Hedsor Jazz and Geoff’s blog are obviously linked. I have been writing and “pushing” jazz via it since 2005 and obviously feel that the blog has “come of age”.

I have been trying to persuade people to listen to and understand jazz for longer than that. Initially it was “Jazz at Geoff’s” back in the early 1990’s, where I managed to cram 12 people into my front room and play for them a mix of recorded jazz, usually from LP’s . I would usually play a complete LP side at a time and would dissuade people from taking whilst the music was on. This was often achieved by turning the volume up until they could no longer hear each other, by which time they had got the message! At the end of each segment I would explain why I had played it and seek feedback from the people there.

My front room became too small, and the promotion of live jazz in pubs was the next step, and “Jazz from Geoff” was born.

Not many years after that I first met and listened to Vasilis Xenopoulos, and became convinced he was a rising star in the jazz firmament. Last week at Hedsor Jazz many of you came and listened, and I think all of you agreed with me. He is the nearest modern jazz can have to being a star. With him was a guitarist that Vasilis introduced me to soon after the UK found out about Vasilis, one Nigel Price. I think he is the best jazz guitarist in the country and at one Cookham Festival jazz night I introduced him as that, much to his embarrassment. The two have gone on to grow a synergy between then that is almost uncanny for a listener. Bringing them together last week at Hedsor Jazz was just a wonderful experience, with a room full of people obviously enjoying the music and who cheered loudly at the end of the evening.

After the show I talked with Vasilis, and he had remembered playing in the bar at Hedsor one Monday evening when just a few people came to out listen. One of the band that night was John Critchinson, depping at the last moment on a borrowed keyboard. It was all a long way from my front room. In distance maybe not so far, perhaps 2 miles, but in life experience a life changing distance away for everyone concerned.

The pictures below are from last Thursday evening, some from my camera, and some from the phone of Geoff Swaffield.

On Bass, John Porter

 

Hedsor Jazz has put on some wonderful evenings of jazz over the years. We have experimented with jazz styles and instrument combinations from every reed instrument you could get 2 saxophonists to gather together and play, right through  to a jazz harmonica (I get confused, is that 48 reeds?). Yes, vibs and violins have also played jazz for us, and many instrumental combinations in between. We have had some jazz singers at Hedsor too. Yes, I know not all like jazz singers, but who would have missed the pleasure we all gained from the late Tina May at our Christmas parties.

Coming this Thursday (October 27^th) to Hedsor we have an instrument that is quite common both in jazz and at Hedsor, a trumpet. But not many carbon fibre trumpets get made or played. So come and hear it not only being well played, but played by someone who has been on at least a dozen hit singles. Trumpeter John Thirkle is better known for being part of the “brass” sound behind Lisa Stansfield and Jamiroquia, but on Thursday this week he will be playing JAZZ, alongside the reed player who has played more gigs at Hedsor than any other, Mike Wills.

 

We have lots more super jazz coming to Hedsor, so reserve your Thursday evenings for Hedsor Jazz. Don’t miss an evening that just may turn out to be spine tingling incredible.

 

Some of you missed last week, you really don’t want to miss 2 weeks in a row.

Another Blog, and another week in which to look forward to a super Thursday Night of Jazz.

Where? At Hedsor Jazz of course.

Coming this Thursday (October 20^th) we have that terrific pairing of saxophonist Vasilis Xenopoulos and guitarist Nigel Price. Each individually have become world class musicians, but bring them together and they become musical magicians, conjuring up excitement and innovation beyond compare. At Hedsor, we are so privileged to have them come and play for our level of audience. Let’s face it, if Hedsor reached its Fire Regulation limit it would still be 1/10 of the audience numbers they usually play for. For you, the audience, it is an opportunity to see and meet in such intimate surroundings musicians of their quality. They will be ably supported by The Martin Hart Trio.

 

The following Thursday (October 27^th) is another opportunity to meet and listen to musicians more used to playing really large venues. Trumpet star Johnny Thirkle will be out front of our trio and alongside reedman Mike Wills. John has just finished a tour with Lisa Stansfield and has also been on tour with “Jamiroquai” since he was last Hedsor. Do come and listen to his carbon fibre trumpet.

