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Bebop Spoken There

Ambrose Akinmusire: “ I am certainly always aware of what the masses are doing. And when I see too many people going one way, I'm going another way - even when I don't know what's over that way". DownBeat, March, 2024.

The Things They Say!

Hudson Music: Lance's "Bebop Spoken Here" is one of the heaviest and most influential jazz blogs in the UK.

Rupert Burley (Dynamic Agency): "BSH just goes from strength to strength".

'606' Club: "A toast to Lance Liddle of the terrific jazz blog 'Bebop Spoken Here'"

The Strictly Smokin' Big Band included Be Bop Spoken Here (sic) in their 5 Favourite Jazz Blogs.

Ann Braithwaite (Braithwaite & Katz Communications) You’re the BEST!

Holly Cooper, Mouthpiece Music: "Lance writes pull quotes like no one else!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

16287 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 169 of them this year alone and, so far, 41 this month (Mar 18).

From This Moment On ...

March

Tue 19: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Michael Young, Paul Grainger, Tim Johnston.

Wed 20: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 20: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 20: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Castillo Neuvo Trio + Conor Emery & His ‘Bones Band @ The Grove, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:30pm (7:00pm doors). £10.00. (£7.00. student).
Thu 21: Remi Banklyn + Chris Corcoran Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.50. Chicago blues. An International Guitar Foundation promotion.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Ragtime piano.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm.

Fri 22: Vasilis Xenopoulos & Paul Edis @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT!
Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Nauta + Remy CB + Last Orders @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 8:30pm (7:30pm doors). Free.
Fri 22: Vasilis Xenopoulos-Paul Edis Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. £15.00. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 22: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 23: Jambone @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 6:30pm. Free (ticketed). End of term performance in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall.
Sat 23: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 23: Red Kites Jazz @ Rowlands Gill Community Centre NE39 1JB. 7:00pm. Tickets: £12.00. (gibsidecommunityfarm@gmail.com). A ‘Build a Barn’ fundraiser. BYOB, tea/coffee available.
Sat 23: New Century Ragtime Orchestra @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £20.00. + bf (book in person at venue - no booking fee!). Featuring pianist Martin Litton.
Sat 23: Pete Tanton’s Cuba Libre @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 24: Luis Verde @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm. Verde (alto sax); Joe Steels (guitar); John Pope (double bass); John Hirst (drums). Alto sax brilliance!
Sun 24: Elsie Franklin @ The Globe, Newcastle. 3:00pm. £10.00. Country blues. An International Guitar Foundation promotion.
Sun 24: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay Metro Station. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: Las Vegas Live with the Rat Pack @ The Forum, Billingham.
Sun 24: Ian Millar & Dominic Spencer @ Otterburn Memorial Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Sun 24: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Note start time - 7:00pm.
Sun 24: Bold Big Band @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Free.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Andy Champion's ACV @ Queens Hall, Hexham. Thursday May 6

Paul Edis, keyboards ; Graeme Wilson, tenor & baritone sax ; Mark Williams, Strat ; Adrian Tilbrook, drums ; Andy Champion, double bass
So I forsake Emile Parisien's reportedly wonderful gig at Gateshead Old Town Hall, if Russell's lyrical Franglais blog is to be believed, for a night out in Hexham. No more election puns but this was anything but a 67% turnout ; the chef had gone home for a TV dinner and almost everyone else in town seems to have followed suit. But the show must go on and ACV gave us - me and the surprised Hexham 11 - a spirited if rather echoey performance.
"Are you ready Adrian?" asks Andy ; "I'm ready, but is the world ready?!" Then straight in with that wonderfully strident 9/8 rhythm as Andy plucks the rising bass intro of the first track on the album Fail in Wood, A Line made by Walking, leaving the chosen few in no doubt that this is no tea garden performance - more of a lightening tour of Tokyo's Shinjuku district.
After another, Andy quips, well-placed album track - You Add to My Stress, we are treated to the new enigmatic AC composition Giant Mice, punching another big hole in Hexham's wainscoting! the scale of it is beyond our metaphorical grasp. The first set finishes with that wonderfully moody track Black Embrace, which, on the album sleeve carries the in-parenthesis qualification Knight Moves, and always makes me think of some obscure defensive play, combined with the Cool style of the original 1968 Thomas Crown Affair, yet again boiling down to soft-focus sex with Faye Dunaway on a sheepskin rug surrounding an abandoned chess game, 2 empty glasses and a lipstick-traced long filter-tipped cigarette gently smoking on a heavy glass ashtray.
Only 3 people appear to have gone home to work out the prize anagram competition - Giant Mice (9) - a swing of 25% to Roluba, as the second set kicks off with the elegiac album title track Fail in Wood, Andy plucking flowers carefully before they Perish from the Hill, picking up speed until they take off like a Scarlet Freight train into the parallax of Graeme's forging tenor and Mark's iron Strat, flinging out their Nameless Pods as they tear towards what we can only imagine is the horizon. And then, no apologies required, Andy's mischievous monkey treatment of Monk's Hackensack with, I have to say, my table drumming highlight of the night - man of the match award goes to Adrian for his superb drum solo, which must have woken up even the loneliest monks in Hexham Abbey! Paul Edis comes in close with his tribute piano work - those jarring semitone 2nds and rising and falling chromatic triplets - classic Monk! We are then treated to another 2 new compositions: New Peculiar and Never Ever which are both well-received.
You can tell there's an express train approaching and it's not stopping, as Andy counts in Without Bones at 333 bpm, 'Time No Changes', Biggles flies undone on a shot of Red Bull, driving that train as our hero chucks on the proverbial coal with his great wooden shovel ; searching for metaphors, Paul turns up the percussive steam pressure on the keys like Cecil Taylor on speed, while Mark's Strat (through The Rat) and Graeme's tenor trade deafening but friendly insults in a dining car with no windows; someone off stage pulls the communication chord and the train hits the buffers on Fm7 to F - exhilarating stuff.
But now is the time to yield a sigh and ACV send us home with the beautifully written and arranged And You Do, ending like a Highland lullaby to keep us from staying up to watch the results dribble in. So it looks like the Tap and Spile!
George M.

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

I'll have a pint of whatever the poster of this comment has had please..........

Lance said...

Are you sure? It comes with a government (what government?) health warning.

Russell said...

Hi Anon

George appreciates good beer. See you at the Sonny Simmons gig.

Russell

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