The Spin Festive Fiesta, A 6-piece super-group or, the Hattie-less Hejira!

Tuesday 17th December 2024

Two years ago, our Christmas gig was a one-off by an un-named band, put together to play the music of Joni Mitchell. To the band’s surprise, this got rapid traction and by 2024, they were playing 50 gigs in the year all over the UK and Ireland, selling out at London’s Jazz Café and playing prestigious festivals in jazz, folk and world-music genres. By their second gig they had adopted the name, Hejira.

On all of their shows, they intersperse a few instrumental numbers (to give Hattie’s voice a break); for this gig, we thought to have the band in full instrumental flow –  hence the above sobriquet, ‘the Hattie-less Hejira’!

So, for the Spin Festive Fiesta, we bring you this supergroup:

Dave Jones: basses

Chris Eldred: keyboards

Marc Cecil: percussion

Rick Finlay: drums

Ollie Weston: saxophones

Pete Oxley: guitars

The band will play a totally celebratory and uplifting repertoire that will ease you joyfully into the festive season.

We could write at length of who everybody has played with and where, all over the world…but take it from us that this would make for a very long list! (If you’d like to see a bit more about this personnel, take a look here)

Of these instrumental members of Hejira, Jazzwise have described them as ‘a formidably tight unit’ and singled out “an Oxley instrumental ‘Surging Waves’: a rampaging samba that was one of the best things of the night” (March 2024)

We aim to round off a spectacular year of Spin gigs with a rousing session that will resonate with you until we re-open in January!