Top Ten... Songs for Hallowe'en

What do you sing for a gig around Hallowe'en?  A couple of years ago, I was performing with the Mark Armstrong Big Band on Hallowe'en weekend, and we managed to find quite a few numbers to fit the occassion: That Old Devil Called Love, That Old Black Magic, Spooky and Bewitched.  Here's my top ten of Hallowe'en-related tunes.

1. Spooky
A brilliant song made famous by singer Dusty Springfield, but starting off life as an instrumental by Mike Sharp.

2. Superstition
The first Stevie Wonder song I ever heard!  It wasn't until I was 17 that I first listened to Stevie Wonder - I had to learn this song for a jazz/funk band I had been asked to sing with (before showing any interest in jazz). And thank goodness I did!  The start of my jazz career.

3. Moondance

4. Bewitched
This is one of the first jazz standards I learnt for the Lancaster University Big Band - only the third big band I had ever sung with.  I remember being really struck by a Frank Sinatra version at first.

5. That Old Black Magic
One of my favourite big band tunes to sing.  I have recorded this with the Minden Band of the Queen's Division - on the CD Qunitessence.  Listen or buy it here: www.sarahellenhughes.co.uk/bigband

6. That Ole Devil called love
Sung here by Carol Sloane.

7. Witchcraft
First written by Cy Coleman as an instrumental for the revue "Take Five," lyrics were added in 1957 by Carolyn Leigh to make a hit for Frank Sinatra.

8. Thriller
The ultimate Hallowe'en video.

9. A ghost of a chance
(1932) Victor Young, Ned Washington and Bing Crosby.

10. Devil May Care
Again, I make it onto my own top 10!  This great Bob Dorough is the fourth track on my first album.  I was lucky enough to perform it as a duet with Ian Shaw.  Above is a live version from the Imperial Wharf Jazz Festival 2010.  Listen to the album version, or buy it here: www.sarahellenhughes.co.uk/dtd

October gigs: Norwich, Leigh-on-Sea, Manchester

So far the tour has taken us far and wide.  But none so far as Norwich, a solid 3-hour drive.  After I had booked the gig, I realised that it was further from London than Wales, so we were in for a mammoth journey there and back.  Lucky then, that we had been booked to play at a terrific jazz club.  To be honest, I hadn't been sure what to expect when we walked in because it was a typical country pub - low ceilings and comfy seating, but not quite conducive to a great jazz acoustic.  I needn't have worried though, because towards the back of the pub there was a high-ceilinged area with upright piano and a PA set up, lighting and atmospheric seating.  Perfect!

Proud to be playing at The Green Man

The following Tuesday we journeyed to Leigh on Sea, to play at Annie's Jazz.  Another pub gig, another weekly jazz night and another free event, this was just as good an atmosphere as the Norwich gig, although not quite so good acoustically owing to being crammed under a low-ceilinged alcove (Tom's bass barely missing scraping the beams).  Still, a very enjoyable gig, and Leigh on Sea will definitely be a place to revisit, probably in daylight next time!

Squashed but happy at Annie's Jazz

 The week ended with a second visit to Club 43 - a jazz supper club held at the Radisson Edwardian hotel in Manchester.  Always a popular event, Club 43 runs a monthly gig which pays tribute to the heydays of jazz in Manchester where the jazz greats used to take to Club 43 (previously across the road from the current hotel) to jam into the night.

The only similarity now is the name, and possibly the attentive audience.  Again, facing difficulties with funding, I booked a half local, half London-based group.  Rick, my pianist, joined us there from a previous gig in Bishop Auckland, and Dave Walsh and Gavin Barras made up the North West contingent.  With no time for rehearsal (punters were let into the room at 7pm although the gig didn't start til 8:30 so we had to be off the stage by then), the boys sight-read quite a few of my nigh-impossible arrangements.  Brilliant!  They did a fine job, and I'm looking forward to more gigs in the North West over the next few weeks.

The backdrop at Club 43 portrays jazz greats who would
frequent the club in the 50s and 60s.

October gigs: Newcastle, Nottingham, Stratford-upon-Avon

Performing at The Customs House, South Shields.
Photo by Lance Liddle

We had a full-on weekend planned for late-October, starting off with a journey up the A1 to Newcastle.  The A1 is a surprisingly pleasant road, but quite slow, so our enjoyable amble meant that we didn't have quite as much time to rehearse as we had wanted to when we reached the theatre.  Never mind, I got to take this brilliant picture of our pork pies when driving past Melton Mowbray!

