jazz club '94
Banbury Jazz Club
The year is 1994; it’s a cold and bleak winter. Tim and I were working in a factory packing mobile phones. It was an early morning start, 6am every day, to a big warehouse. In one corner we would stand freezing, around a series of workbenches packing the phones and various bits of information into the boxes ready for shipment. Boredom soon set in and before long we were sabotaging boxes; leaving out SIM cards, registration cards and even phones !..It provided minor humour and distractions to a sad post university existence.
A newspaper ad, mentioned a local Jazz Club. When most people think jazz it conjures up images of New Orleans, supercool black guys playing in cool bars, surrounded by a haze of tobacco smoke. Banbury Moat House Hotel couldn’t be further from that. We went there to discover what this music was all about and we were blown away.
Mike Dennis was a local man who played the Vibes, a vibraphone (a percussion instrument a bit like a xylophone); this man had such a humble and kind looking face, only a slight smile. When he played the vibes the room was filled with the most joyous sound you could imagine, the place came alive when he played that instrument. The other musicians then, one after the other would play improvised parts which would allow them too, to flow and clearly demonstrate their amazing musical ability and inventiveness. The audience was mainly in their latter years, warm and encouraging to us fresh faced kids. The night was one of many that winter.
These pictures were taken to record a typical night. Mike Dennis played vibes, John Betts on the piano and Pete Lay on the tenor saxophone. Unfortunately I don’t know the names of the double bass player or the drummer.
Tim and I were back to packing phones the next day. We soon quit.
Tim - That still ranks as some of the best live music I've ever had the pleasure to see and hear. If I remember rightly the bass player had been involved in a minor car crash on the way to the 'gig', I put that in inverted commas because I've never been anywhere so ungig like before. Yet the atmosphere was unbelievable. Just a bunch of old timers appreciating great music, no pretensions no fashions just pure love for the music. Betts was awesome and a real treat for a couple of newbys like us, he even had the grace to close his eyes and make 'yeah' type noises has he played along. I bet half of that room is dead now. I real tribute to them and a great memory for the rest of us. Well worth the two pound entrance fee.
nikon fa 24mm nikkor kodachrome 64
The year is 1994; it’s a cold and bleak winter. Tim and I were working in a factory packing mobile phones. It was an early morning start, 6am every day, to a big warehouse. In one corner we would stand freezing, around a series of workbenches packing the phones and various bits of information into the boxes ready for shipment. Boredom soon set in and before long we were sabotaging boxes; leaving out SIM cards, registration cards and even phones !..It provided minor humour and distractions to a sad post university existence.
A newspaper ad, mentioned a local Jazz Club. When most people think jazz it conjures up images of New Orleans, supercool black guys playing in cool bars, surrounded by a haze of tobacco smoke. Banbury Moat House Hotel couldn’t be further from that. We went there to discover what this music was all about and we were blown away.
Mike Dennis was a local man who played the Vibes, a vibraphone (a percussion instrument a bit like a xylophone); this man had such a humble and kind looking face, only a slight smile. When he played the vibes the room was filled with the most joyous sound you could imagine, the place came alive when he played that instrument. The other musicians then, one after the other would play improvised parts which would allow them too, to flow and clearly demonstrate their amazing musical ability and inventiveness. The audience was mainly in their latter years, warm and encouraging to us fresh faced kids. The night was one of many that winter.
These pictures were taken to record a typical night. Mike Dennis played vibes, John Betts on the piano and Pete Lay on the tenor saxophone. Unfortunately I don’t know the names of the double bass player or the drummer.
Tim and I were back to packing phones the next day. We soon quit.
Tim - That still ranks as some of the best live music I've ever had the pleasure to see and hear. If I remember rightly the bass player had been involved in a minor car crash on the way to the 'gig', I put that in inverted commas because I've never been anywhere so ungig like before. Yet the atmosphere was unbelievable. Just a bunch of old timers appreciating great music, no pretensions no fashions just pure love for the music. Betts was awesome and a real treat for a couple of newbys like us, he even had the grace to close his eyes and make 'yeah' type noises has he played along. I bet half of that room is dead now. I real tribute to them and a great memory for the rest of us. Well worth the two pound entrance fee.
nikon fa 24mm nikkor kodachrome 64
