For the past eighteen years we've been updating the world about jazz in the north east of England and updating the north east of England about jazz in the world. WINNER of the Jazz Media Category in the 2018 All Party Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Contact lanceliddle@gmail.com
October.
Fri 30: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 30: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 30: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Sat 31: Saltburn Big Band + Durham Alumni Big Band @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm.
Sat 31: East Coast Swing Band @ Cramlington Village Club, Park View, Cramlington NE23 6QJ. 7:30pm. £10.00. (from venue).
November
Sun 01: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm. £10.00.
Sun 01: Ian Bosworth Quintet @ Chapel, Middlesbrough. 1:00pm. Free. Quintet w. special guest Donna Hewitt (tenor sax, clarinet)
Sun 01: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 01: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 01: Sarah Heneghan Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Mon 02: Friends of Jazz @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 02: Saltburn Big Band @ Saltburn House Hotel. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Tue 03: Alan Law @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 2:00pm. Free. Alan Law (piano) w. guest tba
Tue 03: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Abbie Finn.
Tue 03: Customs House Big Band @ The Masonic Hall, Ferryhill. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 04: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 04: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 04: An Evening of Erykah Badu @ Holy GrAle, Durham. 7:30pm. £3.00.; £2.50. A Durham University Jazz Society event.
Wed 04: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Richard Morris wrote most of the reviews apart from the Jo Harrup album launch and the Pete Roth Trio which were by Colin Muirhead.
Individual links below:
Pete Roth (guitars);
Mike Pratt (electric bass); Bill Bruford (drums)
© Colin Muirhead
Day 2 of the Durham Jazz
Festival continued with the much-anticipated arrival of a trio founded just a
few years ago - and the return to Durham of a music legend.
I first heard Bill Bruford over 20 years ago with his band Earthworks and I was mightily impressed then. His drumming was outstanding and literally, he didn’t miss a beat. I shouldn’t have been surprised; after all, Bill had co-founded Yes in the late 1960s, played for many years in King Crimson and other bands, and was later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Like many others, I was saddened to hear of his retirement from performing and recording in 2009 but delighted to hear of his return to the scene as part of the Pete Roth Trio in 2022. Nevertheless, as Pete, Mike and Bill took to the stage, I wondered if I would still feel the same way about Bill’s drumming as I had all those years previously.
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| © Richard Morris |
And now for something completely different! A duet concert by virtuoso double bass player Andy Champion and award winning vocalist Zoë Gilby. Pared back songs of various genres with some of these songs written by some of my very favourite artists. I was hooked. Therefore not all jazz songs but many given a jazzy feel, some scatting and Zoë’s unique and very fine vocals - a real treat and, unsurprisingly, was yet another a sell out in an intimate venue.
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| © Richard Morris |
Another sold
out concert!
I had the
benefit of seeing Marvin live the previous evening guesting with the Strictly
Smokin’ Big Band at the Gala Theatre. Such was his performance I was grateful I
had had the foresight to put this concert in my diary some weeks in advance.
This young man is an immense multi-talented vocalist, trumpeter and arranger. The
three other musicians were well known to me. Dean in fact had led his own quartet
immediately prior to this concert. I had last seen Abbie play at the
Lit & Phil with Greg Abate.
The concert kicked off with Young Man With the Old Soul composed by Marvin on which he sang and played trumpet. Two standards popular with jazz musicians: This Could be the Start of Something Big and I’m Beginning to See the Light showcased Marvin’s vocal range and power. Play it Cool was a tune Marvin had released the previous Friday. Abbie sat out the next song Moonlight in Vermont which featured Dean on piano and the most beautiful of vocals by Marvin.
Sunday November 1st 2026
8-10pm, doors open at 7.30pm
£5 entry on the door, all welcome
The Moor Club, 35 Heaton Moor Road, Stockport SK4 4PB (next to the Elizabethan PH)
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| © Richard Morris |
This concert on the second day of Durham Jazz Festival was billed as a thrilling meeting of velvet vocals and full throttle big band swing with classic crooner charm, punchy brass and a show with timeless standards. On this evening as part of the festival 2025 Mercury Music Prize nominees Knats were also playing down the road at Fabio's Bar and jazz vocalist Eleanor Kouneni was at the Claypath Delicatessen. What a lineup the organisers of the festival had fashioned for this evening. I was pleased with my choice of concert and the Gala Theatre was very close to a full house.
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| © Jack Childs |
The first album, Count Down to Christmas, is a festive record for the orchestra’s 40-piece big-band-with-strings line-up, with most of the musical arrangements written by conductor Mike Paul-Smith and fellow arranger and original band member Simon Joyner. It is the orchestra's second Christmas album, following Swing Into Christmas, released in 2021, and brings together festive standards and lesser-known seasonal material in Down for the Count's unique large swing ensemble setting. A second, non-festive album follows in spring 2027.
Alex Clarke (alto sax); Dean Stockdale (keys); Adrian Knowles (double
bass); Gaz Hughes (drums)
© Jeff Pritchard
This concert should have included
singer/saxist Emily Masser but, as Paul Hartley explained in his opening
announcement, her car had broken down at Heathrow.
I thought I knew most of the bass players that worked in the north west but I don’t think I've come across Adrian Knowles before. He’s from the Leeds area and can play that’s for sure.
Alex started the show with that great Clifford Brown 12 bar blues Sandu a good choice I thought. The second number was a standard that I think was from Frank Sinatra's epic album Songs For Swinging Lovers - You Make Me Feel So Young.
Other tunes were by composers such as Thelonious Monk, Bronislaw Kapers Kurt Weill ; Hank Mobley; Carlos Jobim etc.
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| © Richard Morris |
This concert took place on Sunday, the last day of the three day Durham Jazz Festival 2026, to a sold out audience. I thoroughly enjoyed the three day festival attending eight concerts. Most were sell outs or very close to it. The festival was exceedingly well organised. It was many decades since I last stayed in Durham so all the venues I attended were fresh to me. This venue provided a large stage for the musicians with good acoustics and a large Steinway grand piano for Dean to feast his fingers on. This was the first concert of the day for Dean but a marathon day for him would include playing piano at another concert and then a long drive to Stockport for an evening concert. What a trooper!
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| © Richard Morris |
Another sold out concert, held in the interior courtyard of St Chad’s College, opened day two of the three day Durham Jazz Festival 2026.
The afternoon’s programme consisted of tunes composed by Paul and Vasilis from a soon to be released album titled A Place Called Home. Andy, Steve and Paul, of course, are musicians I have seen play live on multiple occasions but this was the first time I had seen Vasilis play live and it most certainly will not be the last. He is an amazing player on both tenor and soprano sax.
