Thank you Colin.

Regular site visitors will note my frequent reference to Ned Kelly's Last Stand - the jazz fun pub in Kowloon, Hong Kong. I've never been there but it sounds like a place I should have been - add it to the list that includes Shelly's Manne Hole, Earthquake McGoons, The Famous Door, Birdland, Kelly's Stables and the pre-Beatles Cavern.

Well Colin and I go back a long way - his father, Hughie Aitchison - the greatest authority on Ellington (Duke) that I ever met - and I worked together for many years in a well known Newcastle music shop (J.G. Windows).

Colin and I were in the Newcastle Big Band together and I have followed his career with interest ever since. He's been leading the China Coast Jazzmen at Ned Kelly's for quite a time - often alongside such illustrious sitters-in as Bob Wilber (see photo) and Pug Horton. All this leads up to the package that came through the letter-box yesterday.

A Ned Kelly's Tee Shirt and a CD of the band playing live.

The Tee Shirt is great - expect to see me wearing it around the gigs until I'm told to get it laundered! The CD gives a first hand impression of a typical night at 'Neds'. Small band swing (Opus One; Jersey Bounce; Sing, Sing, Sing) and Dixieland (Bill Bailey; High Society; Basin Street etc).

It's not music to lend a critical ear to it's music to tap your feet to, have a laugh and a smile and, after a few beers, a sing-a-long.

Thank you Colin. Lance. PS: Roy Willis reminded me of this YouTube clip , with brief introduction from the late Chris Yates, that Colin posted of Red Rodney blowing Days of Wine and Roses at the Corner House, Newcastle back in 1985.