GOOD EVENING! And welcome to… THE GIG REVIEW!

“Thirty days has September,
April, June, and November.”

 
Remember remember the 5th of November, clarinets piccolos and flutes… And you might as well remember all the other days of the month while you’re at it, because it’s time now for us to put on our memory hats and reminisce about all the wonderful goings-on that kept us occupied in month number 11! I use the term ‘us’ loosely of course. What I really mean is ‘me’.

In many ways, November is a month just like any other, albeit more conducive to cosy indoor performances than al fresco playing. Wedding season has kind of dwindled away and the festivities of Hallowe’en and Oktoberfest are but a distant memory. If only there were something else to look forward to that could justify a little musical accompaniment…

But of course there is such a festival just around the corner, and no matter how firmly in denial you may be, whether you like it or not it’s the time of year to start thinking about the C word: CHRISTMAS! As a matter of fact, for musicians November is quite late in the day to plan for the festive season. Remember that, for performances to be ready in time for the big day, they often have to be prepared weeks or even months in advance. Particularly during my schooldays, I seem to remember it feeling like no sooner had we returned from the summer holidays than all the musical groups would start practising their Christmas repertoire. And there are plenty of early festive-themed events going on throughout the year’s penultimate month too. I remember a couple of years ago I spent 18 near-consecutive days performing at a Christmas market, doing 3 hours of playing a day, and by the time the market finished on November 23rd I was so sick of festive tunes that it seemed perverse that the rest of the world was only just starting to gear up for the season!

Luckily this year I’ve enjoyed a little more variety, so while this month’s Review will feature a few tinsel-bedecked and sleighbell-soundtracked performances there will be plenty of other curveballs to keep you guessing and wondering, “My my, what will that man get up to next?” And with that, it seems the perfect moment to knuckle down to the nitty gritty business of exploring my November adventures.
 

I seem to have developed a knack in recent months of booking in an extremely local gig for as soon as I return from a holiday. Back in August I came back from my travels, and the following day I only had to go a mere 2 miles down the road to earn my keep at a wedding reception. And on 2nd November, having returned the previous afternoon from a pleasant few days away, I only had to shift myself 4 miles in order to attend my latest engagement.

The performance in question was an Andrew Lloyd Webber themed concert produced by St. Dunstan’s Amateur Operatic & Dramatic Society, in Manchester. It had been running all week but I was only stepping in to help out with the final two shows on the Saturday. My instruments for this one were flute, clarionet, tenor saxomophone and baritone saxomophone, and as a ‘depping’ gig it was very much a straight-in-at-the-deep-end, no-rehearsal, here’s-the-part-now-play-it-as-though-you-know-what-you’re-doing kind of thing. Fortunately I’ve always been good with the old sight-reading game, and so while I may have fudged the odd tricky bit here and there I managed to play both performances (matinee and evening) without any major disasters. I even acquitted myself well in the 5/8 concentration-fest that is the title song from ‘Sunset Boulevard’, which as anyone who’s ever played it will know, is no mean feat! And what’s more, because it was so close to home I got to go back for a lovely home-cooked meal between shows.
 

The show as a whole sounded great from my vantage point in the orchestra pit, and it was especially nice to play in such a large band. I seem to recall there were about 15 of us in total, which is rare for theatre shows, and as a result it sounded spectacular. Producers take note: sometimes it actually is worth spending a bit extra to have more musicians!

Whilst both performances did go very smoothly on the whole, there was one little hiccup that is worth recounting as a mildly amusing anecdote. It happened in the matinee – the first time I’d done the show. We played the overture (taken from ‘Sunset Boulevard’ I seem to remember), with the musical director conducting from the front as he wasn’t required to play any piano for that number. Then immediately after that we transitioned into the Prologue from ‘Cats’, which opens in a very minimal fashion with just some isolated solo instruments punctuated by occasional piano chords. Well the MD lowered his hands to play the keyboard… and not a sound came out! His next twenty seconds or so were spent in mild panic trying to work out which switch hadn’t been activated or which cable hadn’t been plugged in or which volume knob had been turned down, whilst frantically continuing to conduct lest the rest of us should lose our places and the whole thing fall to pieces entirely! Luckily he managed to fix the issue very quickly but it was a tense moment (not to mention a bit of a baffling one).
 

