It’s Tuesday, and time for another blog.

A “strange” blog today, because against all expectations I wasn’t able to get to Hedsor Jazz last week, so NO PHOTOS of Terry Hutchins and Mike Wilkins from their set last week. I am told it was a great session, sadly with very few in the audience. Maybe it was viewing fatigue! My excuse was I had my autumn booster jab for covid 19 AND my flue jab both on Wednesday afternoon, and found that by Thursday I was very “tired”. Sofa, TV and blankets were the order of the day (and evening!)!

So Hedsor Jazz missed my 1 man boost for its audience but I got a 2 jab boost (one in each arm!).

So to this week’s session on Thursday September 29th and something rather different. I am anticipating Martin Hart back from his holidays after 2 weeks of absence, and with him will be Ken McCarthy on keyboard. And of course a guest bass player. However we have 2 very special guests this week. On reeds we have a return of Duncan Lamont Jr (I am glad to say! He is a great player and a great supporter of us at Hedsor Jazz) but he will be partnered by a player, and an instrument that I don’t think we have had before. On HARMONICA we will have Phil Hopkins.

https://www.philhopkins.org.uk/

Phil Hopkins

So, discard the TV remote and venture out. Join us for what I am certain will be a greatly entertaining evening.

If you click on the link to Phil’s web page you will be able to listen to some of his work. He is of course paying tribute in his jazz playing to “Toots” Thielemans, a Belgian who played the harmonica with the Benny Goodman Orchestra when they toured Europe in 1949/50. Click on the link to hear some of his playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Zdn0Rzvks

"Toots" Thielmans

Having already written that I don’t think we have ever had the harmonica played at Hedsor Jazz before my memory tells me that we have had a well known harmonica player in the Hedsor audience before....the late Harry Pitch. He was responsible for the signature sounds on “The Last of the Summer Wine”. I do remember Harry coming to one of our buffet evenings at Hedsor Jazz and helping ensure nothing went to waste!

Looking deeper into October we have some super jazz coming to Hedsor. Make sure you keep your Thursday evenings free for it, because Al Nicholls, Max Brittain, The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet,  Vasils Xenopoulos and Nigel Price are all coming to us during October! Lets make it a warm welcome for all of our guest jazz musicians.

For the time being we still only charge £10 entry, and we start at 8.30pm. We are in the big room at The Hedsor Bar, Bourne End, Bucks. SL8 5ES

Tuesdays Blog, some jazz to look forward to after a sombre day, at Hedsor Jazz.

Our revered band leader, (Martin Hart) is still taking a holiday, so this week , Thursday 22^nd September, we will have the same rhythm section as last week. Mike Jeffries will be taking over the drum chair, even if not the microphone, and Terry Davis will be back on bass. As ever Ken McCarthy will be our keyboard man.

Many people would pay good money just to listen to that trio, but for your £10 entry we will have in front of them this week the guitarist, who is now more often associated with Pangbourne Jazz club, Terry Hutchins and a young saxophonist who has been to Hedsor a couple of times before Mike Wilkins. So, lots of bang for your buck in Buckinghamshire!

Mike Wilkins and Terry Hutchins on their last visit to Hedsor Jazz

 

Last week I know some of you were in mourning for the only Queen most of us have known, certainly for most of our lives, and although we had some well established super players, we had a very skimpy audience. So I do hope now the official period of mourning is over, a few more of you will be able to come out to Hedsor Jazz. For those not there, some photos of our evening are below.

It is worth pondering that it is only when something is no longer available to us that we realise the true value of it.

Last night when all the sadness and pomp were over I pulled out a recording I had made of Hedsor Jazz Christmas 2016 and played the second set all the way through. Clive Burton holding the evening together and orchestrating the players, and one by one they were all revealed. Nigel Fox on keyboard but also Ken McCarthy taking a turn as well. Ken Rankine on bass, Martin of course on drums, but with Mike Jeffries added on bongos. Then one by one more players come to the microphone! Stuart Henderson on trumpet and Tolly on saxophone, Alan Grahame on vibes, Nigel Price on guitar and finally Willy Garnet on tenor sax. The final number before the wish for a happy Christmas, “Oleo”. And that was played slow enough for some great riffing! The memory did bring tears to my eyes. Not long ago in years, but a lot of real time!

Keep coming to Hedsor Jazz, and we may even be able to generate some more memories for you of great jazz nights out.

That's it for now folks.

