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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 ...

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.

Fri 16: Sue Ferris Quintet @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 16: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 16: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 16: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 16: Stu Collingwood @ Baltic, Gateshead. 7:00pm. £15.75. A Let's Caper event featuring exhibitions, food, music etc.
Fri 16: Steve Beresford-Hannah Marshall-John Butcher @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:30pm. JNE promotion.
Fri 16: James Taylor Quartet @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Fri 16: Customs House Big Band @ Customs House, South Shields. 7:30pm.
Fri 16: Sue Ferris Quintet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm.
Fri 16: New Orleans Brass Band @ Billy Bootlegger's, Arch 2, Stepney Bank, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. NOBB directed by Jason Holcomb.

Monday, March 16, 2015

CD Review Doc Bowling and his Blues Professors – Black Country Boy

Doc Bowling (guitar & vocals), Donnie Burke (guitar, baritone guitar, banjo & backing vocals), Simon Minney (bass, acoustic bass, whistle & backing vocals), Graham Hadley (drums & backing vocals), Roger Champion (percussion & backing vocals), Sophie Loyer (violin), Lawrence Davies (harmonica) & Eddie Kulak (keyboards)
(Review by Russell)
A new name to your reviewer, Doc Bowling is a new favourite. Doc and his fellow seven ‘blues professors’ can be pigeon-holed quite easily – providing you have a vacant dozen or more pigeon holes! Alt country, blues (twelve bar and its variants), Americana, rock-a-billy, shuffling bottleneck, ska – all from an oblique (psychotherapist’s) view point and a Stetson brim-full of humour and understated musical excellence.
Doc Bowling sings on all eleven tracks on Black Country Boy. The eponymous first track identifies Doc Bowling as a lad raised in the West Midlands:
Smethwick Town to Langley Green 
Rowley Regis!
Old Hill to Cradley Heath
From Lye down
To Stourbridge Town
The remarkably prescient Fal$e Prophit Blues is right on the money:
Draw a picture of the Prophet,
You’re shot dead on sight
A politically aware band making a statement! It’s a change from the current vogue for bands making a quasi-intellectual pitch for their brand of ‘original composition.’  The musicianship isn’t in any way secondary to the lyric content; Eddie Kulak (keys) and Lawrence Davies (harmonica) feature. Existential Blues is heavy stuff. Don’t worry, read the liner-notes…A guitar and harmonica-driven up-tempo twelve-bar blues. That’ll do.
Pedestrian Crossroad Blues borrows from Robert Johnson. Slide guitar from Donnie Burke and fiddle from Sophie Loyer despairing of ‘the deadly and deplorable state of England’s pedestrian crossings’ is unabashed blues with lyrics not of 1930s America, but of twenty first century concerns:
You say you’ve got road rage
What we need is road peace!
These vehicular road-wars,
They’ve just gotta cease
The spitting out of Ve-hic-u-lar has to be heard. Almost as good as the classic I was born in 19 and 42 (wailing Chicago harp ‘n’ all).
Biodiesel Blues poses the question:
Must the poor go hungry
Just so the rich can drive?
Growing corn for diesel
Will the earth survive?!
The CD cover image Pastorale (detail) is by Claire Spencer courtesy Bridgeman Images.
One could be tempted to vote for a Green candidate at the forthcoming General Election!
Back to the music – and it is about the music – Church Going Blues, great lyrics:
My man Muddy Waters
He brought me the news
You gotta go to choich
If you want to sing the blues
A lyric with choich in it makes Black Country Blues a ‘must have’ purchase.
Black Country Boy by Doc Bowling and his Blues Professors is available now. The band’s CD launch is on Friday 20 March at King’s College London Students’ Union.  
Russell

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