The morning following my Lloyd Webber shenanigans – or to give it its full title, Sunday 3rd November – I made my way down to Sale in South Manchester for the band call of my next production: ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with Junior Stage 80. This show has always held a special place in my heart as it’s one of the first musicals I ever played in, back when I was a fresh-faced 17-year-old VI Form student. For that production I had played Reed 3 (clarinet, bass clarinet and flute), however due to my limited doubling abilities at the time I did it all on clarinet. I enjoyed it so much, though, that after the end of the run I thought to myself, “Hmm, if I want to do more of these kinds of gigs I should really learn some more instruments.” Consequently, a few months later I bought myself a flute and the rest is history!

See if you can spot me in this photo of the band from the first time I played this show all those years ago… Don’t ask me why we all look like we’re wearing lipstick!
 

It’s not an easy musical to play, by any means (and if I’m completely honest, that challenge is part of why it appeals to me). Reed 3 is very technically difficult even for a first-study clarinettist like me. And this latest production was set to be even more challenging because I had been booked to play Reed 1, which features only flute and piccolo – instruments I’d never even attempted the last time I did the show! Knowing what a tricky part it would be to play, and wanting to do a good job for the sake of music which I love so well, when I was initially booked to play for this production back in February I immediately set about looking through the part and spent a considerable amount of time over the following nine months practising the fiddly bits and exercising my fingers, in an effort to get into top fluting form in time for November. You may think this a bit excessive for such a small number of performances, however I was very keen to do the music justice and also aware that any time I spent working on this specific music would also be of general benefit to my flute and piccolo playing, so the effort was well worth putting in.

To further improve my chances of doing a half-decent job, I even bought myself a new piccolo! Again, this was something that would benefit my playing in general and so I had been considering it for some time. But this production seemed like as good an excuse as any, and so earlier this year I parted with my trusty old Yamaha 32 after 10 years of loyal service and treated myself to a Guo ‘New Voice’ piccolo. Or, as it has since been christened by my family, a LEGO piccolo – look, it’s made of plastic! Oooooooh…
 

At some point I may get round to reviewing the Guo and maybe even sharing some comparative audio samples pitting it against the Yamaha. But for now I have more storytelling to be getting on with. Now where was I…

Ah yes, on Sunday 3rd I pootled down to Sale Waterside Arts Centre, armed with my new instrument and many months of preparatory practice, for our first rehearsal. It was great to play through the music as part of a band at last, but what made it extra special was all the familiar faces present. The musical director was the same lady who had done ‘Oliver!’ (the Northwich one back in February), and the bassist and clarinettist had also played for that show so it almost felt like a little family reunion! Further more, playing trumpet with considerable ‘beans’ was a-lady-with-whom-I-share-some-close-acquaintance (and who also makes me sandwiches if I ask nicely), which provided the cherry on the top of an already substantial cake of a week. Oh, and another familiar face turned up in the shape of the sound man, whom I had met back in October 2022 playing a production of (you guessed it) ‘Oliver!’ up in Heywood. What a small world!

There was another rehearsal on the Monday, then performances from Tuesday to Saturday. Unusually there was no Friday evening show or Saturday matinee, which made the schedule feel particularly forgiving and civilised. In some ways it would have been nice to have the extra performances for a production I was enjoying so much, but then it’s probably better not to risk having too much of a good thing, and instead to leave people wanting more.

