Another blog, and another where we have to mention “rearrangements”.

Last Thursday I had an early morning phone call asking me if I had heard about Mike Jeffries? I asked why, and was very surprised to be told that The Maidenhead Advertiser had published the details of his death and of his funeral arrangements! After a bit of consternation, and some phoning around, we realised/found out that yes, a  Mike Jeffries of about the same age, was in the obituaries column of the Maidenhead Advertiser, but OUR Mike Jeffries was still alive enough to answer the phone!!

WOW, what a relief, because OUR Mike Jeffries will be our drummer this week at Hedsor Jazz! Martin is taking a holiday silly, no not you! He is taking a holiday on The Isles of Scilly!!

Out in front will be “our” Lester Brown, and saxophonist Mark Aston.

The following week, November 4^th, with a return of Martin (hopefully also in time for his gig at Woodley on October 30^th) “our” pianist Ken McCarthy will also be taking a break, and in his place will be John Cooper, who has been to Hedsor Jazz before back in 2018. Out front for that gig will be trumpeter and raconteur Ian Smith and saxophonist Ollie Wilby.

John Cooper at Hedsor in 2018

For any of these gigs, to appreciate them to the full, you have to be there. Last Thursday in particular, because as well as not mourning the death of Mike Jeffries we had a late substitute in the form of Kelvin Christian in place of Frank Walden, who had the flu! However, what added considerable visual interest and some controversy was that  Kelvin had brought along his lodger. It is always good to have new people discovering the joys of Hedsor Jazz.

Now said lodger was a lady that had a posterior that at least one of our venerable regulars thought delightful. She also had the urgent need to use her smart phone as a video camera, and she also decided that no one would mind if she made sure the world could see what musician’s nostrils looked like. After a while this became less funny, and one of our great musicians told her, fairly visibly, to go and sit down (on that posterior!). You just have to be at Hedsor to catch all this great....activity! Below are some of my photos from the evening.

You will see from the last photo that Stuart came to Hedsor again with Clive Burton's old valve trombone, and in the second half he duly played it. What was particularly poignant was that Jan was in the audience this week. It has been 4 years since Clive passed away.

Below I have put 3 posters. Do support local live jazz no matter who runs it or where.

OK, time for coffee, see you somewhere SOON!

Geoff

Today’s blog will be short, and kind of sad.

Last week we enjoyed (very much) our concert at Hedsor Jazz with saxophonist Frank Walden who played alongside our own Lester Brown (pictures are below). It was sad because we had hoped to be celebrating 94 years of a musicians life with vibraphone player Alan Graham. Due to his ongoing health situation, we had to postpone this at quit short notice. Thank you Frank for stepping in.

My recording of the evening can be found by following my DropBox link

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/enwzg624yo3u2pf/AAAdAWsOCmFEePaf2DREkeCua?dl=0

As I write this I also know that our Christmas Concert will have to be rearranged as singer Tina May is no longer able to be with us. Again, this isn’t a cancellation on her part, just a postponement, so do keep referring to this blog from time to time to see what our rearrangements will be.

This week, Thursday October 21^st, Frank Walden is coming to be with us again, but this had already been in our diary. With him will be a welcome return to Hedsor of trumpet maestro Stuart Henderson.

Another part of this week’s sadness has been the news that that well know leader of a big band and also a saxophone legend Willie Garnet passed away last Friday. Willie played for us at Hedsor a couple of times and was a great friend of Ken Rankine. He was a lovely man and will be greatly missed. The photo below shows them both at Christmas 2011.

To finish off October we have coming on the 28^th “our” Lester back with us and he is also back with saxophonist Mark Aston. A great paring. The last time they were both with us they provided some excellent jazz. Together they make a sum greater than their constituent parts!

Two other players who make a great team will be starting off our November gatherings. Ian Smith (the trumpeter, not the ghost of Rhodesia Past) will be paired with saxophonist Ollie Wilby. Dont miss it. The Smith verbal links to each tune are as good as his music! Do look out for him on the BBC Sounds app. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0174gkd

Don’t forget all live music needs an audience.

TONIGHT, October 19^th, Marlow Jazz has Stuart Henderson’s “Back to Blue Note”, (https://www.marlowjazz.co.uk/autumn21events.pdf) .

 Christ Church Marlow has “Celebrating Hoagy” on Friday October 29^th.

 

The Woodley Theatre has Alan Barnes on October 30^th, with a pianist and a drummer you may well recognise. https://www.woodleytheatre.org/

I hope to see YOU somewhere amongst the crowd!

 A short Tuesday blog, as I did my best nagging best on Sunday!

Sadly our celebration with and for Alan Graham has had to be postponed this week, October 14^th, but we will be welcoming saxophonist Frank Walden to Hedsor Jazz to play alongside Lester Brown, so a fun evening is still very much in prospect. Sadly no buffet, but Christmas is coming, and so, I hope, are you! 

I thought today I would add a postscript to my mention a couple of weeks ago of Scottish pianist Brian Kellock.

 I have finally got my hands on a copy of the actual CD “Bidin’ My Time” which has Brian exploring solo piano, (and some stride playing all at the same time) on a Bosendorfer grand piano. He makes a wonderful sound on it, and his improvisations are well worth paying attention to. Try “I Got Rhymn”. 

All the tunes will have you keeping time with your feet (or hands or w h y) but  I. G. R. will make them ache! A truly wonderful exploration of melody (which is well know to all) and of rhythm itself.

