Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Sullivan Fortner: ''I always judge it by the bass player: If the bass player is happy, it's going to be a good night". (DownBeat, February 2025).

The Things They Say!

This is a good opportunity to say thanks to BSH for their support of the jazz scene in the North East (and beyond) - it's no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for them many, many fine musicians, bands and projects across a huge cross section of jazz wouldn't be getting reviewed at all, because we're in the "desolate"(!) North. (M & SSBB on F/book 23/12/24)

Postage

17805 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 126 of them this year alone and, so far, 51 this month (Feb.16).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Mon 17: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 17: Matt Forster Quartet @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00. at the door; £8.20. (inc £0.20 bf) online, in advance.
Mon 17: Russ Morgan Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

Tue 18: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law, Paul Grainger, John Hirst.

Wed 19: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 19: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 19: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 20: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 20: James Birkett & Emma Fisk @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 20: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Jazz Milestones - 1975.
Thu 20: Renegade Brass Band @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors).
Thu 20: Orange Claw Hammer + Peony @ The Globe, Newcastle.7:30pm. Orange Claw Hammer play Captain Beefheart.
Thu 20: Jeremy McMurray & the Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Arc, Stockton. 8:00pm. Featuring special guest Zoë Gilby.

Fri 21: JazzMain @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 21: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 21: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 21: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 21: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Corbridge. 7:00pm. £10.00. TBC.
Fri 21: Emma Rawicz w. Strictly Smokin’ Big Band @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Sat 22: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 12:30-2:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 22: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30pm-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 22: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 22: Mississippi MacDonald @ Claypath Deli, Durham. 7:00pm. Blues.
Sat 22: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Old Cinema Laundrette, Durham. 7:45pm. £16.50. SOLD OUT!
Sat 22: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar & vocals.

Sun 23: Musicians Unlimited @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 23: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: Mark Williams Trio @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 23: Ruth Lambert Trio @ The Juke Shed, Union Quay, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 23: Mississippi MacDonald @ Georgian Theatre, Stockton. 3:00pm. Blues.
Sun 23: Mu Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 23: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

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

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

LP Review: Tubby Hayes Quartet - Live at the Hopbine 1968 Vol. 1. "The Syndicate"


Tubby Hayes (ten); Louis Stewart (gtr); Kenny Baldock (bs); Spike Wells (dms).
(Review by Lance.)
I try to avoid review discs "jumping the queue" - first come first served  has always been my motto  -but there are times when those values get thrown out of the window.
This is one such occasion.!
In my younger days, living, as I did for awhile, in Edgware/Harrow, I'd drop by Tommy Whittle's gig at The Hopbine in Wembley, Apart from Whittle, a fine tenor player who guested many times up here at Blaydon Jazz Club, there were other featured jazz musicians, I recall Ronnie Ross on one occasion but, I don't think I ever caught Tubbs there. If I'd been there when this session took place I'd've remembered it!
Tubby the Tenor, Louis Stewart, Kenny Baldock (depping for Ron Mathewson), Spike Wells - giants all!
This was a band!
As Fats Waller once, reportedly said, when Art Tatum entered the club, "God is in the house". Well, tonight, God is on my turntable.
Yes, turntable. An LP!
The current wave of vinyl as pioneered by Gearbox, means you are getting the real McCoy or. in this case, the real Tubby Hayes.
Will there be a better vinyl jazz release this year? They ain't offering odds at Ladbrokes and wisely so - the bookies ain't daft!
This is Tubby in his later years (he was 33 at the time and died 5 years later) but don't let anyone tell you he was coasting! He had so much still to give. He'd shod the Getzian mantle of his early years and was now blowing Coltrane but not the 'outside Trane'. The hard bop tone, the virtuosic technique heard here provides the proof of his world standing. Will there ever be a greater British jazz musician than Tubbs? - not in my lifetime unless I exceed the longevity records by a decade or two.
Then again, will there ever be a better Irish (southern) jazz guitarist than Louis Stewart? I doubt if Ladbrokes will take bets on that either although you may manage to back a few contenders each way!
In short, this is as good an example as any of Hayes, who, at this stage of his tragically short life, was more tubular than tubby.
Two compositions by Tubby - The Syndicate & The Inner Splurge - along with Jimmy Heath's Gingerbread Boy and Luis Bonfa's The Gentle Rain make this an album comparable with anything Blue Note or Prestige was releasing at the time.
Solid hard bop on a solid piece of 12" vinyl. Not the pliable lampshade material discs the majors were releasing in the pre CD days but, to reiterate, solid.
And, of course, being an LP you don't need a magnifying glass to read the notes which are, not surprisingly, by Simon Spillett the world's greatest authority on Tubby Hayes and author of the recently reviewed The Long Shadow of the Little Giant. 
Buy.
Lance.

No comments :

Blog Archive