Dan Johnson Photography Blog » A blog offshoot of www.danjohnsonphotography.co.uk mainly relating to weddings in England with the emphasis on handy hints, pertinent observations about weddings in general and stuff like that plus the occasional rant, but also including things we think are worth sharing because they’re cool or they’re just plain weird. All site content © copyright Dan Johnson Photography

That’s definitely not the finest picture ever taken of a jazz trio and yes it is a silly name (albeit a memorable one), but there we have The Dixie Ticklers in action at Jo and Tom’s reception last month.

Now, we get a go on several jazz bands of various persuasions every year, and it has to be said that most of them are pretty dire. In fact if you were to bang me on the head in the night and say “jazz at weddings”, I would doubtless come out with “bum notes”, “beer” and “short sets with long gaps between numbers” before waking up.

Not so with these guys. When we turned up, I didn’t take a huge amount of notice of them simply because we were pushed for time and had a lot to get through before sitdown, but it soon became apparent that not only could all three of these frankly unlikely-looking jazzmen play their instruments better than most, but they kept playing for a lot longer too. Even more remarkably though, they actually seemed to be enjoying making the music!

All of which is a long-winded way of saying if you need some jazz at your wedding, Dom James is your man. He’s the dude on clarinet in that picture, his mobile’s 07851 601 605, his website’s here and I’m sure he said he can turn out as a bigger band with vocals too.