Jazz in the Hall

The Jan Harris Quintet play easy-listening swing standards, and their style matched beautifully the small but perfectly-formed concert room at Middleton Hall. It showed me that jazz can work quite well outside the pubs and clubs where I usually see it...

Middleton Hall is an old manor on the Warwickshire-Staffordshire border that has been lovingly restored by a volunteer-group of conservationists; and they were holding an open day.

The painting behind Jan, of the woman in the blue dress, is of Cassandra Duchess of Chandos. She was born at the hall in 1670, and was an historian and a painter. The painting itself may be modern though I think.