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Bebop Spoken There

Kurt Elling: ''There's something to learn from every musician you play with''. (DownBeat, December 2024).

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Postage

17630 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 904 of them this year alone and, so far, 49 this month (Dec. 20).

From This Moment On ...

December

Mon 23: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free. CANCELLED!
Mon 23: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 4:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Mon 23: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.

Tue 24: Lindsay Hannon & Mark Williams @ Ernest, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 11:00am-1:00pm. Free.
Tue 24: Paul Skerritt @ Mambo Wine & Dine, South Shields. 1:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.

Wed 25: Wot? No jazz!

Thu 26: The Boneshakers @ Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. The 17th annual Boneshakers’ Shindig.

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free. Business as usual!.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 27: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar & vocals.

Sat 28: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 11:30am. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 28: Fri 20: Castillo Nuevo @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30pm. Free.
Sat 28: Jude Murphy, Rich Herdman & Giles Strong @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 28: Ray Stubbs R & B All-Stars @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Stepney Bank, Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sun 29: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 29: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Reviewers wanted

Whilst BSH attempts to cover as many gigs, festivals and albums as possible, to make the site even more comprehensive we need more 'boots on the ground' to cover the albums seeking review - a large percentage of which never get heard - report on gigs or just to air your views on anything jazz related. Interested? then please get in touch. Contact details are on the blog. Look forward to hearing from you. Lance

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Nick Malcolm Quartet @ The Bridge Hotel. January 17

Nick Malcolm (trumpet), Alex Hawkins (keyboards), Olie Brice (double bass) & Mark Whitlam (drums)
Jazz North East’s first gig of 2013 brought trumpeter Nick Malcolm to Tyneside. It was a case of Trains, Planes and Automobiles in getting the quartet to the Bridge Hotel. Malcolm travelled in the auto with pianist Alex Hawkins, encountering heavy snow north of Yorkshire. Olie Brice and his bull fiddle let the train take the strain and it was down to the affluent drummer Mark Whitlam to take the short-hop plane journey from Bristol to Newcastle (only joking Mark…there was a cheap flight available!). Whitlam arrived with sticks in hand (Splinter’s house kit was at his disposal) having caused alarm at Bristol airport - officious types suspected he posed a terrorist threat! What to do? Whitlam took out his brushes to demonstrate a shuffle!
The presence of Alex Hawkins suggested this would be some gig. The pianist had played several gigs on Tyneside in recent times and never failed to deliver the goods. So too Olie Brice, most recently heard at the Cluny with Ken Vandermark. The quartet performed numbers from their debut CD Glimmers and tried out some new material, so new the sound check allowed a last minute run through of heads and codas. The first tune, the eponymous Glimmers introduced trumpeter Malcolm as a supremely gifted musician; confident, accomplished, imaginative. The second number - There’s Led in Their Pencils - pointed to a lineage many a jazz fan would have got, no problem. My scribbled notes read Monkish. Dazzling playing, in and out of tempi, the swinging pulse of Brice (outstanding), the revelatory drumming of Whitlam and the prodigiously talented Hawkins playing around with a quirky, retro Fender Rhodes sound! Bandleader Nick Malcolm is a trumpet player for the twenty first century fully conversant with the post war history of his instrument. Close your eyes and this was Dizzy, Freddie and Miles. Ferocious volleys, squeezed quarter notes. Wow! Another Bridge premièred piece - Its Alright We’re Going to the Zoo – unleashed mighty solos and after two sets a third set, a lock-in and more wonderful contemporary jazz would have been paradise. The band’s second CD release should be out sometime later this year. A tour will follow and a Tyneside date must surely be on the itinerary. Be there
Russell.

2 comments :

Olie Brice on Twitter said...

Olie Brice Tweeted: Great review of the Nick Malcolm Quartet in Newcastle

Martin Pyne on Twitter. said...

Martin Pine Tweeted: A really great jazz blog from the north east.

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