Jazz
Start of the Blues?
Jazz of a wide but more modern style is probably our most favourite
form of music. It might have something to do with the fact that
within a short time of "becoming an item", Margaret and I became
regular members of the Barnet Jazz Club. Here we saw all the popular
traditional bands of the day, such as Chris Barber, Kenny Ball,
Acker Bilk, Lonnie Donegan etc. It was not so long after this
phase, that our jazz tastes matured somewhat, when treating
ourselves to concerts at the Royal Festival Hall to see the likes of
The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) and the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul
Desmond.
Hear Here
An interest in Hi Fi and electronics prompted the building of
amplifiers and loudspeaker systems, where the aim was to produce
as much bass as possible, although in those days a lot of it was
mains hum! Linked to a tape or record deck, provided the
opportunity to copy and purchase the wide range of music we both
enjoyed. Although we both appreciate classical music, most of
our collection contains a tinge of jazz in one form or another.
Revival
In recent years, jazz has gone through somewhat of a revival,
especially in Oxfordshire, and a lot of pubs in the area,
including our own Shepherds Hut, bring in various modern groups
to entertain customers. We are also fortunate to have some very
good Danish friends, who introduced us to the Silkeborg
Riverboat Jazz Festival, and we have been privileged to have
been invited to this event for a number of years. It is these
same friends who discovered that Bude in Cornwall also run a
jazz festival, which also seemed to be an ideal location to hold
a sales conference.
Sound Streaming
The real purpose of this section is to experiment with the
ability of a web site to hold downloadable (and thus playable)
sound files. The examples here were recorded at various live
gigs using a PDA (handheld computer) of the Compaq iPAQ variety.
On transferring to a PC, such a file is formatted as a .wav file
(the sort used by Windows for playing sounds). For say a 5
minute piece, this can be as large as 10M bytes. However,
converting this to MP3 format (used extensively for music files
on the Internet) can compress this by as much as 10 times. The
quality is not quite as good as the original, but is more than
adequate for enjoyable listening - especially with a glass of
wine or two!. To play, just click on a link of your choice
below. Your media player should open and automatically start
playing while the rest of the file "streams" in. Depending on
the speed of your Internet connection, this may take a short
while, since each music file uses about 1M byte. With a
Broadband connection however, this should only take a few
seconds.
Video Streaming
Five years later, the opportunity arises to try a
similar experiment with a video file, although the size of
download is rather larger. How could I refuse the opportunity to
publish a couple of videos taken when playing kazoo with a
riverboat jazz band at the Silkeborg Jazz Festival? Although
three years apart, the quality of the playing hasn't improved
much, and better heard after a couple of glasses of wine!
Jazz Library
Shepherds Hut Ewelme - July 2003 - Modern Quartet (Not everyone listening!)
Bude Jazz Festival - Hartland Hotel - August 2003 - Traditional Septet
Bude Jazz Festival - Bude Bistro - August 2003 - Modern Quartet
Bude Jazz Festival - August 2003 - Modern Quartet part 1
Bude Jazz Festival - August 2003 - Modern Quartet part 2
Silkeborg Jazz Festival 2008 - Riverboat - Saintly Kazoo (YouTube video)
Silkeborg Jazz Festival 2011 - Riverboat - Blackbird Kazoo Take 1 (YouTube video)
Silkeborg Jazz Festival 2011 - Riverboat - Blackbird Kazoo Take 2 (YouTube video)
© Sea Jay Records