Back yesterday fron a one nighter in Stoke by Nayland at the Hotel, Golf and Spa Resort, which also happens to be the home of Fleece Jazz. The latter has a thirty year history of presenting modern and contemporary jazz (and a little blues). Originally based at the Fleece in Boxford, then briefly at Kersey Mill, it found its current home at the Stoke by Nayland hotel in 2009.
The present location is is in a beautiful setting and has the added benefit of offering Fleece Jazz packages, which means an overnight stay and breakfast are included along with tickets for the gig on the Wednesday evening – more of an event for us and very good value, although not sure it’s a good enough reason to have waited thirty years to finally attend one of the gigs!!
They’ve had some stellar performances over the years ( Stan Tracey, Peter King, Andy Shepherd, John Dankworth, Martin Taylor, Dave Newton, Ian Shaw, Claire Martin, Jim Mullen, Martin Drew, Tina May, Scott Hamilton, Stacey Kent, Elaine Delmar, Mari Wilson, Guy Barker, Norma Winstone, Annie Whitehead, Jacqui Dankworth, Sarah Jane Morris, Jamie Cullum, Barb Jungr, and Kyle Eastwood are some of the many names who have appeared over the years).
It was one of those I spotted on the Jazz Fleece leaflet when were in Sudbury recently and it prompted the thought – “if not now, when”. So we booked the package and with some anticipation to Sarah Jane Morris, of whom we were vaguely aware through her work through the Communards in the 1980s and her subsequent move to a more independent and singular career. The hotel itself was lovely, great views over the golf course(s) from all the public rooms (and our room), pleasant sandwich and early dinner and then breakfast the next morning.
Sarah Jane Morris is, we discovered, one of the best examples of an artist who connects with her audience, drawing the audience to her and including them in the performance. We were both astonished by her vocal range and her inimitable style and she appeared to be in fine fettle, despite a few knee niggles following a recent knee operation. Not sure it was necessarily jazz per se, but as we aren’t particularly fond of these genre classifications, it made no odds to us; nor for the rest of the full but relatively small and very appreciative audience. Songs from John Martyn, John Lennon, Bill Withers, Nina Simone, Jimi Hendrix and others, she did multiple choices from Martyn, having produced a ‘tribute album’ of his songs in 2019. Anecdotes about the songwriters, her own life, her desire to reinterpret rather than copy those songs all made for a lovely and entertaining set, which despite the knee problems, lasted over two hours. We were both knocked out by the voice. What’s not to like!!
So that’s another tick on this semi mythical list, and it was instructive to finally experience how a club that has a seemingly, relatively small reach and a setting in one of the small conference rooms in a local hotel can sustain and prosper and at the same time attract such stalwarts of the wider jazz scene. We enjoyed it so much we would definitely return and no doubt buy a CD or two in the interval, just as we did on this occasion!! Finally, a shout out to the accompanists – guitarist and long time collaborator Tony Remy was superb, as was bassist Henry Thomas and additional guitarist Marcus Bonfanti (who when not playing here is a member of the well respected band Jawbone).