We have much more lined up for you in the weeks before Christmas. Do look back to last week's blog where the rest of the year is “explained”!

 Dont forget that if you want to jazz on a Tuesday night, there is “another” place to do so locally. Check out https://www.marlowjazz.co.uk/Events2022fromAugust.pdf

 Also, slightly further afield, more jazz is available in and around Reading. Check out “Jazz in Reading” https://www.jazzinreading.com/

Looking back on last week I will leave you with some of Geoff Swaffield’s photos from the set we had from “The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet”, which includes Lester Brown and Mike Wills, all backed by The Martin Hart Trio.

Geoff S managed to take a set of pics from his phone and are less full frontal than mine.

 

Steve Smith on bass

The CBCQ often play tunes that the late Clive Burton used to play. They also play tunes and new arrangements that he may well have enjoyed playing as well.

Remember, the future is always based on the past, but you can only live in the present.

That’s about it for now folks, take care,

 

Geoff C 

Well, I managed to miss AL Nicholls AGAIN.

But joy of joys, I managed another thorough investigation of Wexham Parks A&E system (or lack of it!). It was just my luck to go down with another bought of pneumonia, and I have been at home with a big bag of antibiotics since Tuesday last.

However, Geoff Swaffield has kindly sent me some photos of last week's session (which was another unusual combination for Hedsor Jazz, no keyboard, but tenor sax, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and drums). I have put some below.

Bass player is Dave Richmond 

Some great portrait shots here from Geoff Swaffield, taken on his mobile phone

I have also managed to put together 2 posters. DO try and copy, print off and display somewhere a frustrated and potential jazz fan might read them. They are below in all their self-explanatory beauty! 

So you will see from the poster that coming to Hedsor Jazz this week, Thursday October 13^th, we have “our” Mike Wills on reeds, together with Lester Brown on trumpet, who when together at Hedsor Jazz become “The Clive Burton Celebration Quintet”.

I hope next week to be a little more erudite, but for now, like the song says, “Let me say I love you”, or as Duke Ellington used to say, “We Love You Madly”! 

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! 

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.

 Good Tuesday to you. Did you all enjoy your bank holiday? I enjoyed mine, but now time to get back to business.

I now have a list of future Hedsor Jazz events, and below is a jpeg of a poster covering September and October. We hope to pursued newcomers by putting out more posters around the area in the coming weeks. Do tell your friends of our super jazz Thursdays, and where possible, bring them with you.

The current state of our country makes everyone have an apprehension for the future, but we hope to be able to fulfil the program that can be seen in the poster. If you have the capability (no, not Brown!) please print it and display it wherever you can.

A4 and A5 copies of this will be available at Hedsor for the next week or so.

You will notice that there are some slightly different evenings coming up, as well as the tried and tested, we have some innovations. Do let us have your thoughts on this, and also if you have a musician you would like to see at Hedsor Jazz let us know (in writing if possible) and we will see what can be arranged. Dont forget that sponsorship is one way of getting your choice of performer coming to Hedsor.

Last week, (pictures below), with Peter Cook, (mostly on alto sax, but pictured below on baritone) and Nick Mills on trombone was a demonstration of almost pure Bop. The level of musicianship was superb. If you have ever yourself played an instrument, especially in a jazz field (maybe the only place you were allowed to play! I do joke), you will have realised how difficult it is to improvise on the chords, and keep an eye on the melody as well as carrying an ear for what the others are doing. On very few occasions last week did anyone become “misplaced”. Nick Mills on trombone should be especially commended. He was incredibly adroit on an instrument that has no fixed tube length!

Coming THIS THURSDAY we have the full “Clive Burton Celebration Quintet” with Lester Brown on trumpet and Mike Wills on reeds. Of the original Clive Burton Quintet we have Martin on drums, and Mike on reeds with us this week, September 1^st. Do come for a sample of the past.

One final note. I have been selling “part used” CD’s at Hedsor for years. I have recently had a donation of some new stock, which I will bring with me this week. Do take a look. All the money raised goes to Cancer Research UK. With your 50p’s and occasional £1’s we have collected £50 since April.