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Bebop Spoken There

Sullivan Fortner: ''I always judge it by the bass player: If the bass player is happy, it's going to be a good night". (DownBeat, February 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

17822(and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 143 of them this year alone and, so far, 68 this month (Feb.25).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Thu 27: Jamie McCredie @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Fri 28: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. THIS WEEK ONLY JAMES BIRKETT (guitar)!
Fri 28: Luis Verde Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT!
Fri 28: Spilt Milk @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Fri 28: Castillo Nuevo Orquesta @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £8.00.
Fri 28: Knats @ Lubber Fiend, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £11.50. (inc bf.). Album launch gig. Support act TBC.
Fri 28: Black is the Color of My Voice @ The Gala, Durham. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by the life of Nina Simone, performed by Florence Odumosu.
Fri 28: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival: Musicians Unlimited @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 8:00pm. £10.00. (Weekend ticket £20.00., available on the door). Day 1/3. Musicians Unlimited in concert.
Fri 28: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

MARCH 2025

Sat 01: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 11:00am. £15.00. Day 2/3.
Sat 01: TJ Johnson Band @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £25.00. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Get your funk on! Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Shunyata Improvisation Group @ The Watch House, Cullercoats. 2:00-3:30pm. Free.
Sat 01: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Billy Bootleggers. Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free.
Sat 01: Lapwing Jazz Trio @ Three Sheets to the Wind, Alnwick. 5:15pm or 5:45pm (times tbc). Part of the Alnwick Story Festival's music fringe programme: Free.
Sat 01: Struggle Buggy @ The Peacock, Sunderland. 6:00pm. Blues band.
Sat 01: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 01: Joseph O’Brien: The Ultimate Tribute to Frank Sinatra @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm. O’Brien & seven piece band (inc. Wendy Kirkland, Jim Corry & Pat Sprakes).
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 01: Jack & Jay’s Vintage Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 02: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 11:00am. £10.00. Day 3/3.
Sun 02: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm. £7.50.
Sun 02: Nauta @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 02: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free (donations).
Sun 02: Side Café Orkestar @ Café Under the Spire, Derwentwater Road, Gateshead. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: Milne Glendinning Band @ The White Room, Stanley. 6:30pm.
Sun 02: Bella by Barlight @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 02: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Spittal Bowling Club, Berwick. 7:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: Ali Watson Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 03: Milne Glendinning Band @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00. at the door; £8.20. (inc £0.20 bf) online, in advance.
Mon 03: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 04: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval. Tel: 0191 237 3697. 12:30pm. £8.00. ‘Jazz ‘n’ Pancakes’.
Tue 04: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Abbie Finn.
Tue 04: Customs House Big Band @ The Masonic Hall, North St., Ferryhill DL17 8HX. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 06: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 06: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: The Jazz Music of Quincy Jones.
Thu 06: BBC Big Band @ The Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm. £32.00., £25.00., £16.00. ‘The Sound of Cinema’ featuring Emer McPartland (vocals).
Thu 06: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 06: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Free. Guests: Dan Johnson (sax); Josh Bentham (sax); Gary Hadfield (keys); Adrian Beadnell (bass). A Tees Hot Club promotion. First Thursday in the month.

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

Sunday, November 02, 2014

Clark Tracey Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle, November 1

Clark Tracey (dms); Chris Maddock (alt/ten); Henry Amburg Jennings (tpt/flg); Harry Bolt (pno); Daniel Casimir (bs).
(Review by Lance/ photo courtesy of Ken Drew ).
This first major gig by the Jazz Co-op was a major coup for the organisers. We've got a Jazz Club!
The lift installed and operational, the table and chairs set out and occupied, drinks served, lights lowered, and strategically draped curtains to soften the somewhat garish colour scheme, the scene was set. Not surprisingly there were several drummers in the audience and so there should be given that we were in the presence of one of the country's finest. Steve Crocker of NORVAL drove up from Leeds (and won a bottle in the raffle) begging the question as to why those members of the North East jazz hierarchy who live somewhat closer weren't!
However, that was a question for another day for now it was time for the Clark Tracey Quintet, smartly suited and neck-tied, to roll.
And roll they did in the time honoured tradition of bands such as the Jazz Messengers; Clifford Brown/Max Roach and those treasured Blue Note albums so beloved of so many (myself included).
Maddock, Casimir, Bolt emerged during Tracey's tenure as a tutor at Birmingham Conservertoire whilst Amburg Jennings has been active on the London scene practically since he was a babe in arms!
Clark Terry's A Pint of Bitter - written originally for Tubby Hayes - gave a foretaste of what was to follow. No instantly forgettable originals, but known, albeit not hackneyed, tunes from the masters. Cedar Walton's Ojos De Rojo (Red Eyes) a typical example.
Despite their youth, the soloists have a mature edge to their choruses. Not the bull in a china shop approach favoured by so many players rather a probing, tentative, feeling out of the tune, searching, absorbing, allowing the tension to build until, suddenly, the air is full of dancing arpeggios, stabbing chords, percussive punctuations, bass notes from the cellar, saxophone harmonics reaching for the moon, trumpet on fire.
This isn't The Globe on Railway Street - it's The World on 'Trane Street!
Moments Notice, by the aforementioned "Trane" had the drummers' mouths hanging open (and those of the sax, trumpet, keys and bass players too) as the leader rubber stamped his credentials as numero uno.
Time to relax with a sumptuous ballad featuring Maddock - I Thought About You. Delicious! The set concluded with Cannonball's The Sticks
The room was quite full and I wondered how many more could be slotted in and just how viable such a small space is.
However, tonight it's musical notes not banknotes that are uppermost in my mind!
An ethereal opener - Twilight - was followed by the only "warhorse" of the evening, Bobby Timmons' Moanin'. I'm not moaning though, I never tire of hearing it and Tracey was at his most Blakey-like which to me is tops. Trumpet evoking the spirit of Hubbard/Morgan, tenor in Mobley mode, keys like Kenny Drew (not to be confused with our KD!) bass as cool a dude as Chambers or Brown and Le Tout Ensemble magique!
Amburg Jennings slowed things down with a beautiful rendition of We'll Be Together Again and the show culminated with Jimmy Deuchar's Suddenly Last Tuesday
It had been my intention to stay for only one set and then nip over to Pink Lane for James and Ian at the Caff but this was just impossible to leave!
Sorry guys.
Many of the pieces played were from the band's new album - Meantime - which will be reviewed here shortly, or rather in however long it takes to play it a million times!
Lance.
PS: Only negative aspect of the evening was the strange bar pricing system - 3 bottles of ale and 3 different prices!

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