Our destination was The Customs House, a theatre complex at the edge of the Tyne river in South Shields.  We arrived after dark - such a shame, as I'm sure the venue and surrounding areas must look great in the daylight.  In fact, throughout this tour I have lamented the fact that our gigs start later than the sun sets, meaning that we are travelling to so many interesting places, but don't actually get to see any of them.  Serves me right for planning an autumn tour!

The gig went really well, and our stand-in bass player Paul Susans did a fab job.  Read the review here:
http://lance-bebopspokenhere.blogspot.com/2011/10/sarah-ellen-hughes-customs-house-south.html


On Saturday we had a rare night off, and decided to stay up in the North East as it was better than driving all the way back to London, only to drive back to Nottingham for our Sunday lunchtime gig.  So, after taking a lengthy walk on South Shields beach, we chilled out at Rick's parents' house, talking about home brew, jazz and the X Factor.

Darren and I enjoy the sun

Shadow play

Sunday brought two gigs: the first at The Lion in Nottingham, where we first played during our 2010 tour and loved it.  A very interesting little pub, with good value Sunday roast, a great selection of real ales (more for my band than me), and an enthusiastic jazz crowd.  After the gig we had time to relax before heading down to Stratford-upon-Avon, to play at Stratford Jazz Club.  SJC is such a popular venue with artists that I had booked this one nearly a year in advance, and will have to wait until Spring 2013 if I want to play there again!

The club is hosted in The Chapel ("A Shrine of Entertainment")! in the upstairs floor of a pub on, appropriately for Stratford, Shakespeare Street.  The only downer to this gig was that it was at the end of the Stratford Music Week, but not included in it, so the jazz fans of the region had already had a choice of three gigs that week.  Many of them therefore chose not to come to mine, which was a shame, but difficult to avoid.  You can read a review of the evening here: http://www.stratfordjazz.org.uk/roy's_review_sarah-ellen-hughes_at_the_chapel.html

At The Lion

Stratford Jazz Club

October gigs: Rochester, Wellingborough, Bristol

This mini-tour started off in Rochester at the 144 Club: "The Ronnie Scott's of Medway!"  Set-up and run by the Kearsey-Lawson family, with son compering, brother drumming and mum on the door, the 144 club presents fantastic guest performers with the house band each week.

On arrival I had to make my way up a long and winding staircase, passing by posters of past gigs all around, rather like a hall of fame.  And there was me right at the top!  I'm chuffed to think that each week that passes I'll be there, pride of place next to the jazz greats of this country.

Posters of Dave O'Higgins and Sam Mayne (bizarrely on a toilet)
in the Medway Hall of Fame.

The next night, we jetted off to Wellingborough to continue the album tour at The Castle, quite a large theatre in the town centre.  We pulled up to the foyer to find it packed with people - a mix of ages but mostly the older generation: a typical jazz crowd!  This excited us somewhat until we realised that they were all there to see Rory Bremner in the main auditorium, supported by Ian Shaw!  Oh well.

Our gig turned out to be well attended too, and a very appreciative went away with 17 CDs by the end of it!  Nearly a single-gig record.

Next stop Bristol, to play at the Bebop Club.  Run by local trumpeter Andy Hague, it's an incredibly popular weekly jazz night in the back room of a pub, which attracts many of this country's top jazz names.  The only problem with this gig is that it's in Bristol on a Friday night, so once you've got out of the ridiculous traffic in London (the world and his wife are trying to escape with you) you've got to endure the M4, then get stuck in Bristol as you enter during rush hour.  As such, we had about 10 minutes to sound check before trying to find somewhere to eat to scrabble down a hasty dinner.  Solution to finding a swift meal?  An Indian restaurant just around the corner seemed the best choice so we walked in I immediately told the waiter that we had only 35 minutes so did he think we would be able to have our meal in that time.  He looked around the restaurant as if surveying the diners to infer how busy the kitchen would be, and went over to an un-made table and started to dress it for us.  Why we couldn't just sit at a ready-laid table I have no idea, but nevertheless we were in too deep by then to back out now!  Finally, at 9:01pm, we beat a hasty retreat from the restaurant and managed to make it back on stage only 6 minutes late.  During this time, the sound guy had gone looking for us and was told we were at the Indian, missed us in transit and arrived half an hour late himself!

