Bebop Spoken There

Ethan Hawke (starring as Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon): ''Larry [Lorenz] Hart would be so happy that his music and his words and his poetry are still alive.'' - The Northern Echo 27 November 2025

The Things They Say!

This is a good opportunity to say thanks to BSH for their support of the jazz scene in the North East (and beyond) - it's no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for them many, many fine musicians, bands and projects across a huge cross section of jazz wouldn't be getting reviewed at all, because we're in the "desolate"(!) North. (M & SSBB on F/book 23/12/24)

Postage

18000 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 964 of them this year alone and, so far, 73 this month (Nov. 24).

From This Moment On ...

DECEMBER 2025

Sat 06: Sarah Spencer’s Transatlantic Band @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 06: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £27.50. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Minor Swing. Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 06: Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 06: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm (doors). £3.76 (inc. bf).
Sat 06: Kaberry Big Band @ The Seahorse, Whitley Bay. 7:30pm (7:00pm doors). £15.00. (inc. hot buffet). ‘Christmas 1945’. Kaberry Big Band, formerly Vermont Big Band.
Sat 06: Smokin’ Spitfires @ Platform 1, Bedlington. 7:30pm. £6.00. Rhythm & blues.
Sat 06: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00. Xmas Party with buffet.
Sat 06: The Jive Aces @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 8:00pm. £22.00., £20.00.
Sat 06: Brass Fiesta @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 10:30pm. Free.

Sun 07: Ian Bosworth Quintet @ Chapel, Middlesbrough. 1:00pm. Free. Feat. special guest Donna Hewitt (sax, clarinet).
Sun 07: Finn-Keeble Group @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 07: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 07: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Sun 07: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 2:30pm. Free. Trio + Ruth Lambert.
Sun 07: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 07: Jason Isaacs Big Band @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 5:15pm (4:00pm doors). £21.50 (inc. bf).
Sun 07: Paul Skerritt @ 3 Stories, High St. West, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Sun 07: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Support set from Play More Jazz! course participants. Note earlier start.

Mon 08: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 09: Jazz Jam Sandwich @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm

Wed 10: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 10: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 10: Jam Session @ The Tannery, Hexham. 7:00pm. Free.
Wed 10: Mike Lindup Jazz Trio @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £26.50 (inc. bf). Lindup, Yolanda Charles (bass), John Sam (drums).
Wed 10: Bold Big Band @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £12.00.

Thu 11: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: West Coast (cool ) / Wordsearch (cool) Cool Jazz or ‘Cold’, ‘Cool’, ‘Hot’, ‘Warm’ in the title or lyrics.
Thu 11: George Robinson @ Prohibition Bar, Albert Road, Middlesbrough TS1 2RU. 7:00pm (doors). £5.42 (inc. bf). Vienna’s Voice charity evening featuring ’15 year old singing sensation the ‘Redcar Crooner’ George Robinson’. Over 35s only.
Thu 11: Paul Skerritt @ Chakh Dhoom, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Indian restaurant. Skerritt w. back tapes.
Thu 11: Ransom Van @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 11: Down for the Count Swing Orchestra @ Middlesbrough Town Hall. 7:30pm. £37.70 (inc. bf). ‘Swing into Xmas’.

Fri 12: Pete Tanton’s Chet Set @ Bishop Auckland Methodist Church. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 12: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 12: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 12: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 12: Milne Glendinning Band @ Northumberland Club, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £15.00. ‘Xmas Soiree’.
Fri 12: A Jazzy Xmas @ St Cuthbert’s Centre, Crook. 7:30pm. £15.00. Paul Edis (MD, piano); Jo Harrop (vocals); Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor sax, soprano sax); Matthew Forster (alto sax, clarinet); Sue Ferris (flute, piccolo); Graham Hardy (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone);Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Champion (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums). SOLD OUT!
Fri 12: Tony Hadley: Xmas Big Band Tour 2025 @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm.
Fri 12: Alexia Gardner @ The New Ship Inn, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. 8:00pm. Gardner, Alan Law, Jude Murphy, Abbie Finn.
Fri 12: Jive Aces: Swingin’ Xmas Show @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 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

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Composer/Producer/Conductor Ryan Truesdell's Groundbreaking Project CENTENNIAL: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans Wins Best Instrumental Arrangement GRAMMY Award for the Late Gil Evans

Renowned composer/producer/conductor RYAN TRUESDELL's highly acclaimed CD CENTENNIAL: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans (ArtistShare) has won a posthumous Grammy Award for Gil Evans in the category of Best Instrumental Arrangement (How About You) in the 55th annual GRAMMY Awards. This arrangement of How About You was written in 1947 for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra and is Gil Evans' first GRAMMY win for arranging.  Evans had 11 prior nominations and two wins.
     Truesdell, who accepted the award on behalf of Evans, says: "I'm so thrilled for Gil's music to receive this great honour  Thanks to everyone who made it possible to bring this never-before recorded music into the spotlight: the Evans family - Anita, Miles and Noah - who gave me access to his archives, the amazing musicians, engineer James Farber, and of course the many ArtistShare participants who helped to make this project a reality.  Mainly, I'd like to thank Gil for creating this unique sound and voice that he had in his music."
CENTENNIAL, which brings to light new music from jazz luminary Gil Evans, has been widely heralded as one of the most important CDs of the year. It earned one of France's highest honors: LES COUPS DE COEUR from the Académie Charles Cros, and accolades as "one of the most significant releases of 2012." - JazzTimes. "An extraordinary album." - Nate Chinen, New York Times. "Truesdell deserves our gratitude for throwing light on scores unearthed from the archivesŠ One of the jazz releases of the year." - Clive Davis, Sunday Times of London. "Editor's Pick: Recording of the Month: 5-stars." - Tom Conrad, Stereophile. "As majestic and richly textured as you would expect." - Patrick Jarenwattananon, NPR A Blog Supreme.  "Record of the Month" - Jazz Magazine (France).  "10 out of 10 stars. If you don't like this, you don't like music." - Liam McManus, PopMatters.
Released by ArtistShare® on May 13, 2012 (www.GilEvansProject.com) and recorded by the Grammy award-winning engineer James Farber, CENTENNIAL features thirty-five top musicians, including Lewis Nash, Donny McCaslin, Steve Wilson, Frank Kimbrough, Greg Gisbert, and Marshall Gilkes performing previously unheard works written by Evans throughout his decades-long career.    
Prior to CENTENNIAL, Truesdell was best known for co-producing Maria Schneider's Sky Blue in 2007 and her 2004 Grammy award-winning Concert in the Garden.  He is the first person outside of the Evans family to be granted full access to the musical archives. "I saw thousands of pages of manuscript, and each new box offered up a score or sketch of one of Gil's pieces that I've admired for years." 
Truesdell, one of the foremost Evans scholars, began to grasp the significance of the material he was uncovering when he realized many of the manuscripts were unfamiliar to him.  Schneider, former assistant and protégé of Evans', says of Truesdell's discovery, "It's like finding the impossible: imagine you buy an old house and discover a box of lost Beethoven manuscripts in the attic-scores that have never been heard before. That's exactly what's happened here. It's been something that I've wished for, for decades now-something that so many of us have wanted and it's here, it's incredible; it's an amazing opportunity to hear this music uncovered."
CENTENNIAL is Available on iTunes (
iTunes.com/GilEvans100) and at www.GilEvansProject.com
www.RyanTruesdell.com

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