It’s a cd with more than one tune to listen to as well. I was pleased to see “Sunset and a Mocking Bird” from Duke Ellington’s “Queens Suite”, a delicate tune beautifully played.

The only time I ever saw Brian play he was in a group with saxophonist  Don Weller. Don got a bit shirty with Brian, as Brian’s solos were a bit lengthy!

DO take a look at Don’s footware, especially his laces!

 

But that's jazz!

PS The piano that is used for concerts in Marlow’s Christ Church URC is also a Bosendorfer grand piano!

 

IMPORTANT ALTERATION

For our Hedsor Jazz program for next Thursday we had hoped to celebrate with Alan Graham and his friends the fact that he has reached 94 years of age, MOST of them as a very well respected musician. 

Sadly at the moment Alan is not too well, and we are postponing (but not cancelling) this evening of celebration. Alan is still keen to do this, and at some point in the future we hope to “inject” this evening back into our program.

For this coming Thursday (October 14th) we have therefore had to rearrange our guest list, and at Lester Browns request, we have secured saxophonist Frank Walden. I think this will be Franks first visit to Hedsor Jazz so do turn out to welcome him to our slice of jazz heaven!

Back in the day when we started Hedsor Jazz we were sponsored by a lovely man called Ernie Evans. He paid for our fun from a bank account called “Jazz Heaven”! THAT is why some of you now subscribe to “Jazz Angels”!

Last weeks session with Sue Greenway and Mike Wills was lovely musically, great tunes, all associated with saxophonists, but our audience was a bit thin on the ground. Not too many people for the musicians to look at!! Yes, I do call my blog a nag, so that’s what I’m doing. No audience will mean ultimately no jazz. We have been running Hedsor Jazz every week now for over 20 years, it would be very sad to stop.

So, I look forward to seeing you ALL on Thursday for Lester Brown and Frank Walden with our regular rhythm trio, at our regular start time (8.30pm) and our regular entry charge (£10)

The alternative is Allbran!

 For those of you who enjoyed Vasilis Xenopoulos last week, you might like to see his gigs for October.

I have culled it from his Facebook page.

Doesn’t time fly? I know that as I get older, refreshing sleep does seem to occupy more of the 24 hours allocated to each day than it used to, but somehow I find more things need doing than there is time allowed to do them in!

However, first things second.

Tuesday Night 5^th October. Bourne End Community Centre is hosting JAZZ, led by people we know quite well.

Mike Jeffries sent me this information:-

“"In The Pocket" is a slightly Funky Jazz group run jointly by Mike Wills and myself, we play a variety of stuff with a funky feel as well as a few swingers thrown in, (much like the audience) and you can take that in any way you like!!

We have a slight change to the band this time, instead of Jez Cooke on guitar we have Terry Hutchins who I am sure will fit in like the proverbial glove. The Bass player will be Steve Riddle on Bass Guitar instead of his upright one, which is still in need of repair, any donations to rectify this will be appreciated I am sure, and on Piano and Vocals we have Martin Pickett. It will be great to see as many of you as possible there, the entrance is £7.00 and the gig starts at 8.00.”

Next, Hedsor Jazz this week (on Thursday October 7^th) has a return of  Sue Greenway on reeds. She is joined by Mike Wills also on as many reed instruments as he can carry. Behind them will be Ken McCarthy on keyboard, Terry Davis bass and Martin Hart on drums and occasional microphone.

So two visits to Bourne End for Mike Wills this week!

Last week we had a return visit from someone who now lives locally. Vasilis Xenopouls came with his long time associate, guitarist Nigel Price, to play for us at Hedsor Jazz. Both are now stars in their own right and to get them to come back to Hedsor was really rather special, and my goodness didn’t they play a rather special gig. There were times when the hairs on the back of my neck rose up it was so tingling good.

I had remembered that some years ago they had played for one of my August birthday concerts and on that occasion they played “One Note Samba” as a duet. So I requested it again! Not part of their normal repertoire they had a little discussion as to whether they could do it again, but they did, and it was AMAZING!! Thanks guys. When we have saved up some more pennies we will ask you back again!!

A musician who has entertained people for longer than most is percussionist and vibes player Alan Graham. 

Alan Graham at 94

We celebrated his 94^th birthday earlier in the year just after the lockdown was slightly relaxed. 

On October 14^th we are giving Alan the chance to celebrate again with some of his musical colleges from his long years of being a leader in the music business. When we celebrated his 90^th birthday we had at Hedsor Jazz some of the glitteratzi of the music business with us, and we will just have to see if they are free to come again. We will be providing a buffet, so make a note in your diary to come too. 

Some of the Musicians at Alan's 90th Birthday

It will be the same entry fee as normal, just £10.

One final mention for now.

A new album is being released on October 8^th that I have been invited to pass comment on. As some of you know, I do like lady singers. Yes I know it isn’t a universal taste, but the album being release on Friday is by a pretty (yes she is) good lady singer born in Durham called Jo Harrop. It is an album of songs all composed by her during the last 16 months or so of lockdown.

Many of us have had time to reflect on life and what it all means during this time. We missed friends and family and felt powerless in the face of “that” virus, but Jo used that reflection, and the time of forced inability to sing before an audience to compose an album of reflective songs in a very jazzy idiom. No great extemporised solos from anyone, but great accompaniment with people such as Christian McBride and Jason Rebello throw into the mix. The 13 songs are only of around the 4 minute duration each, and “The Heart Wants” is a good musical reflection on life. She has good diction, and a voice that is a bit like brown coffee! Do look out for it and try and have a listen. It is on a label called Lateralize Records.

But for now its goodbye from me!