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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

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.

Thu 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 28: Alice Grace Quartet @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 28: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm. All welcome.
Thu 28: Faye MacCalman + Snape/Sankey @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 28: Zoe Rahman @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Thu 28: '58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm.
Thu 28: Speakeasy @ Queen's Hall, Hexham. 7:30pm. £15.00. A Southpaw Dance Company presentation. Dance, audio-visuals, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, swing dancers etc.
Thu 28: Mick Cantwell Band @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Ace blues band.
Thu 28: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 29: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 29: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 29: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.

Sat 30: John Pope Quintet + Late Girl + Shapeshifters @ Bobik's, Jesmond, Newcastle.
Sat 30: Papa G's Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

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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