windham as his  guest bass player. This is on Sunday September 27th and seems to run from 12 until 4pm, and you can book in for food by ringing 01256 882296

THEN I read in The London Jazz News the following article:- 

https://londonjazznews.com/2020/06/30/reflections-on-unlocking-live-music-by-tony-dudley-evans/

I can see that with tightly controlled virus measures, some small gigs can take place. Again for me there is a BUT. The virus IS gaining ground again, not being inhibited by schools and universities back in action.

Neither does there seem to be any swift enough measures in place at the moment to control or identify anyone carrying the disease. Without those measures its multiplication could have been foreseen!  So with hand on heart (yes, even MY heart) I couldn’t encourage others to gather indoors in a group bigger than six. My own GP surgery is struggling to keep pace with anyone wanting any sort of GP contact. I would like to have a conversation with a GP who has actually met me before, but even a telephoned appointment made yesterday is still a month away!!

SO, on to perhaps brighter things.

It is a great thing that we can have entertainment brought in to our homes via PC and TV. Recent advances in technology even mean that we can have both on the same screen, and YouTube can carry live music, and long since past music from the jazz greats. Just take a look at this from 1958

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DmtPvFa_W8

 

Pity it is only about 8 minutes long. But do watch it, even if you can’t identify all the players. It’s a great capsule from, well, my past anyway. OK, you tried the identity check? In fact they were

Charlie Shavers, trumpet; J C Higginbotham, trombone; Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, tenor sax; Pee Wee Russell, clarinet; Harry Sheppard, vibraphone; Willie "The Lion" Smith, piano; Dickie Thompson, guitar; Vinnie Burke, acoustic double bass; Sonny Greer, drums

On YouTube other great clips surround them. 

But if you want a full hour of the same quality go to

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Ok2Gjf1T4

 

This is a classic bit of early black and white television the music from which has also been issued on cd. The TV is more “real”, the CD was recorded back in a studio after the broadcast! Do watch out for the tenderness displayed by Billy Holiday to Lester Young

But for now (great song), I need to eat!!

If you would like to give me feedback (no pun intended, I'm having a sandwich!) please email via

octogeoff@outlook.com

 

TTFN

 

Geoff C

 

Jazz from Geoff

 

First of all, The Alan Barnes gig at Norden Farm that I mentioned last week. It was book able, and I have!

As far as I know 3 of the Hedsor faithful will be going, which includes ME. It is being held in the main theatre, not in the bar style of more recent years. Social distancing rules apply, and face masks must be worn. Do check out their website for more info.

https://norden.farm/events/alan-barnes-saxes-18

Alan Barnes and Greg Abate at The Swanage Jazz Festival 2017

Next, the Angels have had another meeting!

With our treasurer braving a return to Spain we thought we would gather for a quick coffee and an hour of discussing the possibilities of a return to live music at Hedsor Jazz before he went. I hasten to add that NO firm decisions have been or can yet be made, but we do think it is possible, but with a number of criteria in place. Social distancing of course, a maximum of 25 in the audience (at the moment this is all that will be allowed). The musicians will have to bring their own microphones and we would need to collect the contact details of all who are there for infection tracing purposes. From a building operators perspective I do think that Hedsor Club has covered as much of the safety criteria as is possible.

Yesterday we discussed the possibility of running some sort of Christmas event on the date we had set aside for it this year (17^th December).

A Hedsor Jazz Christmas Audience in 2015

It was felt that if the doors and windows still had to be left open (as Hedsor Club have to do at the moment) then it would probably be unacceptably cold by then, so that is something we will have to see. We would also need to run a trial (as described in previous blogs), possibly on October 29^th, the nearest Thursday to Halloween! Many of the 25 of the audience have already signed up for this! I don’t think we can charge for this, but we can request a donation! We will pay the musicians who come to play!

There are a lot of uncertainties, but there are possibilities. We can check your temperature on entry (thank you Mr. Swaffield) and alcohol hand cleansers are in place at Hedsor. If we provide food at Christmas we would have to ensure orderly queuing! IF we can manage a well know star performer to come to our proposed Christmas gig, as has been our norm, then we may well have to pay more for our tickets than before. Tracy, our revenue collector, will take cash, but the Hedsor Bar will only accept contact less payment (touch card, smart phone).

Will it be worth it? Largely that all depends on YOU.

I know that the virus hasn’t gone away. I know that most of our audience is “of a certain age”. Therefore it all has a risk level. I think an evening of jazz at the Hedsor Club looks a lot safer than Brighton beach on a bank holiday.  As I write this approximately 2 people per day die from Covid 19. 50 people per day from Cancer. I have also recently experienced dining out in 3 different places, and my experience in the bar at Hedsor was equal to the best of my dining experiences, and a lot better than one up-market place in South Bucks that was NOT socially distancing seemingly AT ALL!

