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Bebop Spoken There

James Brandon Lewis: "Sometimes I'm not thinking about anything other than blowing the paint off the walls, and other times I'm narrating a story about my life." - (DownBeat June 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

15516 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 536 of them this year alone and, so far, 25 this month (June 7).

From This Moment On ...

Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Fri 09: Emma Rawicz @ Sage Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Sat 10: Miners' Picnic @ Woodhorn, Ashington. Music inc. Northern Monkey Brass Band (3:00-3:50pm); New York Brass Band (4:00-4:55pm).
Sat 10: Jeffrey Hewer @ The Vault, Darlington Covered Market, Darlington. 6:00-8:00pm. Free.
Sat 10: Front Porch Three @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Americana, blues, jazz etc.
Sat 10: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 11: WORKSHOP: Tim Richards' Jazz Piano Workshop @ JG Windows, Newcastle. Time TBC. Further details tel. 0191 232 1356.
Sun 11: Jeremy McMurray's Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Ropner Park, Stockton TS18 4EF. 2:00-4:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 11: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 11: Groovetrain @ Innisfree Sports & Social Club, Longbenton NE12 8TY. Doors 6:30pm. £15.00 (£7.00. under 16).
Sun 11: Jeffrey Hewer Collective @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 11: Jam No. 19 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 12: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 13: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 13: Infusion Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:30pm.
Tue 13: Alice Grace & Pawel Jedrzejewski @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 8:00pm. £12.00 (£10.00. adv.).

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 14: NUJO Final Jazz Jam @ Bar Loco, Newcastle. 6:30pm. Free. Newcastle University Jazz Orchestra's final jam session of the academic year. All welcome.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 15: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 15: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 2:30-4:30pm. £2.00. All welcome.
Thu 15: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Thu 15: Alexander Ord Trio @ Tynedale Beer & Cider Festival, Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. Evening, time TBC.
Thu 15: Têtes de Pois + Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. Time TBC.
Thu 15: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.

Monday, April 08, 2013

GIJF Day 3: Jazz Words - Larkin's Jazz.

Ian Smith (tpt/narrator); Dave Gelly (ten); Colin Good (pno); Alyn Shipton (bs); Jez Cooke (gtr). David Thurston (reader).
(Review by Lance).
If Bireli Lagréne got the Gold Medal at this Jazz Olympics then this session was surely my choice for the Silver (I stress my choice as I'm sure we have all allocated the hypothetical awards as to our own personal preferences and it would be good to read what others think).
The gentle effortless swing, even without a drummer, in Hall 2 provided the perfect antidote to some of the less accessible music being portrayed elsewhere. Smith and Thurston read excerpts from Larkin's book All What Jazz and I too, afterwards, dusted down my copy and began delving in.
Larkin's love of jazz jumps from the pages and, after each reading by either Thurston or Smith, we had an appropriate number from the band - all critics in their own right (write?)
Smith and Gelly made the perfect frontline on such numbers as Sweet Georgia Brown, Singin' The Blues, This Year's Kisses, Basin St Blues. and Swinging The Berries they Gelled (no pun intended Dave!). 
Good on piano contributed mightily whilst, on guitar, Cooke was a further reminder of what a festival this has been for guitar buffs! Shipton, of course, proved he is the best bass playing broadcaster working for the BBC.
That he, Larkin, was an eccentric goes without saying - do you know any poets who aren't? His capacity for gin - by his own admission - was way above today's recommended "units per week" (but then again, isn't everybody's?) Most importantly, he loved jazz as he knew it and wrote about it for some 10 years in the Daily Telegraph. A word about Thurston. Not only did he read Larkin's wonderful poem, Morning at Last, but during the final numbers, gave an amusing and yet touching display of Larkin in his cups dancing and miming to the music he loved. Living in an upstairs flat it didn't go down too well with his neighbours below.
I must include a quote from All What Jazz (not used at the concert) in which he refers to Art Tatum as being "... rather like a dressmaker who, having seen how pretty one frill looks, makes a dress bearing ninety-nine!"
This is going on Bebop Spoken There - now!
To follow - Christine Tobin's Sailing to Byzantium.
Lance.

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