SUMMER

We are actually getting two or three days of warm yellow light, which I understand is called sunshine! It wont last, The Swanage Jazz Festival is coming up (July 12^th – 14^th), and thereby hangs a risk to our summer!!

Last Thursday’s Hedsor Jazz was one of those events both remarkable for bad and good reasons.

I had anticipated seeing both Ken McCarthy and Martin Hart, but no, pianist Nigel Fox, and a drummer I didn’t know where busy setting up. At about 7.45 Esther Ng arrived, bass and all, so we did had a trio, but where were Mike Wills and Sue Greenway our front line guests for the evening?

At 8pm (our usual start time these days), Nigel handed me his phone, and it was Mike on the other end of it, speaking from The Radcliffe Hospital A&E in Oxford!

He had been taken ill whilst driving himself and Sue to our gig! His pacemaker had triggered, and fortunately Sue had managed to stop the car and call an ambulance. He was OK, but apologising for missing our gig!!

Fortunately I had Alam Nathoo’s phone number on my phone, and as he now lives within walking distance of Hedsor Bar I gave him a ring, hoping he might be free. I interrupted his evening meal. Yes he was free, and yes he would come. By 8.45 he was playing the fourth tune in our first set, the first 3 tunes being provided by our trio!

I must say we are extremely grateful that Alam dropped every plan he may have had for his evening (including that of digestion) and came to us and played spectacularly for us.

I have since been in touch with Mike’s wife Sam, and Mike is OK, but still in The John Radclife Hospital waiting to see what the cardiology department want to do with him. He has no phone reception there, but via email he has said he will let us know when he can what the next step will be. Needless to say I’m sure we all wish him a rapid recovery, and look forward to hearing the arrangements he must have made for the tunes he intended to play at Hedsor that night. Sue Greenway was obviously upset by the events of the aborted journey, and we wish her well as the trauma of the evening diminishes and we look forward to seeing and hearing her again at Hedsor Jazz before too long.

Musically the evening was absolutely amazing. I think everyone rose to the occasion and played with diminishing socks returns! Thank you again trio, Nigel Fox, Esther Ng and Stephane Booroff drums. My photos of the evening are below:-

Coming this Thursday, June 27^th, we have husband and wife team Al Pirrie on bass with trumpet player and singer Steff Pirrie, together with saxophonist Noah Smith. They are backed by Nigel Fox, again on keyboard, and I understand that Martin Hart will be back from another holiday to be our drummer. Pics below are from Stephs first visit to Hedsor Jazz.

 

Now the election night (July 4^th) has caused us some problems. I myself have to go to a funeral in Winchester, which starts at the unusual time of 6.30pm. SO after a quick vote, I shall be off to Hampshire. However, it seems that almost every musician in the country has a gig that night, including those we had advertised, but we do have a full evening of Jazz at Hedsor provided by Duncan Lamont and he thinks he can fix a very nice guitarist called Russell Jarrett to come too. Our trio will also have voted by then, and will also come out to play! I will be doubly sad to miss them all.

Do look back at the posters for July and August. Dorset beckons so newsy blogs may shrink a bit for a week or two. 

However some very special music will be played at Hedsor, so don’t miss a note.