Band curry

Setting up at the Bebop Club

After an enjoyable gig we headed off to our 4-star hotel which we had got for an absolute steal, and made the most of chilling out in Bristol.  Good times.

October gigs: Monmouth and Abergavenny

October saw my second ever tribute gig to the great Shirley Horn.  I'm really struck by this tribute theme - it gives a cohesion to the gig that could otherwise be missing, and is a great way to find out about one's idol.  I'm going to think about doing this more once the album tour is over.

This particular gig was in Monmouth, at The Queen's Head, where regular gigs are every Wednesday.  The venue quite often attracts some great touring bands, and it was a pleasure to play there.  We packed the place out and it would be great to play there again sometime.  I have a growing fondness for South Wales!  So much so that I was back there within a month, this time at The King's Arms in Abergavenny for Black Mountain Jazz.

A jazz club run by local musicians, this venue attracts top-class acts monthly and no wonder - staged in the backroom of a pub, the venue is spacious and comfortable, sporting a midi piano (cross between a mini and a grand) well-stocked bar and complimentary tapas in the interval (for the band!).  The backdrop of the stage is even the old town wall.


For this gig I had booked a mixture of local and London-based musicians, to help ease the funding difficulties that the tour was presenting.  Darren, my drummer, and I drove down on the Sunday afternoon, and met Swansea based musicians Dave Cottle (who runs the superb Swansea Jazzland) and Alun Vaughan, one of the busiest bassists in the region.  The boys coped marvelously with my arrangements which led to an incredibly enjoyable gig for me.  Read the review here:
http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/sarah-ellen-hughes-quartet-at-black-mountain-jazz-kings-arms-abergavenny-30/
Hopefully we'll be back in 2012 for a one-off festival so watch this space.

Crossing the Severn Bridge.

The band perform... with the old town wall in the background
(here adorned with skeletons for Halloween!)

Top Ten Autumn Songs

It feels a bit weird writing about autumn songs when we're clearly in the middle of the summer that never was, but there're a lot of songs to celebrate in this category so here goes!

1. Autumn Leaves - performed by Miles Davis.
So many people have recorded this song, but I guess my favourite version has to be a Cannonball Adderley recording featuring Miles Davis.

2. Autumn Leaves - performed by Eva Cassidy.
This is definitely my second favourite version!  Amazing vocals.

3. Autumn in New York - performed by Sarah Vaughan

4. Early Autumn - performed by Anita O'Day

5. September in the rain - performed by Tina May.
I love the way that Tina does a verse or two in French.  It's on the album "I'll Take Romance."

6. September song - performed by Gill manly.
It's on the album "With a Song in My Heart," and features Guy Barker on the trumpet.  Gill includes the verse, and doesn't change the gender - which I think is great, because it keeps the scanning and rhyming exactly as the composer intended it.

7. 'Tis Autumn - performed by Carmen McCrae

8. Autumn Fires - by Alex Hutton
Alex Hutton is a London-based pianist and exceptional composer.  His latest album will be released this month (album launch on Thursday 6th Oct at The Forge in Camden).  This tune is from his second album "Songs from the Seven Hills."

Now, two songs that have to make it into this top ten.  These are songs I've loved teaching my primary school to sing in assembly because they were favourites of mine as a child... anyone else remember them?

9. Autumn days 

lyrics hint: (Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the silk inside a chestnut shell, jet planes meeting in the air to be re-fuelled, all these things I love so well.)  

I remember even when I was an 8-year-old that my teacher said "Now, jet planes don't meet in the air anymore - that happened a long time ago."  Must be a very old song!

10. Paint Box

lyrics hint: (Cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green, strawberries sweeter than any I've seen.  Beetroot purple and onions white, all grow steadily day and night.  The apples are ripe, the plums are red.  Broad beans are sleeping in a blankety bed)

One thing I love about this song is that on the opposite page to the music in the song book, there's a recipe for fruit fool.  How very healthy!

.

Album tour ... South Wales

Wednesday September 28th: Cafe Jazz, Cardiff.

This week I had three gigs in the book - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday - so I decided to turn it into a bit of a holiday and get away from London for an extra day, so on the Tuesday night I took a train out of the big smoke to spend an evening in Appledore (North Devon) with my boyfriend and sister.  My sister, Anna, is cycling around the coast of Great Britain and has been travelling for almost 2 months so far.  She's got just 2 weeks to go.

