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Bebop Spoken There

Wendell Brunious: "Because the blues is not 1,4 and 5 or 1,4,5,2,1. You could wake up with a flat tyre or a headache this morning, that's the blues, man" - (DownBeat, Oct. 2023).

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

15878 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 885 of them this year alone and, so far, 83 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Wed 04: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 04: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 04: Paul Skerritt @ Vespa Italian Bar & Steakhouse, Primrose Hill, Jarrow. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 483 3355.
Wed 04: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 05: Sound the Trumpets @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 05: Hot Club du Nord @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00. POSTPONED!
Thu 05: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 05: Tommy Bentz Trio + Mark Croft Duo + George Shovlin & George Lamb @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Harbour View Speakeasy's USA blues double bill + Shovlin & Lamb!
Thu 05: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 05: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 06: Alcyona Mick @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 06: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 2:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Balo @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Fri 06: Lexer/Mayes/Noble + Semay Wu + Miman @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Vault, Hexham. 7:30pm. £20.00. Book in advance. Moreno with Alan Law, Paul Grainger & John Bradford.
Fri 06: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. 'Celebrating Oscar'.
Fri 06: Nu Brass Sounds: Big Brass Bash @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Fri 06: King Bees @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Blind Pig Blues Club. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sat 07: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 10:15am. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Hot Club du Nord @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 07: Bugge & Niccols + Moore & Fairhall @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - All the Things You Are. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 07: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 07: Rie Nakajima @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Sat 07: Boys of Brass @ Salt Market Social, Liddell St., North Shields. From 7:00pm. £9.00. + bf.
Sat 07: Samuel Blaser Trio + Toxvaerd & Zeeberg + Muramatsu & Welch @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sat 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.

Sun 08: Zoë Gilby Quintet + Ubunye @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Line-up inc. Tony Kofi. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sun 08: Tommy Bentz Band @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. USA blues band.

Mon 09: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 09: Cherise Adams-Burnett @ The Grove, Byker, Newcastle. 7:30pm. .

Tue 10: Abbie Finn Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:30pm.

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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