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Bebop Spoken There

Sullivan Fortner: ''I always judge it by the bass player: If the bass player is happy, it's going to be a good night". (DownBeat, February 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

17822(and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 143 of them this year alone and, so far, 68 this month (Feb.25).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Wed 26: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 26: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 26: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 27: Jamie McCredie @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Fri 28: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. THIS WEEK ONLY JAMES BIRKETT (guitar)!
Fri 28: Luis Verde Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT!
Fri 28: Spilt Milk @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Fri 28: Castillo Nuevo Orquesta @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £8.00.
Fri 28: Knats @ Lubber Fiend, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £11.50. (inc bf.). Album launch gig. Support act TBC.
Fri 28: Black is the Color of My Voice @ The Gala, Durham. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by the life of Nina Simone, performed by Florence Odumosu.
Fri 28: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival: Musicians Unlimited @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 8:00pm. £10.00. (Weekend ticket £20.00., available on the door). Day 1/3. Musicians Unlimited in concert.
Fri 28: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

MARCH 2025

Sat 01: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 11:00am. £15.00. Day 2/3.
Sat 01: TJ Johnson Band @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £25.00. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Get your funk on! Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Shunyata Improvisation Group @ The Watch House, Cullercoats. 2:00-3:30pm. Free.
Sat 01: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Billy Bootleggers. Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free.
Sat 01: Lapwing Jazz Trio @ Three Sheets to the Wind, Alnwick. 5:15pm or 5:45pm (times tbc). Part of the Alnwick Story Festival's music fringe programme: Free.
Sat 01: Struggle Buggy @ The Peacock, Sunderland. 6:00pm. Blues band.
Sat 01: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 01: Joseph O’Brien: The Ultimate Tribute to Frank Sinatra @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm. O’Brien & seven piece band (inc. Wendy Kirkland, Jim Corry & Pat Sprakes).
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 01: Jack & Jay’s Vintage Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 02: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 11:00am. £10.00. Day 3/3.
Sun 02: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm. £7.50.
Sun 02: Nauta @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 02: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free (donations).
Sun 02: Side Café Orkestar @ Café Under the Spire, Derwentwater Road, Gateshead. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: Milne Glendinning Band @ The White Room, Stanley. 6:30pm.
Sun 02: Bella by Barlight @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 02: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Spittal Bowling Club, Berwick. 7:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: Ali Watson Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 03: Milne Glendinning Band @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00. at the door; £8.20. (inc £0.20 bf) online, in advance.
Mon 03: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 04: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval. Tel: 0191 237 3697. 12:30pm. £8.00. ‘Jazz ‘n’ Pancakes’.
Tue 04: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Abbie Finn.
Tue 04: Customs House Big Band @ The Masonic Hall, North St., Ferryhill DL17 8HX. 7:30pm. 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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