If you’re reading The Syncopated Times, you’re no doubt familiar with the Whitley Bay Classic Jazz Party in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England. Co-organizer Jonathan David Holmes and Young Talent Award winner Colin Hancock have already weighed in on this year’s proceedings in some detail. I will do the same from my own perspective: that of an uncompromising pre-swing jazz fan and dedicated shellac collector under 35 years of age who lives in Wisconsin.
Whitley Bay has been on my radar for several years, mostly due to Emrah Erken’s great videos that I watched with great interest. As a jazz purist, these videos are mandatory viewing. There are very few places to see the original records from jazz’s classic period re-created with the proper personnel, arrangements, and attention to detail. Every participating musician is fully immersed in the style and vocabulary of the era - the accents, bends, articulation and phrasing.
But why travel thousands of miles to see it live? Why not just sit at home and take it all in from the comfort of my home office? Because England is worth visiting, there’s much more music to hear than what’s broadcast on YouTube, and to finally meet many of the people I’ve “known” for so long on Facebook.
I almost pulled the trigger last year, but it didn’t work out. This year there were no excuses. Direct flights from Chicago to London are pretty af
