I have recently become interested in jazz, and have invited a few jazz-playing friends to come and join me in the done for an experimental jazz concert, to give some variety to our week's programming. So in the evening, the Dome is transformed by microphones, wine bottles, and a red standard lamp on the stage. Maggie Nichols, Roger Dean and Ashley Brown arrive from London and we decide on a blend of straight and free jazz, which suits me very well, though I feel that the others would be happier doing free jazz all evening. But the blend is evidently the right thing for the Cheltenham Audience, and there are one of two juxtapositions - such as the opening one between Rogers and Hart's 'I Could Write a Book' and the free improvising which follows it, and the one between a frenetic improvisation and Maggie's slow ballad 'Touching Faces' - which quite absorb the audience. It's always the juxtaposition between the known and the unknown which sets people thinking, and if it's skilfully done, as Maggie does it this evening, the listeners can really be wooed into attentiveness to something they wouldn't normally consider listening to. << less