Marsden Jazz Festival, Huddersfield 2005

Well, jazz festivals are something we attend rarely, so it was with some trepidation that we approached the venue, a local boozer. Spirits dropped further when we were informed it was upstairs! 'No lift?' I enquired hopefully, the response was negative. Despite the lateness of the year it was very hot and humid, and as we lugged the gear up the twisting back stairs a sizable amount of essential hydration very swiftly abandoned my body. As a consequence, by the time everything was upstairs we were all a mass of blood, sweat and tears! We do suffer!!





This particular engagement was organised by Colin Ball, he stood in for John on cornet as John was still Jet-setting. Colin can be seen here adopting an appropriate pose!





Well the show commenced and we were received politely, comments could be heard though....'not the sort of thing we're used to' etc... still we persevered. You will notice we are barely dressed, we decided that the blazers and boaters might have scared them off completely so casual dress was adopted.





Well as the evening went on the hard, 'dyed in he wool' jazz fans began to warm to us and I naturally pressed on with the comedy, our trademark tongue in cheek announcements brought hoots from the audience, the evening wasn't turning out too badly.





By the time the last set started word had got around the village that this funny jazz band were playing in the pub and suddenly the room was over flowing with people and towards the end their enthusiasm reached something resembling mania, girls were up dancing and mob like cheering pervaded the atmosphere, most disturbing! Anyway, the evening was a great success, the landlord was delighted and even helped us carry the gear back downstairs to the car!