Good Wednesday Morning England, and welcome to another rambled Jazz from Geoff.

 

With no live Hedsor Jazz to report I thought today I would point you at a number of sources of entertainment.

Firstly YouTube, which by now you must have discovered, and I hope you have at least watched some of the sessions that have been put on YouTube by Ronnie Scott’s Club to name but one organisation. DO check out their collection of previous live streams that have been left “up there” for you to watch.

 

I managed to catch the Swedish Singer Emilia Mårtensson’s session the other night and it is still there to watch (even in the afternoon!!) by clicking the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUQyzJ7j8rM&t=2125s

 

It has an interesting version of “Dat Dere”, a song that we used to hear from singer Lynn Garner occasionally.

 

There is a lot more stuff to get your eyes on via Ronnie Scott’s streams, but as I have mentioned before much more is on YouTube. That well known sender out of jokes, and sometime drummer Dave Simms enthused about some Django style jazz with a YouTube link and a comment thus:-

 

I just think that anyone who can sit still when this kind of music is playing has something fundamentally

wrong with the way their brain is wired….. 

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WqawqSF4xs8&feature=share 

I have always liked this kind of jazz, having promoted it in the past, with a session at both the jazz festivals I have organised in the days when loosing money was in fashion. I kind of riposted to him with a link to another manouche band from an unlikely place:-

“Have you caught up with the Hot Club of Detroit?  Yes Detroit USA! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zT_xxvdcQc.”

You can now go and have a look as well!

This past week I had another reminder of jazz past when David Wade-Smith emailed, reminding me of the jazz played at “The Cookham Tavern” at the tail end of the 1990’s.

 

Every Thursday there was a Jazz session in the Cookham pub that is now Costa’s Coffee Bar. “Century Jazz”, founded by drummer Keith Vitty, was the regular band, and as many of you know, over a period of time, “Century Jazz” became “The Clive Burton Quintet”, moving first to Hedsor’s “Garibaldi” pub and then to “The Hedsor Social Club”.

 

In 1999 one of these regular pub sessions was recorded by David onto a DAT recorder, and broadcast on Cookham Summer FM, a community Radio Station run from a studio that during normal times was Cookham Railway Stations waiting room! Some time later I managed to borrow the tape, and using a Phillips CD Recorder (remember them) I copied it to a cd.

Having had my memory jogged, I have uploaded it all to DropBox, where you can download and listen, together with a sleeve for you to put it in if you want to generate your own CD!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ftvxrdrpan2kso3/AABOryIDcUfa-hIO9hzb44vDa?dl=0

It is not a very polished transfer, but does enable you to be reminded again of what a fine trombone player Clive Burton was.

 

Those of you who are unaware of the announcer on the recording, the late Charles Benson,  he was until his death, the “Titular Leader” of Cookham’s fabulous Shirtlifters. A very popular, very “trad” band. The singer was/is Mr John Brooks, onetime singer with that same band, Equity card holder and pantomime dame! The full list of performers is on the sleeve artwork of the cd.

 

Yes, I have provided links. BUT a bigger organisation is doing just that almost every week. I recommend that you go and have a read of the London Jazz News, and sign up for a regular weekly email from them. Check them out via 

https://mailchi.mp/londonjazznews/9bknmwnk4m?e=0cdccbfe18

Please don’t forget that my DropBox links are only “up” for about 1 month, so if you want it, get it! IF after some time you realise that I had put up one of the Hedsor Jazz recordings that you did want but you didn’t download at the time, do email me via Octogeoff@outlook.com, and I will re-establish a link and email it back to you.

Well, its loony tune time, so farewell. I know I am having distribution problems, so do pass on a link to this blog to anyone who either used to get it or would like to know about it. And all this for no extra charge!

 

Keep safe

 

Geoff