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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.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

CD Review: Ella Fitzgerald - Live at Chautauqua Volume 1.

Ella Fitzgerald (vcl); Tee Carson (pno); Keter Betts (bs); Joe Harris (dms).
(Review by Lance).
Recorded on July 11, 1968 at the Chautauqua Institution Amphitheatre in New York and released as the first album of the Dot Time Legends series, we have an album that finds "The First Lady of Song" in good voice, despite the acoustical vagaries that typify concerts in amphitheatres. The opening, It's All Right With Me, sounds as though Ella was at the back and the drummer up front. The voice distant and echoing, the drums overpowering. Fortunately, by the second number - I'm Beginning to See the Light - the sound seems to have been, if not resolved, at least improved and the balance levelled out. Whether this was done on the night or, as the notes indicate, newly remastered with the goal of presenting these recordings in a modern format while striving to keep the original atmosphere of the records.
Whatever, what really matters is the opportunity to hear the most swinging jazz singer ever in concert whilst still close to her peak.
It's 1968 remember and singers, even those of Ella's calibre, had to face up to the challenge of rock and pop and contemporaries less than half her age. To counter this , she attempts to meet them half way. For Once in my Life, taken slower than Stevie Wonder, brings a different dimension to the song but the medley of Sunny and Goin' Out of my Head (You Go to my Head as an intro to the latter is a clever ploy) doesn't quite match the pop versions from Bobby Hebb/Georgie Fame/Dusty Springfield, although I doubt if those artists could entwine the songs the way Ella does - she even throws in Yesterday for good measure - and it got the biggest round of applause! In fairness to Ella, their versions were done in a studio over several hours, maybe even days, whereas this was live - 10 minutes!
However, The Object of my Affection, never previously recorded by Ella, is La Grande Dame at her very finest. A great song, popular when Ella was 17.
Watch What Happens, Midnight Sun, Lady is a Tramp and One Note Samba (fast!) all work - this is the Ella we knew and loved. A Tisket A Tasket may have been overworked by 1968 but it's still being mined by singers today!
I suppose most people remember Ella Fitzgerald from the Verve songbooks, and they are GASbook masterpieces to be filed alongside the definitive Sinatra albums, but this is the real deal. If you heard Ella at Newcastle's City Hall or at any other major concert hall in in any city in the world then this will make those night's come alive again!
Lance.
PS: Needless to say the trio are fine apart from the problems with the drums.

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