A Quick PS

It is not often (owing to the age range of Hedsor Jazz patrons) that we are able to announce that two of our patrons have an addition to their family, but congratulations to Davis Pucill and Anna for the birth of Aeron on September 17th

  

Hedsor Jazz this Thursday (September 15^th) sees a return of “our” Lester Brown on trumpet alongside saxophonist Mark Aston. They will be “propelled” by our usual rhythm section with Ken McCarthy on keyboard and Martin Hart on drums. As is also usual, we will have a surprise bass player! So why not venture forth and enjoy some fine jazz, all for the cost of a £10 entry, and possibly a little sustenance from the club priced bar.

Last week's session (pictures below from both myself and Geoff Swaffield) came from that fine trombonist Nick Mills who this time had saxophonist  Alam Nathoo alongside him. A superb demonstration of musicianship and jazz. Yes, m and j, both in the same sentence! Once upon a time (another fairy story?) I used to play the trumpet (not very well), and I used to be able to read the dots (those round black things that tell you to go up a bit or down a bit), but the musicianship displayed by all last week was exceptional and left me in awe. All of last week arrangements were provided by Nick Mills, and he handed them round to the guys in the band for each tune. The band then had to sight read them and they did this almost without fault. Even Alam managed to play the harmonies without having read the sheets before! Jaw dropping! In the front line there is nowhere to hide!

Last week of course Thursday was a sad day, the announcement of the Queens passing was only announced about 2 hours before the first music was played. Some people were surprised that we did open that night, but it would have caused chaos if we had tried to cancel with such short a notice. We carried on in the best spirit of the show going on, and I think everyone appreciated this. We don’t plan any future cancellations, our respect for Her Majesty and her long reign is in no way diminished by this. Maybe at some point we will get the band to play “God Save the King”. When I first learnt about jazz that is what was played!

More about Hedsor Jazz next week, but I sadly have to go to a funeral this pm and I am therefore running short on time. Someone else who ran out of time last week was drummer Trevor Tomkins who lost his battle with cancer also on Thursday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Tomkins . A sad loss to British Jazz, and to jazz at The Milford Arms in Isleworth. 

 Good Morning Jazz Fans.

Having woken up to the sound of Boris Johnson’s booster rockets falling into the Pacific Ocean, I feel a sort of mental lethargy creeping over me. Yesterday I read that he was paid £275000 for writing articles for The Telegraph, and as a Minister of the Crown he would have been paid £69000 on top of his salary as an MP of £75000. I feel that not only are jazz musicians underpaid, but also people who write blogs about jazz for absolutely nothing are also undervalued! I wont sulk (yet)! 

So perhaps this edition, which as always is in full colour, may be shorter than usual. After all, I have to be awake by 4pm to hear what our new prime minister has to say once she is standing in front of No.10 at 4pm.

Coming to Hedsor Jazz this week (Thursday 8^th September) is someone new to us. Alam Nathoo is a saxophonist who has stepped slightly sideways from a musical career to help run a family business, but he is a saxophonist of great ability. He also writes! Do check out his website https://alamnathoo.wordpress.com/

 

He also lives in Cookham! Perhaps one day we will be able to gather all the musicians who live in Cookham to play together. Now that would be interesting, as Chris Rea is also a Cookham resident, as is Vasilis Xenopoulos.

Alam will be alongside that superb trombone player Nick Mills. 

Alam has played alongside Nick in larger musical ensembles that ours at Hedsor Jazz, and is looking forward to this small group outing on Thursday. Our usual start time of 8.30pm and it is still only £10 to get in. 

Come and sample two young musicians playing improvised jazz before the booster rockets reappear from their Pacific hiding place!

Last week (pictures below) we had a great evening listening again to some of the tunes Hedsor Jazz’s founder Clive Burton used to enjoy playing. What a treat it all was, even finishing our evening with “Jeanine”*. They were of course brought to us by Mike Wills and Lester Brown, with Ken McCarthy, Ester Ng and Martin Hart all making up  “The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet”. 

Do look back to last weeks blog for the listing of the next 2 months of Hedsor Jazz gigs. We have a great set of line ups coming, with some unusual evenings for you to rant or rave about.

Don’t forget to let me have the names of the musicians you would like to have come to Hedsor to play for us. Not everything is possible, but we do try to please!

Also make a note in your diary for December 15^th. It will be our Christmas Party!

*There is a version of “Jeannine” played by Cannonball Adderley in 1962 available on YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN1SwOdbdBU

 OK, it's my splash down time, so I'll see you when I have dried out. TTFN.