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Bebop Spoken There

Art Blakey: "You [Bobby Watson] don't want to play too long, because you don't know they're clapping because they're glad you finished!" - (JazzTimes, Nov. 2019)..

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

15848 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 855 of them this year alone and, so far, 53 this month (Sept. 18).

From This Moment On ...

September

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: La Malbec Orchestra @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 21: Linsday Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Ray Stubbs R & B All Stars @ The Schooner, Gateshead. 8:30pm. Free.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: Brief Encounter @ Bardon Mill Village Hall, Northumberland. 7:00pm. Tickets: £10.00. adv from 07885 303166; £12.00. on the door. Chris & Veronica Perrin improvising to a screening of the 1929 'Jazz Age' silent film Piccadilly (Dir. Ewald André Dupont).
Fri 22: Paul Edis & Graeme Wilson + Three Tsuru Origami @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 22: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 22: Abbie Finn's Finntet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 23: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Tanfield Railway, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. Free. A '1940s Weekend' event.
Sat 23: Jason Isaacs @ Stack, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 23: Andrew Porritt & Keith Barrett @ Cullercoats Watch House, Front St., Cullercoats NE30 4QB. 7:00pm.
Sat 23: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Country blues.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 7:00pm.

Tue 26: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.

Wed 27: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 27: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 27: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The Bill Laurance Project @ Sage Gateshead. May 26

Bill Laurance (keyboards), Michael League (double bass, electric bass & Moog synth), Robert ‘Sput’ Searight (drums) with the West Side Trio: Vera van der Bie (violin), Isabella Petersen (viola), Annie Tangberg (cello) + Katie Christie (French horn)
(Review by Russell).
Michael League and co came, saw and conquered. That was a little over a year ago. The Snarky Puppy phenomenon shows little sign of abating with this Bill Laurance return to the scene of their triumphant debut appearance – at Sage Gateshead. The keyboards man has been on a European tour promoting the release of his latest CD and this last leg – the British dates – has been a homecoming for the Brooklyn-based Londoner.
Snarky Puppy gigs often feature upwards of ten musicians on stage (forty and more have been known on more than one occasion!) but for this tour Laurance has brought with him his regular rhythm section partners – bassist Michael League and groove machine Robert ‘Sput’ Searight (drums). Hire a string trio (the West Side Trio), add a brass player and an altogether different sound emerged…at times. Full on, high level volume, subtlety isn’t a priority for these boys. Strings and horn plugged in to the power supply. Chamber music? Not a chance! Groove merchant Searight hammered his pneumatic bass drum, giving the others no option but to crank it up. Laurance’s new album – Swift – featured heavily, and a couple of cuts from his debut CD Flint made it onto the set list.
December in New York, a trio work out on The Good Things, a League arrangement of an Indonesian-inspired The Isles (Snarky Puppy’s reach embraces festival dates in the Indian Ocean) and Smokers Castle elicited huge applause from the Hall Two standing crowd of devoted followers. Laurance surveyed the scene from his three-sided control room of six or seven keyboards (including a house Steinway, Fender Rhodes and his new toy capable of pitch-bending notes – ‘the future for keyboards’, claimed the main man).
The second set offered more of the same (a French horn solo offered something different) with Denmark Hill perhaps the pick of the night. The Real One (a pitch-bending feature), bassist League alternating between electric and heavily amplified double bass, some West Side Trio features and, to close the set, the opening track on Swift, Laurance’s Fjords.
The Snarky Puppy lot tour relentlessly. Laurance and League have come a long way from their days of post-gig fish and chips in Bridlington (they had a Chet Baker tribute band!). Laurance’s Swift project will be filed in the archive, Snarky Puppy will write many more chapters before they are done.      
Russell.

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