And want more we did! It was a really excellent production, and I must congratulate the cast for giving superb performances all round. There were some terrific vocal performances, and I was particularly pleased to hear someone do justice to The Beast, a role which in my opinion was sadly deficient on both the original West End and Broadway recordings. The only negative from my perspective was that there were only 6 of us in the band – flute, clarinet, trumpet, piano, bass and drums – when it really needs the full 19-piece orchestration to give it its full impact. But then there are only so many instruments you can squeeze into the corner of a theatre, and besides this gives me a good excuse to do the show again in future when a production comes along with the scope for the full orchestra! Oh, and also I was sat far too close to the drum kit which meant I had to spend the entire week playing with earplugs in…
 

Although the performances themselves were most enjoyable, travelling to them wasn’t always such a good experience. On the face of it, the show was in a really convenient location for me – less than 9 miles from my front door, which usually took around 20 minutes to drive. But on the Thursday I got caught up in that great destroyer of journeys: football traffic! Oh my, it gives me the shakes even just thinking back to it. I knew things were bad when, after 15 minutes in the car, I could still see my flat! To cut a long story short, in total it took a full hour to get to the theatre that night, at an average speed that didn’t even rise into double figures. At 7:28 pm I made it to my seat, not a little stressed, accompanied by the tannoy announcement, “Ladies and gentlemen, the show will begin in two minutes.” Luckily the announcer was being a little optimistic and I did ultimately have time to put my instrument together and have a vague warm-up before the overture began, but still! Football, eh? Too popular for its own good. If only so many people were obsessed with coming to TRAD. JAZZ gigs I’d be able to retire after about a month!
 

It was a very theatrical month for me, November, and no sooner had I finished ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (or ‘B&B’ as I like to call it) than I was onto the next show, with a rehearsal for The Zodiac‘s production of ‘Elf’ on Sunday 10th. Fortunately I wasn’t doing the whole week for this one, but instead just covering a couple of dates where the regular Reed 3 player was unavailable. Much as I’d have liked to do the entire run, I’ve learnt from experience that doing 2 musicals back-to-back does end up feeling like a bit of a marathon!

The theatre for this production was over in Northwich, about half an hour’s drive from me. So not too bad in terms of travel, however in terms of instrumentation it was rather less practical! For this one I was required to play the cumbersome combination of flute, clarionet, bass clarionet, baritone saxomophone and bassooooooooon, which meant several trips to and fro between a full car and the theatre merely to get all the equipment in! Then it takes ages to get all five instruments set up, and it’s only then that the real challenges begin. It’s hard enough juggling multiple instruments when they’re little ones like flute and alto saxophone. But try playing for several minutes on a baritone saxophone, then having about 10 seconds to throw it down and pick up a bassoon ready for an important solo, followed by another quick change to the beast that is the bass clari! It’s quite a work-out, and there’s the ever-present worry of a precious delicate instrument crashing to the ground mid-song because you’ve not placed it carefully enough on its stand. Even just keeping the reeds intact becomes a challenge: I noticed that when I was playing bassoon it was very difficult not to keep hitting the reed of the bass clarinet over to my left; then when playing baritone saxophone it was by no means easy not to hit the bassoon reed; and of course there’s not much room to play flute without clashing with the baritone on its stand to my right!

In the end I managed to get through the rehearsal without destroying anything expensive. But then on Wednesday 13th I returned to Northwich to play for an actual performance, and was faced with yet more challenges! Due to the lack of space (the band was laid out in the narrow gap between the back of the stage and the rear wall of the theatre) there was only room for me to sit facing the back wall, with the musical director several metres to my left. Therefore the only way for me to see him and follow his cues was to look out of the far left corner of my eye – and even then I had to lean forwards slightly to see past one of the other keyboard players! That, combined with the logistics of switching between massive instruments and the fact I was still more-or-less sight-reading, made for quite a tricky evening’s work.
 

Tell you what though, it did sound great! I was pretty happy with my own playing, and the rest of the band was populated with some real first-class musicians. It did occur to me actually while I was playing that it couldn’t have been far off professional touring or West End standard, and as a result I had a great time of it. As for the show itself, my overall impression was that it was fun to play and the arrangements were really well put-together, but musically and dramatically I found it rather shallow. Put it this way: I’ve never seen the film, and after playing the show I still have no desire to! But from the perspective of a woodwind musician it was a challenging and fun experience to play for it.

