By Peter West, Bletchfest Committee
Bletchfest’s themed music nights aim to explore the influence of different strands of musical styles on modern popular music. Last year’s blues night proved a great success as two bands gave us blues classics mixed with modern interpretations of the genre and popular covers with blues influences. By the end of the evening the headliners British Bluescasting Corporation were given a standing ovation by an appreciative sell-out crowd.
This year’s event, on the 9 November at Bletchingley Village Hall, takes a look at the impact jazz has made on contemporary music. As with the blues, jazz has many parents and many children. Generally accepted to have started in New Orleans in the early part of the last century, its origins are in the fusion of blues and ragtime, brass band marches, European (notably French) harmonies and African rituals. In turn, as with the blues, it spawned many different styles as it absorbed regional cultures, with dance oriented swing bands, gypsy jazz, bepop and the cool, lounge jazz of the 1940s all developing over the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
The performers at Bletchfest’s Jazz Night show different but equally entertaining jazz styles.
Red’s Dreamers Jazz are a Reigate-founded trio, bringing a blend of jazz classics from the Great American Songbook plus a jazz-style take on more contemporary songs across the decades. Lorraine’s great jazz voice is given the perfect backing from Ade on guitar and Simon on flute.
One Jump Ahead has an irresistible blend of jazz, blues and fun, generating a highly charged atmosphere that really lets the good times roll. Likened to swing jazz, jump blues greats such as Louis Jordan, Slim Gaillard and Cab Calloway, they have wowed audiences from Islington to Israel, Clerkenwell to County Cork and from Docklands to Deutschland!
Led by singer, saxophonist and songwriter Kit Packham, he is often accompanied by keyboard, guitar, bass, drums and trumpet. Kit has composed plenty of his own critically acclaimed material but normally concentrates on well-known covers which get the feet tapping and the soul moving, often mixing in more original compositions – or some of his wry updated lyrics to jazz standards.
It’s 100 years since jazz celebrated its Golden Age in the 1920s but its influence on modern music is as strong as ever, with contemporary greats such as Amy Winehouse and Gregory Porter impacting on the music scene in recent times. Both One Jump Ahead and Red’s Dreamers show that the jazz form is still enduring, entertaining and popular today, as Bletchfest’s Jazz Night will more than demonstrate.
Doors open at 19:00, with the first performance beginning at 19:30. There will be a licensed bar open throughout the event, offering a variety of drinks with some bar snacks.
Visit the Bletchfest website for more information and to book tickets.
