A short blog today, as tomorrow I have yet another funeral to go to. Then on Friday I will be at The Swanage Jazz Festival, so a fair bit of coming and going.

Last week Hedsor had another of those deputising days! Ken McCarthy, our regular keyboard maestro, is having a holiday break (as I did and will again!!), and Al Nicholls, our advertised guest, was unable to come due to a family illness. At very short notice he was replaced by Alam Nathoo, a remarkable saxophonist who has had to undergo a career change away from music, again because of family commitments. However, he obviously keeps in practice! Which is just as well, because he had never met guitarist James Fenn before, and, because of that short notice hadn’t been able to consult on the evening’s musical content before the night. But together they did splendidly well. The keyboard roll was taken by Martin Pickett, the bass by Ester Ng and Martin Hart was back on drums.

It was therefore a totally unrehearsed evening, which just shows everyone what great musicians we get at Hedsor Jazz. The resultant jazz was of a very high quality. I had to remark to Martin Pickett at half time that I was amazed that they had played Duke Ellington’s “Isfahan” as the second tune in. It comes from Duke’s “Far East” Suite, and isn’t the easiest piece to play, and therefore isn’t played that often!

My photos of the evening are below.

 

Coming this Thursday, July 6^th, we have Duncan Lamont Jr on Tenor Sax and Flute and another replacement as yet unknown to me, as trombonist Mike Innes has some dental problems at the moment. Those of us who have been going to Hedsor Jazz long enough will remember the problems that that sort of thing used to give Clive Burton!

Ken McCarthy will still be on holiday, and at the time of putting this together I can only assume that Martin Pickett will be on keyboard for us again.

That’s it for now folks. IF I get the info for August I will be relight the blogpaper and let you have a poster to look at telling you who we have got coming!

If not, that’s it from me for a couple of weeks, as I go to support live jazz on the South Coast! https://swanagejazzfestival.co.uk/main-programme-2023/

Do look back to see who else we have coming in July, there is information in poster form. And yes, we are amazing, and mad. We run live jazz every week!