Helping to jazz up Doctor Who

ONCE a month television production sound mixer Jeff Matthews leaves behind the sci fi worlds of Dr Who and Torchwood and settles in to play bit of clarinet with a few musical mates in the Severn Sounds Jazzmen at the Monty Club at Newtown.
The band will be back there this Sunday lunchtime, April 1, for the latest of the New Orleans Jazz club dates on the first Sunday of each month.The audience has been growing each time and shows had to move to a larger room after the success of the first one in December.If they carry on increasing then Jeff says they should reach a stage when they can afford to pull in guest artists and even guest bands for special events.This Sunday there is even a chance that local MP Lembit Opik could show up."We have invited Lembit Opik to come and play harmonica with us at the next session. He has expressed interest as I understand there is quite an interest in jazz among a number of MPs in Westminster. He might also bring a 'friend'," adds Jeff cheekily.The regular band includes Len Davies from Llanidloes on drums, Chris Jones, a professional double bass player from Oswestry, Matt Sanders on guitar and banjo is from the Presteigne area, Dave Margaroney from Shrewsbury is the main trombone player, and Stan Williams on trumpet travels all the way from Holywell."It delights me that I am able to pull in such very good players who are happy to come here to play in Newtown."They are all of a standard that they can play wherever they want to but they come here and we play music that can be enjoyed by non-jazz lovers. "It's Dixieland of the sort made popular by the likes of Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk and Louis Armstrong," said Jeff.It's a
more relaxed world to the ones Jeff is usually involved in conjuring up for television viewers with his day job being involved in BBC's two most popular science fiction shows, both being produced in Cardiff.Jeff works as a production sound mixer for dialogue on location and says: "I did half the first series of Torchwood as well as some Dr Who including the "Love and Monsters" story with comedian Peter Kay as guest star and I have been asked to do more Torchwood which I think starts filming on April 30."It's eight weeks filming in Cardiff finishing late on Saturday nights so it will be a dash up to Newtown when there is a jazz afternoon.Jeff lives at Abermule and came to the area to set up a fine art business while also doing sound work which he resumed full time when the business closed."My mother's family was from this area but she didn't realise it until she moved here.