Jump to content
Why become a member? ×

Cheltenham Jazz festival


Recommended Posts

Saw the Bad Plus on Sunday, I thoroughly enjoyed them, interesting, engaging and entertaining in equal measure. Great sound quality too. Anyone else go?

Joshua Redman at the Town Hall was terrific too.

I don't want to restart the annual "it's not jazz" thing, but James Morrison, Katie Melua?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was lucky enough to play on one of the stages in the middle of town. I love Cheltenham jazz so it was a real treat for me! 

Sadly had another gig that night so didn’t have time to hang. I guess British acts with big names that would please the non-jazz orientated locals was the notion behind the KM JM inclusion... 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep, I saw TBP too. Really enjoyed it - quite challenging at times, and my wife said it “felt like being physically assaulted” and made her really angry too. She’s not a musician, BTW 😉

 

We saw Kizzy Crawford and Yola too - both “not jazz” but very enjoyable nonetheless. 

 

I was was a bit disappointed at the line up this year, but I suppose they have to balance pleasing the hardcore with actually selling tickets and accessibility. My highlight was Billy Cobham a few years ago. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Davo-London said:

My wife says that Weather Report sounds like several musicians playing their own tune plus there's no melody.  She can't understand why TBP would want to disguise the tune they're covering.

I mean, where do you start ...

Davo

 

My better half’s criticism mainly stems from there being “no words” to sing along to...

 

We we could have done L42 or Incognito and that’d probably have been fine, but I just fancied some “proper” jazz! Next year I’ll suggest she and the boy go shopping in the more “jazz” end of the spectrum and I’ll go as Billy no mates!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Jakester said:

We saw Kizzy Crawford and Yola too - both “not jazz” but very enjoyable nonetheless. 

We're going to see Yola in a couple of weeks, so good to know. I got the album, really good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a way away from Cheltenham these days but I lived there when the festival first started and was run by Jim Smith. The acts were a lot more jazz centric then and in the first few years it was brilliant, loads of A list global acts and many more top UK players to.

Also a really good fringe scene, plenty of scope to gig and hang generally.

Shame if it's a bit more commercial these days but I guess like all things these festivals change and evolve over time. Great news that it's still going frankly even if the odd 'mainstreamer' slips under the radar! There are some really nice venues so long may it continue

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup, festivals evolve, not always for the best. I'm old enough to remember when Reading was still called the National Jazz, Blues and Rock Festival. It was all in sepia then, mind.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...