Another issue of Geoff’s blog, and today I can get away with that time worn phrase “winter draws on” with true sincerity. Maybe it is time to purchase some!

Hedsor Jazz this week will draw to itself that hard swinging saxophonist Al Nicholls who will be accompanied by guitarist Max Brittain, two musicians who have played for us in various local venues over a long time. I was going to put “very” in front of that, but we aren’t old enough are we?

They are excellent players both, so do come and support Hedsor Jazz.

Al and Max at Hedsor earlier this year

 

Last week I was surprised to see that I only took 3 photos of the entire evening!

It is always a joy to listen to Duncan Lamont Jr, both playing tenor sax and flute and recounting the many stories he knows about the background to the songs he plays. This time he brought with him a colleague, Phil Hopkins, who is a very accomplished harmonica player. A very enjoyable and different twist to an evening of jazz. It was a super evening. As Phil pointed out, a harmonica has up to 32 reeds!

At the end of the evening Duncan was very kind in thanking me publicly for running Hedsor Jazz, but this isn’t strictly true.

The story goes like this: -

Local Jazz, be it in The Cookham Tavern, The Garibaldi, The Old Bell or since 2002 in The Hedsor Social Club (now The Hedsor Bar) was always backed financially by the late Ernie Evans, a business man who ran a bank account called “Jazz Heaven”. When he died none of us had pockets deep enough to carry on the subsidy in the same way, so we founded “Jazz Angels”. In theory I am Company Secretary, John Dutton is Treasurer and Mike Jeffries is Chairman. The roll of chairman has changed a few times, but John Dutton and I have been at our posts since Jazz Angels" was founded. Money is donated into this account, and any shortfall from an evening's door take is made up by “Jazz Angels”. I do the blog and any posters etc (paperwork), and Martin Hart runs and pays the band and has done so since Clive Burton died. 

Many other people help in keeping jazz alive at Hedsor, not just me, so although being publicly thanked is very nice, do consider any thanks I have received as a thank you to all you helpers who keep it all going. And of course without an audience we could not keep going anyway, so thank you to all of our regular audience. Don’t give up yet please!

My three photos from last week are below.

You might notice that in the last photo Phil is playing a percussive instrument, yes, he is a multi instrumentalist!

Please tell your friends about Hedsor Jazz and bring them if you can persuade them to come.

As I said at the top, winter is coming; it will be more tempting to stay at home being warmed by the telly. If you do that there will be no live jazz at Hedsor next spring!

I hope by next week I will be in a position to tell you who is coming in November and December, but on October 13^th we will have The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet, and on October 20^th we will have 2 stars of our jazz universe, Vasilis Xenopoulos on reeds and Nigel Price on guitar. Literally two good to miss!