Today John Gates of the Open Band gave another Beginners Jazz workshop for our Musical Bite. We had 10 people sign up to play/sing, some of whom had played during the first workshop in March this year and some who were new to our church. John is good at teaching in a relaxed and friendly manner and from the start the group sounded pretty good. He taught them two pieces, one called ‘Mandela’ (so it had a real flavour of African Jazz) and another rather melancholy song called ‘Trouble in Mind’, quite a contrast.
We ran the keyboard raffle again, I had the pipe sponsorship chart and forms on hand for anyone who wanted to sponsor a pipe, and Shirley, Fiona and Jean spent the morning serving a delicious array of cakes, buns and flapjacks along with real Cappuccino, Coffee and tea to players and audience alike. Dave K videod some of the music rather than playing with the group and Dai did all sorts of jobs including helping Marian and I run the raffle when Marian was playing her clarinet and I was taking photos. David S, who had organised everything, thoroughly enjoyed alternating between his clarinet or tuba during the morning.
We raised £150.75 for the organ fund from this event. Thank you John Gates for another very enjoyable workshop, David for making sure it all came together, everyone who helped with setting up, running it and packing away afterwards, all the musicians who turned up for a relaxed and fun morning of jazz and the thirsty and hungry audience.
Dates for your diary: 19th November ‘Winter Harmony Concert’ (MK Acapella and friends) play in our church for the Restoration fund and the Organ fund, 26th November the organ fund group are running our Golden Spot Tombola and raffling a Christmas cake at the church Christmas Fayre (we’ve got some lovely prizes) and our next Musical Bite is the Messiah Choral Workshop on the 10th December.
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- Cakes!
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- The players setting up and getting to know each other
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- John Gates and musicians
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- Shirley gears up with a coffee
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- Players have their tea break
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- Keyboard raffle
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- Drummers
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- Jazz in action
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- John explains something
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- The Jazz performance
