JULY 2025
Thu 10: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Soloists, Orchestras & Hot Fives.
Thu 10: Side Café Orkestar @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Fri 11: Paul Skerritt Quartet @ Bishop Auckland Methodist Church, Cockton Hill Road, Bishop Auckland. 1:00pm. £8.00. A Bishop Auckland Jazz promotion. New venue (second Friday in the month)!
Fri 11: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 11: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ The Beehive, Earsdon NE25 0SZ. 5:00-7:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: Fiona Finden Jazz Express @ Flash House Brewery, North Shields NE30 1DS. 8:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Jazz Stage @ Mouth of the Tyne Festival. From 12 noon. Free. Vieux Carré Jazzmen (12 noon); Rendezvous Jazz (1:00pm); Mississippi Dreamboats (2:00pm); Classic Swing (3:00pm); Abbie Finn Trio (4:00pm). Stage adjacent to Tynemouth Priory.
Sat 12: Making Music Seminar: Latin American Music v. Music of Latin America @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 1:00pm. £15.00. (£5.00. online). Jason Holcomb, Alix Shepherd & Carlos Luis Rivera.
Sat 12: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Jude Murphy & Dan Stanley @ Lovaine Community Garden, North Shields. 7:00pm (doors 6:40pm). £6.00. Limited places, booking essential (via the Community Garden website). BYOF&D.
Sat 12: Hot Club du Nord @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm. Hall Two.
Sat 12: Sleep Suppressor @ Repas 7 by Night, Berwick. 8:00pm.
Sat 12: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle.8:00pm. Free. ‘Swing Jazz Guitar’. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 13: Jazz Stage @ Mouth of the Tyne Festival. From 11:00am. Free. Trilogy of Four (11:00am); East Coast Jazzmen (12:10pm); Delta Prophets Trio (1:20pm); House of the Black Gardenia (2:30pm); Mouth of the Tyne All Stars (3:40pm). Stage adjacent to Tynemouth Priory.
Sun 13: Giles Strong Quartet @ The Sele, Hexham. 12 noon. Free. ‘The Bandstand Sessions’.
Sun 13: Julie Dexter @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:30pm (doors). £20.00. ‘The Cluny Matinee Jazz Club’.
Sun 13: ’58 Jazz Collective, Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Bishop Auckland Town Hall. 2:00pm. Tea Dance. SOLD OUT! A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sun 13: Ferg Kilsby @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm. Kilsby (trumpet, flugelhorn); Luis Verde (alto sax); Ben Lawrence (piano); Andy Champion (double bass); John Hirst (drums).
Sun 13: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Sloth Racket @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE.
Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club (1:00pm). Free.
Mon 14: Brass Bash @ Hardwick Park, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Mon 14: Brass Bash @ The Story, Mount Oswald, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Tue 15: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ The Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Sluice. Tel: 0191 237 3697. 12:30pm. ‘July Jazz Barbecue’. Tickets: £15.00.
Tue 15: Brass Bash @ Hackworth Park, Shildon, Co. Durham. 6:00-9:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Tue 15: Brass Bash @ The Witham, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Tue 15: Julian Lage Trio @ 1856 Exchange, North Shields. 7:30pm . Lage (guitar); Jorge Roeder (double bass); Joey Barron (drums).
Tue 15: Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra @ The Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm.
Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Bailey Rudd.
Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Brass Bash @ Willington Town Park, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Wed 16: Brass Bash @ Market Place, Spennymoor, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
12 comments :
Rest in peace, Keith. You did so much to make swing dancers welcome, and keep Jazz alive.
Your sense of humour and kindness will be greatly missed.
Lou
Swing Dancer
x
Shocking news. Keith Crombie was a gruff but absolutely lovable character who struggled on for years and years keeping his beloved Jazz Cafe going, trailing the streets with flyers, etc.
He provided a totally unique venue, a great place for jazz musicians to play and hang out.
He and his Jazz Cafe are already Tyneside jazz legend. The anecdotes would make a very good book!
Very sad.
Roly
The Jazz Café is possibly the last real life personification of all the fictional jazz venues. At first, all that was missing was the smoke - now it's Keith...
Jake.
For as long as I've been playing jazz in Newcastle I have played it at the Jazz Cafe on Pink Lane. It's a dingy, cluttered, tiny space, the absolute archetype of the term 'Jazz Club'. It has been the site of much learning, listening, hard work, laughter, frustration and joy, all for the love of music and those who make it. It's importance in my development - not to mention that of the scores of other musicians who performed there regularly - cannot be overstated. None of that could have happened without Keith Crombie and his insurmountable dedication to keeping the place alive, to give the people of this city a place to see the music he cared about be played. Tonight we honoured his memory with that music. I feel humbled and grateful to have been a part of it. He will be sorely missed.
RIP Keith Crombie.
Wouldn't the best memorial be for someone to keep it going?
RIP
I think it was 1993 when I first met Keith. It was my first time at the Jazz Cafe on a mid-week night and I was being inquisitive about the set-up of the Jazz Cafe. All of a sudden he turned in his likeable abrupt character and said "You ask a lot of F*%$ing questions dont you, are you a copper?" Since then we have been great friends and myself and others have had some very memorable nights there. Keith you will be sadly missed and I sincerely hope that one of your family or colleagues continue to run the Jazz Cafe in the way that we all like it....
R.I.P.
Nick
I first met Keith in the 70's when he used to frequent Julie's nightclub. He was often gruff but always likeable and over the years I got used to seeing him around the town (usually in the vicinity of the universities) handing out his flyers for the Cafe. Keith was an absolute legend and one of the last of the great Nort-East characters. He was a bugger for who he would allow through the door (depending on his mood haha) altho if you had a student union card you were generally ok. Heaven has a new guard on the door today. Rest in Peace, Keith, you were truly one of a kind x
Keith could certainly do mood swings. I recall his apparent fury with me when we were both trying to use the same pub wall to publicise our gigs, and then one minute later, once I had convinced him that no clash was meant, he was enthusiastically sharing his love of the film 'Bullshot'. His love of jazz was clear to all: it was the simple explanation for the Jazz Cafe - a characterful individual venue that was loved perhaps at least as much for its faults as its virtues. Long may it survive. It surprised and pleased me over the years that the many students of the Newcastle Swing Dance Society all seemed to see through his grumpiness quickly and liked him.
Well said.
As long as they dont change a thing. Leave all dvds and books in there (and his tv). and dont paint the place. it is absolutely perfect as it is. Bless ya Keith, I will miss you terribly. James
i met keith when i moved to newcastle in the early 90's, on my first visit to the jazz cafe i asked for a job and worked there throughout my 20's-what a job! I turned up soon after i begun working there at 10 in the morning, distraught after seeing my then boyfriend off on a long train to china (literally). Keith gave me two shots of whiskey and then got me in the kitchen washing the grease off the walls as i cried myself to normality. He was a big softie...a big heart. the end of an era. the cafe without keith...i just can't imagine it.
RIP, Keith
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