Hedsor Jazz for October 2017

First of all news of Clive.

He is very unwell, and is in hospital in Reading as of yesterday. He has an infection in his blood, and is being treated on a drip with antibiotics. I am sure we all wish him a speedy recovery. He was due to have a scan yesterday but was deemed too ill to have it, and will have to be stronger before the state of his cancer can be ascertained.

Due to Clive’s condition we have now decided to book ahead our guest musicians so that when he returns there will be an audience to greet him! We now have a list for all of October.

This week (October 6^th) Simon Spillett will be our lead saxophonist. We are very grateful to Simon for his continuing support for Hedsor Jazz. He has been busy this past week in the recording studio and has readily taken up our request to play for us, despite such a time constraint.

October 12^th Mike Wills is taking a break this week, and we have filled the space in front of the rhythm section with guitarist Max Britain and with Martin Nicholas on clarinet. Martin was last with us as an emergency dep in March last year. Max has been to Hedsor more often than Martin, but not so much recently, and we look forward to seeing him again.

October 19^th Tracey Mendham with her big tenor sound (and big personality!) will be joining us. Last time I think we were all impressed by her playing, which has steadily matured since her CD release a few years ago.

October 26^th Trumpet Ace Stuart Henderson will be alongside Mike. 

We are already working on a program for November. Our regular saxophonist Mike Wills will be with us for all of Novembers Thursdays, and we hope to have some exciting guests to play alongside him. Just watch this blog for news.

LAST WEEK

Well I enjoyed it! It was a bit of a pity that more people didn’t get to see and hear Peter Jones alongside Duncan Lamont Junior. It was a great session and most of the food did go, even though some of it became my Friday lunch. Peter has a good voice, and sang a number of quite challenging songs. Not many jazz quintets attempt Steely Dan repertoire! I look forward to seeing him again.

One final plug, Vasilis Xenopoulos is playing alongside Martin Hart, Nick Pugh and Ken McCarthy at The Woodley Theatre on Saturday October 14^th. For more details contact Website: www.woodleytheatre.org