(I joined her on the third and fourth day of her mammoth journey and wrote about it here: www.sarahellenhughes.blogspot.com/2011/09/august-news-round-up)

(She's writing a superb blog herself, which is well-worth a read: www.eatsleepcycle-anna.blogspot.com)

Anna arrives in Appledore

We arrived into Appledore at about 5:30 and settled down to a pint and cup of tea on the seafront, which I enjoyed for a full minute before getting a frantic call... "Sarah can you meet me off the ferry... Do you have £3?  I spent my last £3 on sweets!"  Oh, Anna!  So while my tea got cold I rushed down and struggled to find the ferry landing spot (there was no jetty), but got there in time to see a small (tiny) ferry being battered about by the wind and carrying a waving sister!  Hooray!  It was great to see Anna as I hadn't seen her since we waved goodbye in the rain on 5th August in Cromer.  Since then she's travelled all the way up and round Scotland, and back down to Devon via the bays and coves of Wales.  Now she's only a few counties away from home (Tower Bridge is the finishing point on Tuesday 11th October, at about 6pm... for those of you living in London who fancy joining her welcome home party.  I've been instructed to bring champagne!)

Outside the Cafe Jazz. 

So after enjoying a small holiday in Devon, James and I got the train to Cardiff for my gig at Cafe Jazz on the Wednesday.  With this weather like it is, it's easy to think of the whole tour as a holiday.  We had all afternoon to enjoy the city so wandered up and down the shopping street, enjoying our leisure.

I had performed at Cafe Jazz once before, and remembered it as being a friendly venue with an appreciative crowd and good sound.  This gig was no different.  Good staff, great sound, and a good amount of jazz fans in the audience.  I was joined by local musicians Dave Cottle on piano, Alun Vaughan on bass, and Tom Cottle on drums.  They did a great job coping with my difficult charts, and we had a very enjoyable gig.  A reviewer was there, who both bought a CD and added himself to my mailing list - always a good sign!  Read the review by clicking HERE.


Thursday 29th September: Porthcawl Pavilion

Porthcawl is only about 25 miles away from Cardiff, so I didn't have much travelling to do.  I could relax, enjoy the sun, and take advantage of the free wifi at Cafe Jazz, before getting a lift with the drummer to Porthcawl.  This was another seaside venue.  The last time I did a gig at the seaside was in February in Scarborough, and it had been raining, so it was brilliant to visit the seaside again on a beautiful day.  We arrived with the sun ready to set and I got my hotel organised, then wandered onto the seafront.  There is a beach here although it's not really for swimming - large rocks loomed out of the breaking waves, and an even larger sign saying 'bathing dangerous' accompanied the promenade.

The sun sets over Porthcawl.  Thank goodness for digital
cameras.  A few years ago, this would have ruined my film!

Children brave the waves then run away at the last minute.

Once again, we had a very enjoyable gig.  The jazz nights at the Pavilion are organised by Sue Scott, who does a great job at getting about 80 people in each time.  We had a few less this month (ironically, some had been kept away by the nice weather, deciding to take a holiday instead).  The performance was in the downstairs room which is set up like an intimate jazz club and everything, apart from the stage piano which had seen better days, was great.  An early finish meant that I could enjoy a drink in the hotel bar before bed, and prepare for tomorrow's gig.

Friday 30th September: Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot.

The quartet on stage.

After checking out this morning, I spent about 20 minutes sitting on the seafront, my hair being whipped up by the sea breeze and listening to the waves crash up to the beach.  It was so glorious; I can see why people retire to the seaside.  I caught quite an early train to Didcot so spent most of my day sitting in the cafe next to the box office, reading and working.  Every so often people would come in and ask what was on tonight and the receptionist would big me up massively, unaware that I was sitting right there!  This happened too at Cafe Jazz in Cardiff, when I was waiting to check in to the hotel above the club, and the receptionist was telling a gentleman next to me about tonight's gig... "Well, it's a very talented young singer," at which point I piped up and said "It's me!"  Very amusing.

The gig at Cornerstone was amazing; I definitely hope to return.  We had a great audience - about 80 people, and I sold and signed plenty of CDs at the end of the show.  Touring is great when you get gigs like that - appreciative audience, helpful venue, and a good lot of merchandise sold.  So here's hoping the next two months has lots more great gigs in store!