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Bebop Spoken There

George Porter Jr.: ''To me, syncopation is like jazz. It wasn't meant for the masses. It was meant just for a hip few". (DownBeat, May 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

17985(and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 306 of them this year alone and, so far, 62 this month (April 26).

From This Moment On ...

April 2025.

Tue 29: ???

Wed 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 30: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 30: International Jazz Day @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £16.00.; £14.00. adv.. Feat. Guido Spannocchi, John Pope & Steve Hanley + Take it to the Bridge participants + Open Mic Night participants.

MAY 2025

Thu 01: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Member’s Contribution.
Thu 01: Alabaster de Plume @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 01: Living in Shadows + OUTRI @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 01: The Shayo Experiment @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Shayo Oshodi & Liam Oliver.
Thu 01: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 02: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 02: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 02: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 02: Anna Reay & Deon Krishnan @ STACK, Seaburn. 4:30-6:15pm. Free.
Fri 02: Nauta @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 7:00pm. £7.50. A ‘Nauta’s House’ gig featuring Nauta & guests Shayo Oshodi & David Gray.
Fri 02: Spilt Milk @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Fri 02: Dom Pipkin @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). Solo piano.
Fri 02: Abbie Finn Trio @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00. + bf.

Sat 03: Hot Fingers @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 03: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £25.00. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Summer Samba Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 03: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 03: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 03: Postmodern Jukebox @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm.
Sat 03: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). £3.00. + bf.
Sat 03: Eva Fox & the Jazz Guys @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 03: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 03: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:30pm. Free.

Sun 04: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm. £7.50.
Sun 04: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 04: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 04: Spilt Milk @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:00-5:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Sun 04: Rivkala @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 04: Ben Crosland Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 05: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 05: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Free.

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

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Echoes Magazine Celebrates its 40th Anniversary

Russell posed the following questions to magazine editor Chris Wells:
Q: If our [Bebop Spoken Here] memory serves, Echoes started out as a tabloid-sized newspaper with the reader ending up with messy fingers from the news print!
Tell me about it! I bought the very first copy as a spotty teenager [and soul fan] up in York, and have had filthy fingers ever since. Actually, I’ve been up in the loft this past month… er, I mean, sifting through the extensive Echoes archive, and the memories [of grubby finger-ends] came flooding back. But we’ve been a glossy monthly since 2000 and, of course, we have a lovely website: echoesmagazine.co.uk, now. Very modern. 
Q: What was your initial motivation forty years ago? 
Money. Well, it was for the guys who started it – two magazine publishers who spotted a hole in the market for a kind of ‘NME of black music’. They were not fans of the music, even though the writers were. Soul, funk and reggae were all over the pop charts back then and they thought a weekly paper would be more instant than any of the competitors, which were then fortnightly and monthly.
That’s not why I got involved back in ’84 however – I gave up a career in the law to have some fun and let my hobby become my job. Haven’t worked a day since. 
Q: Then, the paper had an underground street feel to it. When it changed to a glossier, ‘professional’ publication did the readership demographic change? 
Not much, no.  We still have a load of readers from the eighties and nineties – they write us letters about how it used to be green fields round here, all the time. The difference between then and now as a publication is that, then it was instant, newsy and a fish & chip wrapper within days, whereas, since it’s been a mag, I’ve gone for us being a more grown-up, intelligent [I hope] take on black music across a wider spread [we were here when hip-hop was born, for example]. It’s actually loosely based on the old Black Music magazine that IPC used to put out in the mid-seventies, which was by far my favourite mag as a young ‘un.
Q: Echoes has always promoted soul music and other related genres. Jazz and its various hyphenated offshoots – jazz-funk, acid-jazz etc – feature regularly. In editorial meetings does it (jazz) have to fight for space in each issue?
Everything has to fight for its space. We only have a limited number of pages and we split the coverage roughly equally between soul, R&B, reggae, hip-hop and jazz [with news at the front, reviews at the back, plus a bit of Northern soul]. I’m actually a massive jazz fan myself [old and new], although I let our main jazz guy [and Dep Ed] Kevin Le Gendre do most of the big features, simply because I can’t do everything, and, of course, he’s a great writer on the subject. 
Q: A cursory glance at recent front covers shows that, from time to time. major jazz artists take pride of place – Cécile McLorin Salvant (Aug 2015), David Sanborn (Apr 2015), Gregory Porter (Sep 2013). Do circulation figures hold up when the great jazz names appear on the front cover? Is it a risk?
Doesn’t seem to make any difference, really. Our readership is incredibly loyal – never goes down, hardly ever goes up. We need to change that last bit. Must make a note.
Q: Forty years! Michael Jackson, the stellar name. Any names – jazz or otherwise – Bebop Spoken Here should be checking out in future?
Well, bearing in mind who’s asking, we currently love Jarrod Lawson, Kamasi Washington and Laura Perrudin. Oh, and over in sort-of souly world, a trio called King. But there are new, mostly indie artists popping the whole time. It keeps us very happy. 
Q: Talking of the future – Print or Online or both?
Both. Our print model still works – just us and Private Eye, then! But we do plan to expand the website and do a lot more there this year. Being old farts – old farts with a mag that still pays its bills, mind – we weren’t the quickest or the most enthusiastic to embrace social media, but we’re getting there. So we’ll be doing that too. Honestly.
Chris Wells.
Editor Echoes Magazine.

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