What’s more, you too can get a small taste of the experience by watching the following video, which features clips of some of my saucy baritone saxomophone playing from the above production:
 

My final theatrical experience of November – at least, as a performer – took place on Thursday 28th when I travelled all the way down to London for a rehearsal of ‘Footloose’. This is another one of those gigs that spans multiple months, as performances didn’t actually commence until December, and therefore you’ll have to wait until next month to find out how the shows actually went. But for now, here are the facts as we know them…

The venue for this grand spectacular was a private school down in West London, where an old friend of mine from university has recently got a job as head of music. It was really nice to receive his email a few months ago asking if I’d like to be involved in the show – it’s over 4 years since we last crossed paths, and 9 since we last performed together when he conducted me as part of Durham University Symphony Orchestra in Ravel’s ‘Daphnis et Chloé Suite No.2’. So this was to be as much an opportunity for a little catch-up as it was a gig.

This was the second time I’d played ‘Footloose’, the first being a production in Congleton 2 years ago when I’d been brought in to help add some life to the dead-as-a-doornail backing tracks that the company had hired. This time though I was glad to be part of a full 8-piece band made up entirely of actual living humans, so it was a great opportunity to finally do the music justice. In terms of instruments, the part calls for flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone. So as you can imagine there’s a lot of rocky growly saxomophone in the part to enjoy! Oddly enough though the baritone only plays for about 20 bars in the entire show – really it can be dispensed with entirely, and I didn’t bother bringing it along for this rehearsal. However in my determination to do a nice authentic job in performance I did plan to transport it down for the upcoming show week.

Musically the run-through didn’t pose any real issues, as it’s quite a straightforward show overall and the parts are well-written for each instrument (with the exception of some inexplicable glaring typos). We musicians were placed up on the balcony at the side of the theatre, which meant I would even have the luxury of a partial view of the stage. What did mar the rehearsal though from my point of view was a lack of music stand lights. These are really crucial for theatre gigs when the musicians are required to perform in the dark, and I do in fact have my own at home which I bought many years ago after growing sick of the dreadful cheap-and-nasty options that are all too often provided, and which gradually go from dim to dimmer to useless over the course of a production. I hadn’t brought it to this rehearsal as there were lights available at the school which we’d be using for the performances, however sadly they weren’t brought along to the run-through and so I spent the afternoon with my face inches away from the music stand, peering through the darkness in an attempt to attain some concept of what notes I was meant to be playing. So not the most favourable of circumstances, but looking on the bright side, at least it gave me a good excuse if I played anything wrong!

Following the rehearsal I stayed over in London and headed back up to Manchester via the Peak District the following day. But more about that later. And more about ‘Footloose’ later, too! Tune in next month to find out how I got on with the performances.
 

It’s been a busy old year for The Dixie Beats, Bolton’s leading (and only) Dixieland jazz band, for whom I am proud to play my clarionet on a regular basis. Unfortunately I had to miss out on one of their gigs this month as it clashed with the Footloose rehearsal, but I thought that justified seeing as it’s the only one of their performances I’ve missed in 2 years. Plus it was Didsbury Cricket Club, who see enough of me as it is.

Despite that one absence, I was still due to give two performances with the band in November. Little did I know that gods of TRAD. JAZZ had other ideas…

Bolton Wanderings
On Saturday 16th we went over to Little Lever, in Bolton, to play something that’s quite a rarity for us: a concert! Most of our gigs are at jazz clubs, and while they invariably have attentive audiences they tend to be reasonably informal, with attendees sitting around tables and getting up to get a pint and some crisps from the bar as they see fit. This booking would see us up on stage, with the audience seated in rows and hanging on our every word (or note).

If this sounds intimidating, don’t worry – it wasn’t really. And it was made even less intimidating by the familiarity of the venue. Because the church we were to perform in is actually the place we use for our weekly rehearsals! Coincidence? Not on your nelly! Part of the deal with us practising there is that they give us a reduction on the hire cost in return for us playing a fundraising concert for them every year, and this, my friends, was that concert.

