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Bebop Spoken There

Trevor Mires: ''My mum is a Dean Martin fan: I'm not, so I would grab my skateboard and get out of the house whenever I heard "Everybody Loves Somebody, Sometime." ". (Jazzwise, April 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

17972 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 293 of them this year alone and, so far, 49 this month (April 22).

From This Moment On ...

April 2025.

Fri 25: Vasilis Xenopoulos & Paul Edis @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT! Duo performance.
Fri 25: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 25: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 25: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 25: Andrea Vicari Trio @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. Vicari (piano); Andy Champion (double bass); Russ Morgan (drums).
Fri 25: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 25: Red Kites Jazz @ Land of Oak & Iron, Winlaton Mill. 6:00-9:00pm. Free.
Fri 25: Vasilis Xenopoulos & Paul Edis @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 7:30pm. £15.00. at the door; £14.35. (inc £0.35 bf) online, in advance.
Fri 25: Struggle Buggy @ The White Room, Stanley. 7:45pm. Rhythm & blues.
Fri 25: Paul Skerritt Big Band @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm. £20.30., £18.00. All-star big band.
Fri 25: Andrea Vicari Trio @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Vicari (piano); Andy Champion (double bass); Russ Morgan (drums). An Opus 4 Jazz Club event.

Sat 26: Durham Alumni Big Band @ Number One Bar, Darlington. 12 noon. Free (donations).
Sat 26: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 26: Vasilis Xenopoulos & Paul Edis @ Elvet Methodist Church, Durham. 7:30pm. Tickets: £12.00. + bf. Duo performance.
Sat 26: Neil Cowley Trio @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm. £22.50.
Sat 26: Pete Tanton & the Cuban Heels @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 27: Musicians Unlimited @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 27: Andrea Vicari Trio @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. Vicari (piano); Andy Champion (double bass); John Bradford (drums).
Sun 27: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 27: Vasilis Xenopoulos-Paul Edis Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm. Xenopoulos, Edis, Paul Susans, Russ Morgan.
Sun 27: Ruth Lambert Trio @ Juke Shed, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 27: JustKing Jones @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:00pm (doors). £17.50. JustKing Jones (alto sax, soprano sax); Jordan Williams (piano); Jason Clotter (bass); Malcolm Charles (drums). Ace NYC outfit!
Sun 27: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 27: Swing Manouche @ Warkworth Memorial Hall. 7:30pm. £15.00. Tickets from 01665 711388.
Sun 27: Vasilis Xenopoulos-Paul Edis Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Xenopoulos, Edis, Ken Marley, Russ Morgan.

Mon 28: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 29: ???

Wed 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 30: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 30: International Jazz Day @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £16.00.; £14.00. adv.. Feat. Guido Spannocchi, John Pope & Steve Hanley + Take it to the Bridge participants + Open Mic Night participants.

MAY 2025

Thu 01: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Member’s Contribution.
Thu 01: Alabaster de Plume @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 01: Living in Shadows + OUTRI @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 01: The Shayo Experiment @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Shayo Oshodi & Liam Oliver.
Thu 01: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Free.

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

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

CD Review:French New Wave - Original remastered jazz on film recordings 1957-1962

No Sun in Venice - MJQ.
Lift to the Scaffold - Miles Davis.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses/ Des Femmes Disparaissent - Art Blakey.
Breathless - Martial Solal./ Un Témoin dans la ville - Barney Wilen.
Eva - Michel Legrand.
(Review by Lance)
Wow! any one of these 5 CD's would be in the running for Jazz Reissue of the Year. To get them all in one boxed set means game over - no contest.
How can I begin to relate the delights within? My only regret is that I haven't got the DVDs to play as I listen. But, and it's a big but (not you darling!) the music stands up on its own.
Marcel Romano captures the whole mood with his comment "Jazz was an integral part of the artistic scene that centred around Saint-Germaine-Des-Pré. So it was only logical that the young, new wave directors made films by day using the same music they heard in the clubs at night".
The MJQ's role in No Sun In Venice (1957) was groundbreaking inasmuch it was the first ever film score written by "A serious jazz composer": the pianist John Lewis. (Ellington's Anatomy of a Murder came a couple of years later.)
Gunther Schuller related it to "Third Stream Music" and maybe it was but it did the biz for the film and stands on its own 8 feet.
Lift To The Scaffold (1958) is well known both in small cinemas and on record. The disc is probably better from a jazz point of view as it seems the music was used more sparsely in the actual film. Apart from Davis, Barney Wilen blows some evocative tenor and crops up elsewhere on this set.
Blakey and the Jazz Messengers have two shots for the Jazz Oscars and, if such a coveted trophy existed, they wouldn't have walked away empty handed!
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1960) and Des Femmes Disparaissent (1959)  were classic sessions with or without the cinematograph. Blakey was drumming at his best - those distinctive press rolls could have sent the Dagenham Girl Pipers on a knicker flashing trip down the high street - on this occasion they launched Lee Morgan and Benny Golson (who wrote the score to the latter piece) into the history of the future. Wilen blows again on the former film soundtrack. If you're confused, so am I ! I've never been so excited, upon receiving these discs, since my eleventh birthday when Santa brought me a Stanley Gibbon's Stamp catalogue and the Boy's Book of Soccer! - Wonder who's got them now?
Probably not Martial Solal. Breathless (1961) is another classic disc!  There are no half measures with zee French. They either do it brilliantly (Solal etc,) or they don't (Claude Luter et co.) The ubiquitous Wilen pops up again, this time as leader, on Un Témoin dans la ville (1959) in a quintet that includes Kenny Dorham and Duke Jordan.
And Michel Legrand - et tu! He may have wrote so many popular themes yet it must not be forgotten that he has le jazz hachette (Jazz chops?) and the big band soundtrack to Eva (1962) proves it - Gil Evans and Michelle? they're from the same mould.
Tres Magnifique are the only two words from my French vocabulary to describe this album apart from C'est S' Bon.
That it comes with a superb booklet with photos and text describing both musicians and film is an added bonus.
French New Wave - Original remastered jazz on film recordings 1957-1962 is now available on
Jazz on Film Records Vol. 3 Catalogue number JOF 001. Further details at
www.jazzonfilmrecords.com
Lance.

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