All That Jazz

Marsden is famous for a few things - home to: League Of Gentleman 'local' shop, Simon Armitage the poet, Standedge Tunnel (longest canal tunnel in Britain), burial place of Enoch Taylor (built the first mechanical textile croppers way back in the early 1800s, an opportunity for  the Luddites to name a big fat hammer after him, which they used to smash his creation), last village before the Pennines head into Greater Manchester (Greater Manchester being "wrong side o' t'hills"), my Mum and an annual Jazz festival.

The Marden Jazz Festival runs for three days, normally held over the second weekend in October. For a small village nestling in the Colne Valley, the festival manages to attract some pretty big names in the jazz world. In the past, I've watched John Etheridge (who also gave a great talk about his times with Stephane Grappelli), Polar Bear (top stuff) and even a bit of Humphrey Lyttelton (RIP, you funny clever man). This year I was lucky enough to catch Empirical, a young quintet from London, who won Mojo's Jazz Album of the Year in 2007. As they started off, I thought that sleepy Marsden wouldn't be ready for such modern jazz. How very dare I... Marsden was clearly wearing its jazzhead and applauded each individual as they showed their prowess. Empirical were a cool, young bunch, dressed in a 20s-Cotton-Club-meets-Jazz-Café look. Loved them.

The rest of the weekend was spent with my family, as this weekend was also the first anniversary of my sister Liz passing away. We spent a lovely Saturday evening together, raising a toast (toasts, actually, and lots of 'em) and general fat-chewing...

Sunday was a beautiful day. Marsden really is spectacular in Autumn - the colours are so vibrant, and it'd have been sacrilege not to don the wellies (any excuse) and go for a bit of a wander:

I was joined by The Gay Fashion Designer and his spaniel Sid. We walked out towards Standedge, and then up the road to Hey Green, a country house hotel. The grounds were bathed in autumn sunshine, making the warmth of the colours seem even richer:

We saw this foxy lady lurking in a dry stone wall:

Walking along, you forget how friendly people are up North - virtually everyone we passed said hello. I might try it up Hampstead Heath ("Darling, did you hear that Northern type trying to strike up a conversation with us? How quaint they are"...). After a couple of hours, we walked back, and I returned to the most heavenly home-cooked Sunday lunch. Naturally, Yorkshire Pudding was a main feature...plain and simple, there's nowt jazzy about the brilliance of that.