There are two last opportunities to catch this wonderful local institution.

Drummer Stu Butterfield who has run these sessions right on our doorstep for the last three years has decided to call it a day. This Thursday (December 13^th) it’s the virtuosic but highly literate singer Brigitte Beraha with Barry Green on piano and the funk-influenced bass and drums of Flo Moore and Tristram Maillot - a very intriguing line-up.

Next week (the 20^th) it’s the final jam session when many of the club regulars will be playing. Don’t worry if you’ve missed it until now - let’s give Stu and the bands a really good and grateful send-off. It’s a welcoming venue and a nice atmosphere where world-class musicians have been playing adventurously and heroically to very small audiences. It’s not just that Wood Green and Coburg Road seem too far off the beaten track - jazz is struggling pretty much everywhere.

A century after it began there are plenty of voices claiming it’s finished. But the quality of what you can hear at the Karamel belies the idea - it’s still a music based on listening, musicians to each other, and audience to the players. Tuning in, being in the moment, renewing the tradition. There still has to be a place for such an activity in the contemporary world. Here’s a chance to show we care about it. http://www.collage-arts.org/jazz-karamel/

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