As usual the band gave a spirited and lively performance, full of fun and energy and SMOKIN’ HOT TRAD. JAZZ! The audience was unfortunately not quite as plentiful as last year, however their quality was beyond reproach and they were very appreciative of our stylish swinging sounds.

Let it Glossop, Let it Glossop, Let it Glossop
Jazz clubs vary quite broadly in their policy for booking bands. Some, like Didsbury, are happy to have groups play on a regular basis and so we musicians get quite used to playing there every few months or so. Others, however, book a wider range of bands but less regularly and don’t tend to have the same group more than once in a year.

One of the latter sort of clubs is Glossop Jazz Club, for whom we do one performance a year in the lead-up to Christmas. This catches the band in a rare festive mood, and we add some extra sparkle to the set with Santa hats, antlers, fairy lights, and a few of our more Christmassy tunes. Last year I even got some Jingle Bells references into my ‘St. Philip Street Breakdown’ solos!

This year’s booking was a little earlier than usual, on Thursday 21st November (a whole month earlier than last year, in fact), but it was set to be our most wintry one yet. So wintry, in fact, that we didn’t get to do it at all…

I set off in the car nice and early that evening, to get there with plenty of time to set up and to account for any lingering rush-hour traffic. Got round the Manchester ring road with no real problems. Then just as I turned off onto the M67 towards Sheffield some white stuff started falling from the sky. No big deal – the show must go on and all that. But then it got heavier. And heavier. And then I realised the road hadn’t been gritted so the snow was starting to lay nice and thick. So thick that I couldn’t see any of the road markings, and had to drive very gingerly with my left wheels on the ‘edge line’ in order to feel where the side of the road was! Fortunately the snowfall slackened after a while and the going became a little easier, but at its worst it felt very much like I was looking out of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit while entering hyperspace.

Have a look at this video clip to see what I mean… I should add the disclaimer, by the way, that this was taken by my passenger (in case you thought I’d try to simultaneously drive and operate a camera)! Also the beautiful violin solo was added in postproduction. Neither of us was attempting to play awful violin during the journey.
 

They weren’t the best travelling conditions by any means, and the rest of the journey was similarly fraught. The closer I got to Glossop, the more I longed for nice flat roads and regretted that my destination was so close to the Pennines, that notoriously not-flat part of the country. Some roads were better than others and the actual snowfall abated after a while, but the latter part of the route took me along small residential streets where all the markings were now inconveniently obscured and which often featured a significant incline. The hairiest moment occurred on just one of these uphill slopes, where my car lost grip briefly, and for a second I was rather concerned I might actually get stuck. But no, my trusty jazzmobile and I plodded on inch by inch, tentatively making our way to the venue even when a slippery patch brought us all too close to acquainting ourselves with a bush.

Finally, after almost an hour of travelling, the end was in sight and the sat-nav told me I was five minutes away from the venue. Despite everything I was nearly there, unscathed and still plenty early enough to set up in good time for the performance. Perhaps there would be no audience on account of the weather. Perhaps we’d have to finish early. Perhaps we’d get stuck in Glossop overnight and have to stay on some jazz lovers’ sofas. So many possibilities, but none of it mattered for now because I knew I’d make it to the venue on time!

And then I received a phone call. It was our bandleader. The show was cancelled because of the snow.

So I turned round and went all the way home again. Stopping off at Tesco, by the way, for some much-needed chocolate and alcohol!

The upshot of the story is that the evening’s performance was rearranged for Thursday 16th January. Although I don’t want to hold my breath, considering how much worse the January weather tends to be compared to November!
 

It’s a rare thing for me to get through an entire month without at least one gig with the TRADding powerhouse that is The Jelly Roll Jazz Band. Well, November was no exception to this trend and towards the end of the month I enjoyed 3 contrasting bookings where I hooted away on clarionet with our motley trio.

