Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Wendell Brunious: "Because the blues is not 1,4 and 5 or 1,4,5,2,1. You could wake up with a flat tyre or a headache this morning, that's the blues, man" - (DownBeat, Oct. 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

15878 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 885 of them this year alone and, so far, 83 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Mon 02: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 02: FILM: Wattstax; 50th Anniversary @ Forum Cinema, Hexham. 8:00pm.

Tue 03: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 03: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. House trio: Michael Young (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Sid White (drums). CANCELLED!

Wed 04: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 04: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 04: Paul Skerritt @ Vespa Italian Bar & Steakhouse, Primrose Hill, Jarrow. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 483 3355.
Wed 04: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 05: Sound the Trumpets @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 05: Hot Club du Nord @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00. POSTPONED!
Thu 05: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 05: Tommy Bentz Trio + Mark Croft Duo + George Shovlin & George Lamb @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Harbour View Speakeasy's USA blues double bill + Shovlin & Lamb!
Thu 05: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 05: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 06: Alcyona Mick @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 06: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 2:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Balo @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Fri 06: Lexer/Mayes/Noble + Semay Wu + Miman @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Vault, Hexham. 7:30pm. £20.00. Book in advance. Moreno with Alan Law, Paul Grainger & John Bradford.
Fri 06: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. 'Celebrating Oscar'.
Fri 06: Nu Brass Sounds: Big Brass Bash @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Fri 06: King Bees @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Blind Pig Blues Club. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sat 07: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 10:15am. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Hot Club du Nord @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 07: Bugge & Niccols + Moore & Fairhall @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - All the Things You Are. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 07: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 07: Rie Nakajima @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Sat 07: Samuel Blaser Trio + Toxvaerd & Zeeberg + Muramatsu & Welch @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sat 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.

Sun 08: Zoë Gilby Quintet + Ubunye @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Line-up inc. Tony Kofi. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sun 08: Tommy Bentz Band @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. USA blues band.

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!

No comments :

Blog Archive