news
ANOTHER FANTASTIC FESTIVAL
Published: Sun 03rd Aug 2008
AUGUST 2008
Hello again Jazz fans
It is a rather drained Dean [and team] that provides this latest update on life at Matt and Phred’s! We’ve made it to the end of this years’ Manchester Jazz Festival and are pleased to report that it was a fantastic week, not only here at the club but at all of this years’ venues. I think we all owe Steve, Mick, Fanny and their small army of volunteers a massive and resounding ‘thank you’ for the commitment and many hours of toil necessary to put on such an ‘event’.
Here at the club we were blessed with a superb line up. The week kicked off with Arun Ghosh, for many the gig of the week, and continued with the return performances of Steve Grossman, Killer Shrimp and The Blessing. Of course our congratulations go to The Blessing who were awarded BBC Jazz Album of the Year a couple of days before their performance at the club. Friday saw the long awaited return of Kevin Davy who, as always, delivered a consummate performance. The festival week ended triumphantly with Stuart McCallum recruiting the fantastic Ed Jones to his merry band of performers. The night proceeded in the expected raucous fashion by kicking off with a performance by Luke Flowers [drums] with Chris on the decks
Of course, even though the festival is over for another year, we at Matt and Phred’s will continue to showcase the finest in UK [and overseas] musical talent. The listings for the coming months are coming together and we’ve already updated a substantial portion of the dates for August, September and October on the club website at www.mattandphreds.com . We have even, at last, been able to take advantage of some of the functions provided by the supporting technology and include loads of information and links pertaining to each event [and most musicians]. We are planning to, very soon, have added a significant amount of musical content to the site that you will be able to listen to examples of each acts’ music in advance of visiting the club. As always, please email Andrea at andrea@mattandphreds.com for all enquiries,
My final comments are unrelated to the club and jazz music in general so please forgive the 'off topic excursion'. I have been appointed as Project Director for a charity which is hugely important and inspirational to me and I merely wish to provide you all with a link to our website for you to explore should you wish to do so [ www.thegreatfootballgiveaway.org.uk ]. I have no wish to impose upon any of you my personal beliefs or interests, nor is this a plea for donations. However, should any of you [having visited the website] have any questions about our projects please email me at the following address – dean@thegreatfootballgiveaway.org.uk .
As always, I shall conclude by expressing my sincere thanks to the many guests who visited us during the festival, the amazing and talent musicians that performed at the club and, perhaps most of all, to the superb staff who all work tremendously hard to look after our visitors.
Thanks and Best Wishes
Dean and ‘The Team’