All’s Fair at the South of England Showground
The first Jelly Roll gig of the month actually came quite late, on Saturday 23rd. In my continual efforts to get us more agricultural show gigs (what can I say – I just like sheep!) I emailed the South of England Agricultural Society earlier in the year asking if they like TRAD. JAZZ, and it turns out the answer is ‘yes’ because they subsequently booked us to play at their Winter Fair. This was a two-day event but we were only performing on the first day, which was a bit of a shame seeing as it was such a long way for me to travel, but then one gig is better than no gigs at all! And after all, if they liked us they might even consider us when looking for bands for their big summer show.

The event took place, appropriately enough, at the South of England Showground near Crawley. I of course drove down the previous day and stayed over in a cheap no-frills Airbnb, and while it was a very long journey which involved sitting on the M25 for much longer than I would have liked, I still infinitely preferred it to my drive to Glossop the preceding day! The other band members, however, travelled down from London, and I picked them up from a nearby railway station on the Saturday morning to take them to the venue. And I must say, for someone who rarely travels further south than London (especially by car) it felt really weird indeed to be seeing roadsigns for Brighton.

We weren’t sure exactly what to expect when we arrived, but we had been told there would be a music stage so once we’d parked up and unloaded our stuff we set about searching for that. We usually play more as background entertainment rather than being on stage, however we do perform on the music stage at Bakewell Country Festival every year and were anticipating something similar here. In other words, a big festival-style stage with speakers, microphones and a couple of sound guys to keep everything in order.

Alas, the reality was quite different and when we did eventually locate the stage we found it to be little more than a small platform in a massive barn amongst all the food vendors, decorated with a skating polar bear backdrop and adorned with a simple Christmas tree at either side. In other words, a little more rustic than we had expected!
 

We played several short sets over the course of the day, but I must say the audiences were atrocious. If you’re reading this and you saw us performing at the South of England Showground Winter Fair, I have a question for you: Why were you so atrocious!?! Don’t you realise that it’s polite to offer at least a light round of applause when a performer you’ve been listening to reaches the end of a song? Unlike the Dixie Beats concert earlier in the month, it’s not like they were short of quantity – there must have been hundreds of people in that massive barn, so many that even we musicians struggled to find a seat at times, and there were plenty sitting in front of the stage listening to the music. It surely wouldn’t have killed them to show some sign of interest. But no, as I commented to my fellow band members at the time, it was like playing to the living dead!
 

In summary, then, it wasn’t the most receptive of crowds, which meant it wasn’t the most rewarding of performances. However we did play well and, as always, put our full effort into the gig. I can only hope that, somewhere beneath that sea of blank indifferent faces, people were enjoying it more than they appeared!

Once we had finished, I dropped the others back at the railway station and made the long boring journey back up to Manchester, ready for the next day’s Jelly Rolling. But just as a coda to this gig, I’ll mention that I’m very glad we’d been booked for the Saturday rather than the Sunday, because in the end the second day of the fair had to be cancelled anyway due to the inclement weather!

The John Lewis Christmas Jazz Band
The day following the South of England Fair – which if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know was Sunday 24th – saw Jelly Roll undertake a rather more cushy gig (mainly because it was indoors). We had been booked to play in the Leeds branch of John Lewis, to provide some festive entertainment and give their customers a little extra jollity while they embarked on their early Christmas shopping. Or late Hallowe’en shopping – who am I to make assumptions?

It was a really cosy one, this, largely because we were basically placed in a mock living room in the middle of the department store. There were little side tables, ornaments, a Christmas tree, and actually a choice of very nice sofas for us to rest on! We were on the third floor of the shop, playing towards the central void with its escalators going up and down, and it was really fun watching people’s reactions as they spotted us on their way through the levels of the shop.
 

On the whole it felt like a very classy kind of setting, and the type of gig we’d quite happily do on a regular basis. We did receive some appreciative looks and comments from many of the shoppers as well, and because we were playing out across the centre of the shop it felt like we could be heard over a wide area and several floors despite being a small unamplified group. As usual I played the spoons that day as well as my TRAD. JAZZ CLARIONET, and after every solo it was so tempting to say, “And you can buy your own set of spoons in our cutlery department on level 2.”

