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Bebop Spoken There

Ambrose Akinmusire: “ I am certainly always aware of what the masses are doing. And when I see too many people going one way, I'm going another way - even when I don't know what's over that way". DownBeat, March, 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

16287 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 169 of them this year alone and, so far, 41 this month (Mar 18).

From This Moment On ...

March

Tue 19: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Michael Young, Paul Grainger, Tim Johnston.

Wed 20: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 20: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 20: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Castillo Neuvo Trio + Conor Emery & His ‘Bones Band @ The Grove, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:30pm (7:00pm doors). £10.00. (£7.00. student).
Thu 21: Remi Banklyn + Chris Corcoran Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.50. Chicago blues. An International Guitar Foundation promotion.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Ragtime piano.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm.

Fri 22: Vasilis Xenopoulos & Paul Edis @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT!
Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Nauta + Remy CB + Last Orders @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 8:30pm (7:30pm doors). Free.
Fri 22: Vasilis Xenopoulos-Paul Edis Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. £15.00. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 22: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 23: Jambone @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 6:30pm. Free (ticketed). End of term performance in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall.
Sat 23: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 23: Red Kites Jazz @ Rowlands Gill Community Centre NE39 1JB. 7:00pm. Tickets: £12.00. (gibsidecommunityfarm@gmail.com). A ‘Build a Barn’ fundraiser. BYOB, tea/coffee available.
Sat 23: New Century Ragtime Orchestra @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £20.00. + bf (book in person at venue - no booking fee!). Featuring pianist Martin Litton.
Sat 23: Pete Tanton’s Cuba Libre @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 24: Luis Verde @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm. Verde (alto sax); Joe Steels (guitar); John Pope (double bass); John Hirst (drums). Alto sax brilliance!
Sun 24: Elsie Franklin @ The Globe, Newcastle. 3:00pm. £10.00. Country blues. An International Guitar Foundation promotion.
Sun 24: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay Metro Station. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: Las Vegas Live with the Rat Pack @ The Forum, Billingham.
Sun 24: Ian Millar & Dominic Spencer @ Otterburn Memorial Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Sun 24: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Note start time - 7:00pm.
Sun 24: Bold Big Band @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Free.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Solweig Elizabeth Grönlund

(By Simon Spillett)
It's with great sadness that I have learned of the death of Liz Grönlund, Tubby Hayes's partner for the final two years of his life, who passed away in St. Thomas' Hospital, London, in the early hours of Tuesday September 22nd, following a fall. She was in her mid-80s.
Born in Finland, Grönlund came to the UK in the early 1960s, initially working as a translator for an English aristocrat, Lord Dundonald. Already a jazz fan, while visiting Ronnie Scott's club with a friend in late 1962, she met Tubby Hayes. “It was such a small club that I couldn't avoid meeting him. I had to go to the loo and pass him, so contact was unavoidable,” she recalled in 2008. The attraction was instant and mutual and although Hayes was married, the pair began a brief affair. After an amicable split, Grönlund and Hayes agreed to keep in touch, maintaining a sporadic exchange of letters which ended when the saxophonist’s drug habit bit deep during the mid-1960s.
A chance encounter in the company of Hayes's close friend, trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar, led to the couple re-establishing their relationship in late 1971 , with Hayes moving into Grönlund's Gloucester Place basement flat soon after.
Following his recent heart surgery, Grönlund was shocked to find Hayes a shadow of his former self, experiencing “great difficulty to accept that he couldn't do things he was able to do before.”
Nevertheless, with Grönlund at his side Hayes embarked on the last phase of his career, a period which found him visiting Scandinavia several times (including a trip to Grönlund's native Helsinki), taking an interest in free music (with the band Splinters) and reforming both his quartet and big band. During a trip to Oslo in 1972, Hayes told journalist Randi Hultin that in Grönlund he had found the kind of steadying personal relationship that had eluded him all his life, adding “I couldn't manage without her.”
Grönlund also gave Hayes something close to a conventional home life for the first time in his life and their flat soon became a familiar port of call for London's jazz fraternity, and, on occasion, international visitors too, including Roland Kirk and James Moody, both of whom eager to taste Liz's legendary chilli. Of the many things she later recalled from their final eighteen months together, she spoke warmly of Hayes's self-mocking humour, of his love of the music of John Coltrane, of his cavalier disregard for the deadlines imposed by commercial composing commissions and his affection for their two pets, Mynah bird Nappy and cat Noddy.
When Hayes fell ill for the final time in May 1973 and was hospitalised in order to undergo the surgery that ultimately failed to save him, it was Liz to whom the jazz community expressed their sorrow and regret. One of the many letters of condolence she received in the weeks after Tubby's death, from the Musicians Union, was addressed to Mrs. Hayes, a title which she certainly deserved in emotional terms if not legally. Almost single-handedly, she organised Hayes' funeral and wake, even ensuring that a photographer captured some of the event on film, all the while attempting to deflect the grief that would shortly overwhelm her.
Recording her thoughts on Tubby some months after his death she said simply “they don't make men like that anymore. They never did. He was the only one.”
During the years immediately after Hayes's death, Grönlund remained in the flat they had shared, keeping it almost as a shrine to the saxophonist’s memory. She even began a tradition of uniting old friends like Ian Hamer and Spike Wells once a year to share their memories of Hayes, but as his music began to sink out of sight in the late 1970s, she became increasingly bitter about a jazz scene that appeared to have forgotten his contributions.
In the late-1980s, she assisted in the production of Barbara Schwarz's Tubby Hayes discography, but remained wary of the press after the way it had handled some of the “facts” surrounding Tubby's death. Almost unbelievably, via a circuitous route she contacted the author in 2005, agreeing to finally share her memories, resulting in her story becoming central to the recently published biography Tubby Hayes: The Long Shadow of The Little Giant – The Life, Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes (Equinox Publishing, 2015). Along with giving a lengthy and fascinating interview and providing rare photographs, she also granted permission for Hayes's personal tape archive to be explored and catalogued, eventually leading to the establishment of the Savage-Solweig label, dedicated to the release of previously unissued recordings by the tenorist’s various groups.
One of the final pieces Tubby Hayes composed was in dedication to Liz, the bossa-nova Solweig, titled after her Finnish first name and which he performed on his last BBC radio session as a leader in March 1973, a few months before his death. It was Grönlund who also encouraged Hayes to play the Jimmy Van Heusen ballad I Thought About You – one of her favourite themes - a composition that drew out the saxophonists lyrical flair.
Various versions of this survive, including one taped in Stockholm in February 1972 (available on the Storyville CD Tubby Hayes - Quartet in Scandinavia.)
On a personal note, this writer would like to pay tribute to Liz's kindness and generosity. She once said she had waited a very long time indeed to see Tubby's memory honoured in print. Her contribution to The Long Shadow of The Little Giant was invaluable and helped transform the latter part of the book. In fact, without her contribution, much of the confusion and misinformation about Hayes's later days would have simply persisted. In that, jazz fans owe her a huge debt.
Simon Spillett
PHOTO: Tubby Hayes and Liz, at Tubby's Mum's house, Easter 1972

1 comment :

Lance said...

Thank you Simon for that beautiful insight into the life of Tubbs and Liz who must have been a great inspiration to him - may she rest in peace.

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