Jazz

Every year, about mid August, Marble Hill at Twickenham, just across Richmond Bridge, holds a series of open air concerts. One of these is a Jazz evening. Lyn and I and a few friends usually go to this one. This year featured Humphrey Littleton, Acker Bilk & The Paramount Jazz Band and Kenny Ball & The Jazzmen.

We arrived in good time and I’d just sat down and was contemplating a rather large glass of apple schnapps that a girl friend had just handed to me when I recognised a familiar face in the group ahead of us. It was Eric Bridgewater, a fellow enthusiast He said he’d been going to this event for ten years and how much it had changed.

This year was sponsored by Waitrose. They had a mobile supermarket on site and a small army of blondes were wandering around taking food and drinks orders. All around people were picnicking.

Many had small candle lanterns hanging on hooks. I guess their were maybe three or four thousand people. No trouble, just one happy bunch of folks enjoying and warm evening and hot jazz.

The first set started at 7:30pm with ‘Humph’ doing his thing. He was followed by Acker Bilk who actually has a wicked sense of humour. The third set was Kenny Ball’s. He had to borrow Acker Bilk’s piano player but his drummer was in rare form and had his own five minute solo.

The evening ended at about 10:30pm. If you’ve never been to Marble Hill I can thoroughly recommend it. All you need are tickets, the old picnic hamper, something to sit on and a chilled bottle or two. See you there next year perhaps !

Mike (Over Easy) Baker