OK, it’s a day late, and might become a little light on content. 

BUT I have a good excuse!

First I want to assure you all that before last Thursday I took a lateral flow test and I was negative. However the following day my wife went down with “a cold”. By Monday she wasn’t very well, and we both did a lateral flow test. She was positive, and I was still negative. So we are both shielding, (mainly from each other), but I am doing the shopping and cooking. The earliest we can be sociable again, if we both pass negative on those flow tests, is Saturday.

SO I will not be with you all on Thursday. Which for me is a great shame because we have that terrific lady saxophonist from Oxford, Sue Greenway, coming to play Hedsor Jazz. And she will be alongside “our” Mike Wills, who was also with us last week. 

And what a session last week was, with John Thirkle standing in for Lester Brown. It became a master class in trumpet playing, and a pretty good lesson in singing (from John) too. The program, put together by Mike, was full of great tunes, including “Mercy Mercy Mercy”by Joe Zawinul,  which I don’t think has been played by anyone at Hedsor before.

The song from John T was “I Fall in Love Too Easily”. It was down as a trumpet feature, but he started it as a song but with trumpet interludes!! 

I really do believe that to sit at Hedsor Club and listen to such superb musicians in such an intimate atmosphere is truly life enriching.

My pics of the evening are below. Regular Hedsor attendees will recognise Brian, Martin Harts dog, always loyal to his masters jazz scene!

 

We are still trying to firm up the evening fundraising for Ukraine. We have a number of musicians who would like to be part of that evening, but we have to makes sure they can all make the same Thursday!  Watch this blog space as it might all be announced in short order. Just as an aside, if you buy anything on line and use PayPal they are now adding the option to donate to a fund for Ukraine.

Otherwise the program is as advertised in previous blog issues. One alteration is that on March 31^st the drummer will be Mike Jeffries, as Martin is taking another short break. I think this time it is to fill in potholes (a community service, well he does live in Buckinghamshire). One always knows when one leaves Berkshire and goes into Bucks, the road surface becomes, shall we say “more compromised”!

When we weren’t able to gather during lockdown I used to point you at YouTube clips of jazz that I had found that I thought you might like as well. Well, I am a keen fan of Tony Coe, and decided to search YouTube for him. There is a fair bit there, but I was surprised to find him in the company of Ellingtonian clarinettist Barney Bigard. Back in 1977 Tony was part of a French “Grand Parade Du Jazz”. Do check out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVDTK59yGak&t=72s

And also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMBMFul2mKI

The second clip has some very adroit playing by trumpeter Joe Newman.

Well, that’s about it for now from Cronin Covid Headquarters. See you on the other side, or is that just too spooky?