Author Archives: woodstock

Absent Friends

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ve all been missing these past few months – a taste of two stalwart Big Roll Band members when they were alive and rolling. Paul McCallum, a schoolfriend and my bass player for the last 20 years of his talented life, and Nick Newall – tenor player in all my Roll Band recordings,  longest time friend (from my twenties!) Also featuring Glenn Nightingale on guitar and Jeff Allen on drums. A great night captured by video recordist William John Baker. Enjoy their abilities…with affection.

No comment

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Due to a relentless onslaught by spammers, we have reluctantly and regretfully had to disable commenting on this website.
The good news is that you can still converse with Zoot on social media. Follow @bigtimeoperator on Twitter and @zootmoneymusic on Facebook to stay in touch with all the important stuff and to chat with Zoot and one another.
And if you’re a spammer, you are wasting your time. There is nothing for you here.

Still Not Your Mother’s Radio

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Not Your Mother's Radio - catch up

Listen to Zoot’s previous interview on Not Your Mother’s Radio

Did you catch Zoot’s podcast interview in August with Eliot Goldstein of Not Your Mother’s Radio?
Great, wasn’t it?

Oh, you missed it? Never fear – it’s right here. So there’s no excuse not to be fully up to date by the time they return for a rematch on Nov 9.

A Distinguished Music Critic Writes…

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Press woz in…

Zoot Money at the Bull’s Head

by Richard Williams on December 28, 2019

Zoot Money

This being Christmas week, Zoot Money needed to call up some deps for last night’s gig at the Bull’s Head in Barnes. A whole band of deps, in fact. But what deps they were. The great Jim Mullen on guitar. John Altman and Bob Sydor on soprano and tenor saxophones respectively. Kenny Wilson on bass guitar and Mark Fletcher on drums. All they were getting, as one of them said, was a key and a count-in. And away they went.

It was rough around the edges, gorgeous in spots, and suffused throughout by the spirit of the music they share. “The Promised Land”. “One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer”. “My Babe”. “Let the Good Times Roll”. Eight-bar blues, 12-bar blues, 16-bar blues. Zoot toggled between B3, Rhodes and acoustic piano sounds on his electronic keyboards.

The highlights included two duets at the start of the second set: Mullen with Zoot on a lovely “Please Stay” and Sydor doing the Fathead Newman thing on Ray Charles’s “Hard Times”. The pianist Kenny Clayton and his daughter, the singer Alex Clayton-Black, were invited up for a guest spot which included a delightful “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home to”,

with a sinuous obligato from Altman’s curved soprano.

Cues were hit, cues were missed, but a good time rolled for the musicians and their audience in the little back room. That’s what the common language can do.

 

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2020 Vision

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As the year draws to a close, is your strength fading so fast that a big scroll down the Gigs page past almost all the good times of  2019 is a bit much and you need a wee sit-down afterwards? Never fear – help is here!

For the rest of December you can get a SNEAK PREVIEW of next year’s gigs page here. Now you can conserve your energy and have all the more get-up-and-go to enjoy swinging into the new decade. We’ll be there – will you? Get those dates in the diary now.

Let the Big Times Scroll!

Turkey Sandwiches – are YOU safe?

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It’s beginning to look like The Great Escape From Turkey Sandwiches! Book early to avoid disappointment. With swinging shenanigans providing the perfect antidote to Christmas leftovers, this alternative celebration is an annual institution at the Bull’s Head in Barnes. In fact you’d be have to be crazy to miss it.

To get your juices flowing, here’s a free taste of November’s show, featuring the usual world class talent. Don’t say we’re not good to you.