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Bebop Spoken There

Spasmo Brown: “Jazz is an ice cream sandwich! It's the Fourth of July! It's a girl with a waterbed!”. (Syncopated Times, July, 2024).

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!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

17421 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 695 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Wed 09: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. Wed 09: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 5:00-7:00pm. Free.
Wed 09: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 09: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 09: The Tannery Jam Session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. A ‘second Wednesday in the month’ jam session.
Wed 09: Shunya, Dudù Kouate & Seb Rochford @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:30pm (7:30pm doors). £21.00.

Thu 10: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 10: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘Collaborations - it happened all the time’.
Thu 10: Indigo Jazz Voices w. the Little Big Band @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.
Thu 10: Side Cafe Orkestar @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
The 10: Classic Swing @ Carlisle Rugby Club, Warwick Rd., Carlisle. 8:30pm. £9.
Thu 10: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. With guests Donna Hewitt (sax); Bill Watson (trumpet); Graham Thompson (keys); Ron Smith (bass). Free.

Fri 11: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 11: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Old Library, Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 11: The Jazz Quartet + Stratosphonic @ Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. 7:00pm. £15.00. A Rotary Club of Hexham event. The Jazz Quartet (Jude Murphy & co), Stratosphonic (blues/rock). CANCELLED!
Fri 11: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Market Place, Corbridge NE45 5AW. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 11: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 11: Mo Scott Band @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sat 12: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Michael Woods @ Victoria Tunnel, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv.). Country blues guitar & vocals.
Sat 12: Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £13.28, £11.16, £9.04. A two-track recording launch gig.
Sat 12: Stuart Turner @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Rockabilly, rhythm & blues etc. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 12: Lapwing Jazz Trio @ The Ship Inn, Low Newton. 8:00pm. Free. New trio: Paula Whitty, Richard Herdman, Jude Murphy.

Sun 13: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Emma Wilson @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sun 13: Catfish Keith @ The Cluny. 7:00pm. Country blues.
Sun 13: Cath Stephens & Paul Grainger @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Stephens & Grainger, one third of a triple bill.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 14: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by Nina Simone, performed by Nicholle Cherrie.

Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law (piano), Paul Grainger (double bass), Bailey Rudd (drums).

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

Saturday, June 13, 2015

The Customs House Big Band with Ruth Lambert Supported by The Early Bird Band. @ St. Cuthbert’s Parish Centre, Crook. Friday June 12.

(Review by Jerry).








I put a dent in my car tonight and swore profusely (the other car had ne’er a scratch!) which is why we arrived late and missed most of the numbers performed by The Early Bird Band! We did get to Meet the Flintstones though – enough to illustrate the talent and burgeoning confidence of the three young musicians playing (aided and abetted by Paul Edis and Barry Black): Ben Lawrence (trumpet), Dan Lawrence (bass) and Francis Tulip (guitar). Expect to hear more of these guys in the future!
Crook is a soothing place at which to arrive vexed: nibbles and flowers on the tables, bottled ales waiting at the bar, pizza at the interval and now candelabra in the windows! “It’s the little things that count”, said the ladies who shared our table. “We’ve come all the way from Richmond, across the border.”
Ruth’s vocals were mostly cheery and soothing too, on standards such as ‘S Wonderful, Teach Me Tonight, I Got the World on a String and on a brilliant version of one of my all-time favourites, Summertime. She asked if we knew any jokes when a misplaced sheet of music delayed proceedings before the band launched into (ironically) At Last! “Invigorating” might be a better word for some of the other tunes – an up-tempo It’s Almost Like Being in Love and a stompingly good Mambo Italiano (“That’s nice!”). Neither “nice” nor “soothing” apply to the evening’s encore, Mack the Knife – memorably grisly as ever! I’d not realised how long a history attaches to this anti-hero and his song. I learn something new (to me) at every jazz gig!
Though soothing in parts, the band (minus the “singist” as Ruth was dubbed at one point!) helped my therapy more by grabbing my eardrums and shaking me out of irrational car-owner mode (what are bumpers for anyway?). A sextet is loud, a big band at full throttle is a BLAST (especially for us on the front row)! This fact had registered after the first numbers, a medley from West Side Story and The Count is In and was reinforced through the first set on Basie’s Straight Ahead, Curious George, and Count Bubba’s Revenge. Full throttle was usually flagged up by bandleader, Peter Morgan, giving a dip of the right shoulder, rotating his torso clockwise then delivering a vicious uppercut to the air in front of him!
The “doo-wap” of Tuxedo Junction – the bandleader’s favourite as it featured “the best section in the band” – illustrated another point for me: with so many instruments and so much volume on tap, a big band can be infinitely flexible by varying tempo, volume and the emphasis on different sections (and then there are the solos as well). The Customs House Big Band did this brilliantly: with power comes the capacity for great subtlety.
In the second set two Edis originals were featured back-to-back: Hefty Boots and Loop the Loop – both regulars now in the CHBB repertoire. Both were excellent but the latter was of particular interest to me as I had seen it being rehearsed at the Crown last year, but had never heard the whole piece. It is quirky, funky, infectiously rhythmical and full of beefy baritone sax and bass notes. Great!
Catch as Catch Can had opened the second set and was followed, later, by You Make Me Feel so Young (well, they cheered me up, anyway), All My Life and Blues in the Closet  before the evening  ended with the aforementioned Mack…..
An excellent evening: this savage breast was suitably soothed.
Jerry.


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