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Bebop Spoken There

Kurt Elling: ''There's something to learn from every musician you play with''. (DownBeat, December 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.

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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!

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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

17630 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 904 of them this year alone and, so far, 49 this month (Dec. 20).

From This Moment On ...

December

Mon 23: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free. CANCELLED!
Mon 23: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 4:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Mon 23: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.

Tue 24: Lindsay Hannon & Mark Williams @ Ernest, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 11:00am-1:00pm. Free.
Tue 24: Paul Skerritt @ Mambo Wine & Dine, South Shields. 1:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.

Wed 25: Wot? No jazz!

Thu 26: The Boneshakers @ Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. The 17th annual Boneshakers’ Shindig.

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free. Business as usual!.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 27: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar & vocals.

Sat 28: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 11:30am. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 28: Fri 20: Castillo Nuevo @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30pm. Free.
Sat 28: Jude Murphy, Rich Herdman & Giles Strong @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 28: Ray Stubbs R & B All-Stars @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Stepney Bank, Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sun 29: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 29: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

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

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Robert Cray Band @ Sage Gateshead. October 13

Robert Cray (guitar & vocals), Dover Weinberg (keyboards & organ), Richard Cousins (bass) & Les Falconer (drums)
(Review by Russell)
The lights went down, way down. The Robert Cray Band walked on in darkness, plugged in, began to play, then, and only then, did the stage lights illuminate America’s #1 blues-soul star. The ageless Robert Cray, in his mid-sixties with the looks of a thirty-something, never gives less than one hundred percent, yet this Sage Gateshead show was different. It wasn’t immediately apparent but there was an extra something about it.
Great voice, great guitarist, Cray was in fine fettle. Counting the band in with: Like This! the tunes came thick and fast, the band on the money. She’s Gone (False Accusations LP, 1985), Chicken in the Kitchen and countless others featured Cray’s searing vocals with more than a few falsetto lines to give it that extra something. Chicken spotlighted the talents of Dover Weinberg. A ‘been there, done that’ veteran, ‘White Cliffs’ to his friends, played a significant part, he was an ‘extra something’ component of the show. Keys and organ, the smiling Weinberg clearly relished working with Cray. Playing a vintage piece of furniture (organ) Weinberg looked across to bass man Richard Cousins; a nod and a smile said it all…they were smokin’!
The man at the back on a podium, drummer Les Falconer’s CV reads like a who’s who of the music scene. Physical, powerful, laser-like accuracy, Falconer drove the band on, one way – onwards, no time to rest, he wasn’t on vacation, he was going about his business. A tighter band you couldn’t find. Tight as. Robert Cray is famed for his vocals yet his guitar playing is sublime. This Sage One performance heard him play more freely than of late. The expressive phrasing was there as always, yet that extra something was in his playing. Cray’s right hand man Richard Cousins, the lynchpin, held it all together. Cray without Cousins is difficult to contemplate, the pair having first met in 1969.
Right Next Door from Strong Persuader (1986) delighted the audience. Cray has a forty years’ back catalogue to raid night after night. Touring is what Cray does. Gigs in Britain then over to Europe, then home to the US to tour some more. The man joked with an adoring Gateshead audience that he and the band had been holed-up back stage since last time waiting for them to come to hear the band again! Robert Cray is a storyteller; of love lost, regret, pain, the wronged man. Great Big Old House, then to close, You Move Me. A wave to the crowd, a moment off stage, then to return to play some more.
Phone Booth. A crowd pleaser; Cray was in a Gateshead Phone Booth! So said the man. The soulful Mr Cray went out on a Booker T tip with Hip Tight Onions, co-written with Cousins. Hearing Robert Cray in concert should be on everyone’s list of ‘1000 things to do before I die’. He’s come a long way from playing the basement venue at Newcastle University Students’ Union (November 6, 1986). These days Sage Gateshead is the place to hear him. Be there next time.

Earlier Shawn Jones (guitar & vocals) played a support set. Jones, Oklahoma City born, California resident, has been on the road for more than twenty five years. Having shared a stage with many famous names – Robben Ford, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt to name but three – Jones’ big break came when Waylon Jennings offered him a management deal and the job of playing guitar in his band.
At Sage Gateshead Jones played a solo set. How ya doin’? he asked. A frequent visitor to these shores, he said Sage Gateshead was the best venue he had come across in his time. Quite a compliment. He said he’d enjoyed a visit to ‘the castle’, a ‘must see’. He can be forgiven for mistaking Newcastle for Gateshead! Jones arrived in Britain with two guitars and by the time he reached Tyneside he’d acquired a third. By chance, a shop in Truro, Cornwall, had just the guitar he was looking for (Jones uses more than one during his stage performance). The find was all the more remarkable given that he is a left hander and he paid a bargain £150 for it!    
Jones’ rhythm guitar accompaniment to his singing owed something to Elmore James and his rhythm and blues contemporary, George Thorogood. Raw, with an edge, his powerful vocals saw him step back from the mic from time to time. He began with Temptation and in the short time allotted to him he managed to fit in half a dozen tunes including Runnin’ Out of Time to Run and, said Jones, to be on his next recording, a slide feature – Bottom of the Bottle. Using several tunings (he selected guitars from a rack of three at his side), a performance of real conviction convinced the audience and he met an enthusiastic post-gig queue of converts eager to buy, and have signed, copies of his CD back catalogue.  
Russell.

2 comments :

Patti D. said...

It was an ace gig - great, soulful, funkin' blues by our favourite - gorgeous singing and a fabulous tight, rocking band. The bass man, Cousins, delighted yours truly with his solid rhythms .... and groovy dance moves!

Patti D. said...

And the audience loved the way Mr Cray dealt with that one guy who was attempting to clap along to the beat! The embarrassing sound of one man clapping - out of time ..........

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