(Review by Lance/photos courtesy of Ken Drew).

PS: Ken Drew explains this third photo...

For the past seventeen years we've been updating the world about jazz in the north east of England and updating the north east of England about jazz in the world. WINNER of the Jazz Media Category in the 2018 All Party Parliamentary Jazz Awards. Contact lanceliddle@gmail.com
April 2025.
Sun 13: Daniel John Martin with Swing Manouche @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 13: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 13: Hejira: A Celebration of Joni Mitchell @ Wylam Brewery, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). £22.50.
Sun 13: Wilkinson/Edwards/Noble + Chojnacki @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £13.20., £11.00. JNE.
Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 14: Zoë Gilby Quintet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.
Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Michael Young, Paul Grainger, Abbie Finn.
Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. CANCELLED!
Thu 17: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Only Six Standards.
Thu 17: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 1:00-2:45pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 18: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 18: Sarah Jane Morris & Tony Remy: The Sisterhood @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £25.00.
Sat 19: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 1:00-3:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 19: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 19: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
3 comments :
A great gig with very good musicians. The drummer was fantastic but Sky Masterson, surely not? He and the band are much hipper than that. He's a dead ringer for William Burroughs - what does he wear for lunch, I wonder?
JC
At the end of this gig I said to Tom Harrison "If I'd seen your set list in advance, I might have gone home". I'm glad I didn't - this was a superb example of how much interesting and original music can still be wrung from familiar standards.
But unlike Lance, who appears to be in love with the tunes per se regardless of how clichéd the interpretation, I revere them as launch pads for creative endeavour, which is exactly what we got from Tom and his fellow musicians. So my objection to most bands who play only standards is not the familiarity of the tunes themselves, but the all too familiar way in which they are handled.
As to Lance's dismissive attitude to original compositions, I find that not only tediously conservative, but actually quite offensive towards most of the adventurous young jazz musicians whom I encounter and who think long and hard about the music they write. The tunes they devise may not be the sort you can hum on the way home, but as vehicles for improvisation they often serve their purpose superbly - and isn't improvisation, "the sound of surprise", the very thing that makes jazz such an endlessly exciting music?
I've been listening to and loving jazz for well over 50 years, but the very things that attracted me to it in the first place - the unexpected curlicue of creativity, the "Wow! I didn't expect that!" moment - are what I still hope to find at every gig I attend. I certainly found it with the Tom Harrison Quartet, but I know that I'll also find it when the Corey Mwamba Trio comes to the Bridge in a couple of weeks time, and there won't be a standard in sight.
Yes Paul, I am in love with the Great American Song Book - though not, as you claim, per se. Indeed there were probably many more mediocre songs written and thankfully forgotten than those that have stood the test of time. However, a good tune with a well crafted lyric has long been the staple diet of jazz artists who, like the Tom Harrison Quartet are, as you say, a "superb example of how much interesting and original music can still be wrung from familiar standards".
My dismissive attitude to original compositions certainly isn't intended to be offensive to young composers. Just as some standards have been done to death, conversely most originals don't get done at all other than by the composer and I find it sad that so much time and effort goes into writing something that may well be an outstanding work yet is never heard again other than by the same performer.. I'd like to hear the same composition played in a different context say by a different band. Perhaps if musicians supported each other's gigs this might happen!
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