If it is felt by all of you that it is worth our while organising this ticketed event, we are happy to do so. Do PLEASE LET ME KNOW via Octogeoff@outlook.com what your view on this is.

I wont write more now, but do mull this all over, and perhaps later in the week I will point you all at more jazz that is online or available via electronic means, to be enjoyed in the rich environment of your own home!

Almost Jazz from Geoff!!

Another August Bank Holiday gone bye and it was the last bank holiday before Christmas too!!

Yes, it’s that dreaded C word again. But sadly this year has been so altered by Coronavirus 19 that bank holidays don’t seem to be so important this year as so many people have been “distancing” for most of it. Christmas may be the next bright spot on the calendar.

This year most live musical events have just not happened. My usual break for Swanage hasn’t happened as there was no jazz festival, and therefore no visit to friends on Portland, which was always a pleasant bye product of a trip to Dorset.

So perhaps the next thing to look forward to IS Christmas. However I feel Christmas 2020 may not be such a joyous meeting of friends and family as it was in 2019. A Christmas Party? How big is your bubble? Christmas Shopping? Thanks be for Amazon! 

But I do need some more shoes; daily exercise does have side effects!

This week I don’t think there are a lot of jazz items to talk about. There is still plenty of music to catch up with via the internet one way or another (check back on previous blogs for links to what I have already recommended), but the camaraderie of actually meeting people and watching performance, knowing you can go and tell the performer how good they were at the end of the evening just cannot be there at the moment. “Project Fear” was well sown, and with good reason. Now we are all caught in the dilemma of staying free from a virus we can’t see and encouraging our economy back into some form of plus for effects we CAN see! So “rock” and “hard place” come to mind.

It is an irony that most jazz fans now seem to be of pensionable age, and most musicians are of working age and do need to earn a living.

Ian Wallis emailed last week to advise that Maidenheads Norden Farm ARE running a live jazz evening, BUT it may just be a streamed event. DO take a look at

https://norden.farm/events/alan-barnes-saxes-18

and let me know how you get on if you try to book. Again do so by emailing via the octogeoff@outlook.com link please.

Those of you who have read past blogs know that I suffered a flood in my garage a few weeks ago. Sadly I had 2 boxes of jazz LP’s stored waiting delivery to charitable outlets. One box was plastic, the other cardboard. Guess which one was on the floor, yes your right, the cardboard one. I have now spent a number of days separating out the very damp box of LP’s into drying cardboard and drying vinyl. Obviously all of the cardboard sleeves are damaged, but mostly they are still readable but no longer works of art. BUT the LP’s themselves are all OK. They are now dry and clean and flat. So if anyone would like to have them, then they are yours if you come and collect. Contact via octogeoff@outlook.com They are all modern jazz, and there is some wonderful stuff within. Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn, Weather Report (which could have shouted louder to warn of the impending flood), Stan Kenton etc etc.

There are also some to play along with to enable you to practice your instrument in different keys!

Most jazz album recording dates spread from 1950 to 1980. If you have the turntable, I have the plastic (OK Vinyl). Sample of the damaged artwork below.

Finally!!

I have managed a listen to a couple of CD’s as well as some of the recently washed LP’s this week and one of them has a commonality with the great washed! Having a recording vintage the same as some of the LP’s anyway, one of my earliest Scott Hamilton CD’s (purchased when I attended The Brecon Jazz Festival) is “Tenorshoes”. With Scott on this one, recorded in 1979 with Dave McKenna on piano, Phil Flanigan bass and Jeff Hamilton on drums. It is an excellent reminder of the kind of music we took for granted in the days of old!! Yes, you could talk to these very talented American jazz musicians there too and they in their turn were very pleased to talk to us British jazz fans. The tune list is probably also from days of old too. “The Shadow of Your Smile”, “The Nearness of You”, “My Foolish Heart” all have a fresh sounding Scott playing melodic yet swinging jazz, ably supported by his trio.

Scott was at the 2019 Swanage Jazz Festival, but sadly wasn’t enabled to play at his best by being coupled with a lady pianist/singer who really thought SHE was the star. Back in the day when Swanage Jazz used the Victoria Club, he was able to shine, alongside a lady who has shone for us many times at Hedsor Jazz, Tina May!

Just to prove that Hedsor Jazz has run some wonderful memorable sessions, this one from my collection has Tina May alongside the late Duncan Lamont at our Christmas party in 2017. 

And below is a general view of the band and some of the audience

We WILL RETURN, but until then, STAY SAFE.