As evidence of the sort of quality airwave manipulation you can expect from us, I took my all-seeing all-hearing camera along and got a charming little video of us performing ‘Someday My Prince Will Come’. Not particularly Christmassy I admit, until you realise it’s from ‘SNOW White’! (Apologies to regular followers of the band’s Facebook page, who have heard that joke before.)
 

The Bell Tolls in Mellor
Skipping merrily forward to Friday 29th takes me to the final Jelly Roll gig of the month, which was also my final gig of the month and furthermore the final gig of this month’s Gig Review! Awwwww. Go on, say it, I know it’s what you’re thinking: Awwwww.

Having been in London the previous day for my Footloose rehearsal, it was on the Friday morning that I drove up, banjo player in tow, to the Peak District village of Mellor. It was one of those irritating journeys that goes perfectly smoothly until you are half a mile from the gig, when you discover the one road leading to the venue is closed and you spend the next half an hour trying to find a suitable diversion round an inscrutable network of narrow country lanes, all the while in danger of getting stuck on a farm track that your sat-nav for some reason thinks is a main road! But not to worry – we got there. But I remain convinced that National Highways are spying on me and continually making a effort to close whichever road is likely to cause me the most irritation.

The venue itself was a very old church on top of a steep hill overlooking the rolling valleys below, and goodness me was it atmospheric! We were there to play for a funeral, giving the traditional New Orleans style procession by leading the hearse from the church to the main road after the service, and you couldn’t have asked for a more picturesque day. Gone were the snows of the previous week (thank goodness!), and in their place was a gentle mist shrouding the hills with a low winter sun bringing a glowing radiance to the landscape. Overlooking the scenery was the village church, surrounded by leafless trees silhouetted against the bright sky, its single bell tolling mournfully. It were proper Heathcliff, I tell ya!

There was quite a lot of waiting around on our part, as we weren’t due to play until the service had ended. Luckily, while it wasn’t exactly summery, the weather was a vast improvement on the previous week so we were able to huddle in the entrance of the church without catching too much of a chill while we waited for the congregation to emerge. Which they did eventually, although the service did overrun by a considerable margin – much to the chagrin of the funeral directors, who were becoming increasingly concerned that the party might miss their time slot at the crematorium!

At that point we began playing and commenced the long walk down the hill to the main road, followed by the chief pallbearer with the hearse directly behind him. It’s an unnerving thing to walk slowly down a hill with several cars following behind, but I’m glad to say all drivers present were sufficiently diligent on their brake pedals! It did seem like a strange format though. Fair enough if it’s a funeral procession walking through a town or a crematorium for example, with crowds of mourners milling around to pay their respects. But we were at the front of the procession, playing forwards, and everyone else was behind in cars. So even though the symbolism may have been appropriate, at the end of the day could anybody actually hear us?

The second part of the gig, however, definitely gave us a chance to be heard as we convened in a local pub to play for the wake. We were soon joined by those from the funeral, many of them having taken part in the crematorium service (which presumably they weren’t too late for in the end). And from that point it felt like any other type of gig really – playing jazz in a corner with guests milling about, enjoying drinks and helping themselves to the provided buffet. If it wasn’t for the outfits it could have been a wedding or a birthday party really, although I’m sure the conversations would have been rather different.

Anyway, once we’d finished playing we said goodbye to the family member who had booked us, and who expressed her gratitude for our performance which had been very well-received. Then we packed up and went our separate ways, and I bid farewell to yet another month of gigging.
 
 
All of which brings me to the end of the November 2024 gig review! See you next month for more retrospective fun.

Gig of the Month
It’s going to have to be ‘Beauty and the Beast’, isn’t it? After all, that’s the only one I was looking forward to so much that I started practising for it in February!

What We’ve Learned
Football ruins everything.