Sunday, 4 May 2025

Do you live in a town?

Who remembers Richard Baker's spoken word introduction to Mary, Mungo and Midge? It went something like this. "A town is full of buildings; some tall, some small, some wide, some narrow. A town is full of houses, factories and shops. The buildings are built in streets with cars, buses and lorries running along them..." It goes on. Whilst this all may be factually correct, I would just like to pick Baker up on a couple of things. Where are the drinking establishments? No mention of pubs, hostelries or taverns. That's what every town is full of. What every town isn't full of, however, is jazz clubs. We're lucky in Nottingham - we have three (to the best of my knowledge), but I know loads of places where the chances of seeing live jazz are up there with being hit by lightning. On Christmas Day.

My jazz club of choice in Nottingham is the award winning Peggy's Skylight. If you've ever been to Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London or the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village then you're on the right track. We saw Joel Sarakula there on Wednesday night. He was sublime. 

As was his guitarist Jimmy McGovern. Jimmy Mac - a local lad - looks like a guitarist. And by that I mean he's got 'the look'. Think Jimmy McCullough out of Wings, or those two gadgies in the Lemon Twigs and you'll know what I man. He's snake hips thin, rarely smiles and he's got the hair. Not to mention a beautiful Fender Jaguar. He looked something like this.




Baker goes on: "Do you live in a town? Mary Mungo & Midge live in this town. They live in a tall block of flats. Right at the very top..." Not sure if MM&M live in this flat just on the edge of Nottingham, I wouldn't like to say. The way the light glistened and gleamed off it yesterday was pretty stunning though. Maybe Midge (the most mischievous mouse in town) and his mice cronies had somehow managed to rig up a set of mirrors in various windows to attract attention. Or even dazzle any pilots in the immediate air space. Definitely not the kind of shenanigans goody two shoes Mary would get up to, or sensible 'steady away' Mungo. Oh no. 



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