New monthly jazz club comes to Bexhill

An exciting monthly jazz club comes to Bexhill at the end of May hosted by jazz musician Lynda Murray.

Blue Note Jazz will be in the Town Square Social Club, 4-6 London Road, Bexhill, TN39 4JU on Sunday, May 31 from 3-5pm; £10 cash on the door; doors/bar 2.30pm.

Lynda said: “The opening event celebrates some of the music and musicians associated with Miles Davis. Bill Evans piano, Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane saxophones. If Miles was still alive, he would be 100 on May 26.”

To mark the event, Lynda invited Rod Youngs, MOBO-nominated drummer, to play with her quartet.

“American born Rod is considered to be one of the UK's top jazz drummers having worked with an incredible array of musicians. Gil Scott Heron, Gregory Porter, Julian Joseph, Lianne Carroll, Courtney Pine, Laura Mvula, Mica Paris, Sheila Jordan, Lee Konitz, Denys Baptiste, Bryon Wallen, Abdullah Ibrahim, Mulato Astarke, Alan Barnes and Tony Kofi are just a few.”

Lynda was married to a jazz photographer and when studying classical piano at a London music college she was given a battered soprano sax. Due to pregnancy she dropped out of college in the second year.

By the time she moved to Hastings with her family she had switched from piano to saxophone as her main instrument. Lynda has been playing and teaching around East Sussex for the last 35 years and plays alto and the rarely heard sopranino saxophone.

She has another band called Mosaic Triangle, a drum, bass and sax jazz trio. Lynda writes a lot of their music, and they also play jazz standards that work with that format.

Completing the line-up for Sunday is Lynda’s daughter Naomi Kilby who is a trained opera singer who can also sing jazz. Adrian York (piano) regularly plays The Grouch Club and with Rod Youngs in London. Paul Whitten is on double bass, an ex Chet Baker sideman.

More than 20 years ago Lynda and her quartet opened for Courtney Pine on his first visit to the De La Warr Pavilion. Lynda was also asked to take part in their 80th birthday celebrations on Saturday, December 12 2015. She put together a quartet called Retro Swing and they played most of the day in the foyer.

This is the third time that Lynda has run a jazz club. In October 2006 she organised a two-day jazz festival in Hastings. Julian Joseph was the headline act and she remembers having to hire a grand piano for Julian to play on.

After the launch, Blue Note Jazz will run on the first Sunday of the month starting July 5.

More info on Lynda's website: https://www.lyndamurraymusic.co.uk/bluenotejazz