Not that you’ll find the Hectic there on his summer manoeuvres as a visit to Jelly Jazz was top priority.

The night I went, unfortunately neither of the founders and residents Pete Isaac and DJ Griff where there. DJ Griff was away at the Big Chill and Pete Isaac was off sick at home. However, I managed to get a word with a Jelly Jazz insider. He told me it was very rare event indeed that neither Pete nor Griff were at a Jelly Jazz event. It all started 12 years ago when Griff arrived in Plymouth and met up with musically like-minded Pete via the Uni’s Entertainments Officer. The Plymouth gig is still the highlight of the week every Wednesday (see details below).

The weekly Newquay residency at Koola has now been going for 4 years ago. I asked about top Jelly Jazz tunes and like the many regulars I found at THIS recently, he was in trouble. He said, “I couldn’t pin it down as ‘Jelly Jazz’ is such an eclectic mix but have a look at the web site.” One odd choice of jazz head Griff’s top five tunes is Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ (one of Mr. Peel’s favourites when it came out as I recall). I doubt whether he plays that out too often but the Newquay night has proved very popular. Last year, was the first year they kept the night going throughout the dark winter months.

And as further evidence of how popular Newquay is, some big names are prepared to get out and smell the surf at Fistral. For example, last month Natural Self & Nostalgia 77 (Tru Thoughts) and Sweden’s Mad Mats (Raw Fusion) were the special guests.

August highlights are Brighton’s stalwart of the Jazz Rooms, Russ Dewbury (19th) and on the night I was there, DJ Dupree (The Fishbowl) and Stuart Chalk (Jazz Rooms). It was nice to see a fair amount of 45s hit the decks and there was a large amount of instrumental jazzy funkiness such as, Lonnie Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jimmy Smith et al. The early session had an overspill of House heads on the floor from the adjoining bar. It wasn’t long before the regulars and visitors got down to some serious post midnight ‘Evil Vibrations’ and then some big samba drum and whistle monsters went off. Stuart and Bjorn were trading tunes and respecting each other’s choices. They even went into an impromptu-synchronised dance routine behind the decks at one point. The crowd loved it and the dance floor was packed right up to the end.

Jelly Jazz also has a base in Exeter and Griff would like to start bringing top musicians to the South West area to play live. It struck me that there’s such a wealth of rare jazz dance funkers that a Jelly Jazz compilation could be on the cards (like the Messin’ Around series of a few years ago) whilst there’s thoughts to release their own records in the near future.

This is all good news for the Jelly Jazz fans, which includes friend of Fly, Nik Weston. He’s one of the regular guests at the Plymouth base. So if you are in the South West area, do a little research and get to one of the Jelly Jazz nights for a good time with a friendly and knowledgeable funky soulful jazzy dance crowd.

Links:
Jelly Jazz www.jellyjazz.com: Plymouth, Every Wednesday @ The Quay Club 10-2am, Exeter @ The Amber Rooms, Monthly Thursdays 9-2am, Newquay @ The Koola, Brach Road 9-2am.
www.245mag.co.uk July: DJ Griff Interview & monthly Jazz & Funk record reviews by Jelly Jazz (Pete Isaac & DJ Griff).

Jelly Jazz sponsors:
Gravis www.gravisfootwear.com
HoldYourBreath, 37 Fore Street, Ivybridge email: sales@holdyourbreath.co.uk

Koola Bar, Beach Road, Newquay tel: 07830 411499 www.thekoola.com Tuesday, Funk-Hiphop- breaks, Wednesday, D’n’B (Dj Mastervibe + guests [eg Swan-E, Nicky Blarkmarket], Thursday, HipHop [guests Rodney P, The Mixologists], Saturday, House [residents Nice&Dean], Sunday, Rock-Metal Nite.

Record Stores:
Bigga Records, 15 Looe St, Plymouth, PL4 0DY
Really Good Records, 10 Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AQ
Music & Video Exchange, 139 Cornwall St, Plymouth www.nottinghillexchanges.com

Jazzdance nights, also try:
Shiftless Shuffle 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month, Freedom, Wardour St, Soho & Messin’ Around at the Jazz Café. For both see www.jazzcotech.com
Brighton’s Jazz Rooms
Out To Lunch, 2nd Sunday of the month, Nottingham
Be Bop Square, Tokyo www.sostokyo.com/bebopsquare
RipCurl Boardmasters Newquay 1st to 7th August 2005