Music: that will
keep you dancing!

Band Members Are (top left to bottom right);

Alan Kennington - MandoBass,
Double Bass

Alan "got the bug" for jazz and folk whilst a schoolboy in the '50's and started playing jazz in 1959. He was also resident bassist at the Crawley Jazz club for several years in the '60's. He still plays for that original jazz band, celebrating their 50th anniversary last year, and has since branched out into other genres. He currently plays for Labyrinth (with Saskia), a skiffle group, and a classical mandolin orchestra, as well as free-lancing all over in the jazz scene.

Clare Ablett - Viola, Fiddle, Purcussion, Mandolin

Clare learned the violin as a young girl; in recent years her interest in folk music was re-kindled, she invested in a violin and started playing at music sessions. At a session in the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes she met Yogi and as result joined first Cuckoos Nest Ladies Morris and later Brighton Morris Men, as a fiddle player. Clare enjoys sessions, festivals and concerts and wishes she had "discovered" folk music many years earlier.

John "Yogi" Alan - Three Row Melodeon

Yogi bought a guitar in 1963, using the money saved for his honeymoon! In spite of this his marriage has lasted 44 years so far. He gave up smoking because he wanted to sing, and did so, with or without the guitar, in lots of folk clubs. In 1993 he moved to Sussex, discovered the morris and learned to play the melodeon. He loved it so much that he dropped the guitar, and switched his focus from songs to tunes. He now plays for Brighton Morris Men

Mark Price - Mandolin, Guitar

Mark started playing guitar with the usual youthfully hopeful rock bands, later took up mandolin with the Fretful Federation Mandolin Orchestra and offshoot subgroups and writes and performs his own humour and irony-based songs

Brian Ablett - Percussion, Melodeon

Brian has been around the folk music and dance world for more years than he wishes to remember. Originally a folk club "Floor singer" in Sussex, he went on to run the Ditchling Folk Nights club and Ceilidhs, the Crawley Family Folk Club (origins of the Crawley Folk Festival), the Junction Inn Folk Club in Burgess Hill, and Keymer Folk Nights. He Joined Brighton Morris (Then the University of Sussex Morris Men) and Cuckoos Nest Ladies Morris in 1982 as a dancer and musician. Brian was co founder of The "Scratch and Gutter" Ceilidh band in 1982.

Kate Hawkins - Flute, Whistle

Kate plays flute, piccolo and recorders and yes the band's name originated from her kitchen which, at that time was big enough for us all to meet, play music and eat hot buttered toast! Kate says:
"There is only one thing better than playing our music and that is watching people dancing to it and having a good time!"

Saskia Heriz - Fiddle

For the last 10 years Saskia has played with Labyrinth, a Sussex band which works with a caller and provides music for European and world folk dances, traditionally danced in lines and circles. She started to play English folk music about 4 years ago when she joined the band of Brighton Morris Men.

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