Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Kelly Sill: "Just because everyone is playing through the changes in the same time doesn't mean they're actually playing together" - (JazzTimes March/April 2023).

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!"

Postage

15260 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 279 of them this year alone and, so far, 92 this month (March 29).

From This Moment On ...

April
Sat 01: The Big Easy @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - In a Minor Key. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington Covered Market, Darlington DL1 5PN. 6:00pm. New venue, live jazz!
Sat 01: Jambone @ Sage Gateshead. 7:00pm. Free (book online). A YMP! event in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall.
Sat 01: Jude Murphy & Dan Stanley @ Prohibtion Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Sat 01: Boys of Brass @ Stack, Seaburn. 7:00-9:00pm.
Sat 01: Hot Club du Nord @ Pleased to Meet You, Bridge St., Morpeth. 8:00pm. £79.00. A charity fundraising event.
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00. RESCHEDULED to next week (Sat 08).

Sun 02: Smokin' Spitfires @ The Cluny. 12:45pm.
Sun 02: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.

Mon 03: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 04: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 04: Jam session @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 7:30pm. House trio: Bradley Johnston (guitar); Paul Grainger (double bass); Abbie Finn (drums).

Wed 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 05: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 05: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 05: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 06: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 06: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Donations. Feat. John Pope, Marie Shreer, John Garner.
Thu 06: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibtion Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 06: Darlington Big Band @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Note earlier start time.

Fri 07: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 07: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 07: Gaz Hughes Trio @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm.
Fri 07: Mark Toomey Quartet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 07: Finntet + Zoë Gilby & Andy Champion @ Bobik's, Punch Bowl, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE.
Fri 07: TBA @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Blind Pig Blues Club.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Gavin Lee’s 7th Street Dixieland Band: Jazz @ the Fell - Friday June 1.

(Review by Russell - Photos by Oliver Soden).
Gavin Lee (clarinet), Jim McBriarty (alto saxophone & vocals), Brian Chester (piano), Phil Smith (double bass), Fred Thompson (drums & vocals) & Beth Miller (vocals)
Gateshead Royal British Legion Club on Coatsworth Road, home to Jazz at the Fell, had, for some reason, made an effort to be festive. A hand-drawn poster announced a party for all the family would be held on Monday. A tired-looking string of flags signalled something – perhaps indifference.
The jazz would surely be anything but indifferent. Clarinetist Gavin Lee’s 7th Street Dixieland Band straddles the Mason-Dixon Line in the world of jazz centred around Jazz Age Chicago with occasional sorties south. George Gershwin made the first contribution to the party; Somebody Loves Me featured the first of the vocalists – Jim McBriarty. Fred Thompson sang You Can Depend on Me (you sure can) with solo efforts from McBriarty (alto) and Lee (clarinet). Beth Miller came up from the delta – Teesside Delta – to sing with the band. A bright and breezy On the Sunny Side of the Street made it easy to warm to Miller’s assured low-register delivery. My Funny Valentine, ostensibly an incongruous selection, worked well; Miller impressed, so too Lee, given that the clarinetist had never before played the tune. The outstanding number of the night came courtesy of drummer and sweet-toned vocalist Fred Thompson. Pianist Brian Chester (on top of the material all night) offered the one chord and Thompson sang the verse from Stardust unaccompanied. The band joined him and it was brushes all the way from Thompson. You know how it is – hundreds of gigs waiting for that moment…this was it. I don’t know about gig of the year but this was a contender for moment of the year! 
The interval came and went - raffle, domino card, buffet, another Brown Ale (the club doesn’t do real beer) – and Strike Up the Band marshalled a parade of brolly dollies and a hand-knitted red, white and blue number (a ‘jersey’) was sighted. What’s that about getting dressed in the dark? Harold Arlen focused the mind once more – As Long as I Live – and vocalist Miller returned to the stage to sing September in the Rain. That’s who she reminds me of…there is something of Sassy Sarah Vaughan in her lazy, languorous tone and it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t damp, she ain’t but Miller gave us The Lady is a Tramp
This was a good night out, not strictly Dixieland by any means, simply good tunes played by good musicians. Chester, Phil Smith (bass) and Thompson coped admirably with numbers thrown at them by amiable bandleader Lee and the frontline – Lee and McBriarty – rattled-off the solos. Next week get along to Jazz at the Fell to hear the Maine Street Jazzmen.
Russell

No comments :

Blog Archive