Yes, it IS Tuesday and, YES, you are reading Geoff’s blog on a Hedsor Jazz week!

And what a week it will be. Coming back to sing for us on Thursday July 23rd, all the way from the U.S.A., is NANCI ZHANG. She will be accompanied at the front by saxophonist Martin Dunston, and as our regular bass player Al Pirrie has decided to take a holiday, another bass player used to having a lady singer fronting the band, Richard Sadler, has been drafted in in his place. Ken McCarthy on keyboard and Mike Jeffries on drums complete the ensemble.

Try not to miss this, no football, no tennis, and cricket? are going to preoccupy your time, so why not come out and really enjoy an evening of song.

Nanci was with us last year and we are all delighted that she wants to come back.

We have future plans. Yet to be booked, but we know they want to come, are Vasils Xenopoulos and Nigel Price together, we are trying to negotiate a suitable date. Both played for Hedsor Jazz in there progress to top billing, now they are top billings it is harder to get them, but they still do want to come.

Take a look at the program below for August and September. You may have heard of one or two of the musicians before as well!

 

Last Saturday Marlow celebrated the life of Michael Eagleton with a concert in Court Gardens House given by “Five Way Split”, I listed it in my last blog.

 

The music was superb, the room acoustics dreadful! I must remember never to put on music in that room ever! As Vasilis said after the show, “its the sign of a good band that they can play well in a room with dreadful acoustics.” I can assure you that they are a very good band!

 

I can understand the choice of venue, it is a very smart room to sit in, but for a musical event it had drawbacks.. The room layout around big tables mean that a lot of people had a sideways view of the band, and pre-allocated seating meant that you couldn’t sit with your friends. 

A sideways view of some of the band is below. See last weeks blog for the poster.

 

Michael is sad loss to the world of jazz. I first got to know him in 1971and in the years that followed I did occasionally join him for one or two of his radio shows, broadcast from a hut in the Longridge Activity Centre on The Thames.

He also ran a record shop in Marlow selling not only records (LP’s in those days), but some Hi Fi as well, in a upstairs room above the shop. He was a generous man, now much missed.

Don’t forget that to keep live jazz alive, you have to come and see it LIVE, wherever it is performed.

But ESPECIALLY at Hedsor!