Jan 27th
How will YOU be spending your last ever Euro-Monday? Will you weep and rend your garment? Will you gird yourself with sackcloth like Ahab, will you eat ashes like bread and mingle your drink with weeping, and sew sackcloth upon your skin, and defile your horn in the dust? Or will you just sit down like a boss with Julia Hartley Brewer and a big pile of 50p bits? Let JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH establish a special relationship between you and the good times and open up meaningful negotiations on a big, a very big, a massive deal of cool grooves and hot licks, all freely and fairly traded tariff-free by those masters of positive international relations known to all as Luke “The Wealth Of Nations” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Theory Of Moral Sentiments” Thomas (drms), as they cook up a heart-warming brew of jazz-to-blues-tobop-to-whatever, facilitated in some subaltern fashion by me on bass.. if your skrrt is turned to hurt and all your hopes seem to be chlorine-washed, don’t despair, don’t turn your back on Love, Sailor Ripley, just grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us… the Bee’s team will be in attendance, waiting in all their gothic majesty to pour you a libation of the finest liquors known to man, the nameless creatures of the night will be welcoming you from their stations on the dripping pavements outside, and who knows what special guests may blow in out of the chartered streets to do their thing… don’t give in to the overwhelm, be yourself, be extra, it’s not the end or the beginning, just ask Heraclitus, and then come and join us, join us, it’s a good life if you don’t weaken.
Jan 20th
Ploughing doughtily through January is such a chore innit? Are you keeping on top of your socials, are you pining for the holiday Tui are tempting you with but you can’t really afford, are you considering stepping back from your job, your family, your moral compass, your New year resolutions, your temporary teetotalling and your voluntary veganity? JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH can be a pilot through the wintry narrows, avoiding the reefs and the shallows and seeing you safe to the calm deep waters and fair winds that surely await beyond the blighted headlands, cos we’ll have your captains Luke “The Argonaut” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “The Poseidon Of Pivot Tables” Thomas (drms) whipping up a maelstrom of hot licks and cool grooves to spin you around and send you back on course, aided to some degree by me on bass, as the Bee’s team wait, poised in their gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, and we stand by for a piratical crew of special guests to scramble over the scuppers and get involved … what strange shores await us? What silent beaches, what resounding coves, what disappointing mudflats will we encounter on our ineluctable voyage? Will “Piggsy” Francois get the bongs he craves with every fibre of his shiny pink flesh, will Elon move us all to Mars as his robot spies block out the starlight, will RLB mug off Kier n’ Jess on Labour’s Love Island, what hastily confected tissue of tendentious tosspottery wiill Bozza and his busy little crew of goblins, gremlins and smirking gorgons come up with for us all? Let us fortify you agains the coming storm…… Little Birds, Gingerbread boys and Minors all welcome, come down and have a blow, what’s to lose?
Jan 13th
What can we learn from our elected leaders and their inspiring capacity to govern and holiday simultaneously?… the Orange Trumpkin ordering a hit poolside at Mar-A-Lago, Bozza phoning it in from Mustique, Scotty From Marketing garlanded with lei in Hawaii before the FOMO kicked in and he mooched back to smell the smoke… actually, screw those guys, they couldn’t make it at JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH, as they lack the necessary moral fibre and the ready grasp of symmetry and geometry so apparent in those paragons of post-bop known in this episode as Luke “Uptown Top Rankin’ Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz “Pass The Boof” Thomas (drms) … come fight your way through the boringly inhospitable and ludicrously named Storm Brendan and marvel as our heroes create their own micro-climate of hot licks and cool grooves, aided in some undecipherable fashion by me on bass, as the tattooed nephilim of the Bee’s team wait, brooding in their gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar, to pour you a refreshing libation, and the night air outside is alive with the cries of the lost and the hopeful… time to make like Megs n’ Hazz and consciously uncouple from all the boring breadhead hassle, so come all you angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, don’t sit at home getting your data scraped, gather ye lolcats while ye may, grab yer axe down off the shelf and come and join us, times a-passing, seize the day, seize it.
Jan 6th
So you’ve completed and posted your ‘2019 Summary’ of all the places you’ve been, people you’ve seen, all your hangs and life goals and relationship goals and relationship life goals, perfect beaches, avocado breakfasts and hottest licks… now all that’s left to you is the inevitable hideous crashing disappointment, the freezing darkness and time for work… but wait! JAZZ NIGHT AT THE BEE’S MOUTH is back, surging ahead into the new shiny double-20 decade, all set to remind you of all the best bits of 2019 and scrub your frontal lobes free of any remaining negative trails from all the terrible things that happened, and prepare you to face Fortuna’s crazily spinning wheel with the fortitude of Boethius and the wisdom of Hroswitha, cos we’ve got man like Luke “Din Djarin” Rattenbury (gtr) and Loz ‘The Child” Thomas (drms) still here, bloody but still unbowed and unconquered, all set to keep bringing the fyah and the selection of hot licks and cool grooves to tide you over til the green shoots take a chance on it, plus I’ll be doing whateves on bass and the peerless Bee’s team will be parading their Gothic majesty behind the well-stocked bar…. outside in the cold hard world, the leadership candidates are stirring, R L-B is standing in front of a mirror trying to come into focus, Kier is trying to be the best Kier ever, Jess is hoping not to get cancelled, while far away the world is burning, overhead the drones are humming, all kinds of bad things, bad things… don’t let em grind you down, it ain’t over til it’s over, so grab your axe down off the shelf, come along and we’ll get into something.