Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Spasmo Brown: “Jazz is an ice cream sandwich! It's the Fourth of July! It's a girl with a waterbed!”. (Syncopated Times, July, 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.

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!"

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

17444 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 718 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Oct. 10).

From This Moment On ...

October

Sun 13: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Emma Wilson @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sun 13: Catfish Keith @ The Cluny. 7:00pm. Country blues.
Sun 13: Lindsay Hannon + Eleanor Adams @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Note, this is a change to the previously advertised gig.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 13: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A DUJS event. All welcome.

Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 14: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by Nina Simone, performed by Nicholle Cherrie.

Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law (piano), Paul Grainger (double bass), Bailey Rudd (drums).

Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Cath Stephens’ improvisation workshop @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 4:30-6:00pm. Collaborative group focusing on vocal improvisations.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 17: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Olivia Cuttill Quintet @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 17: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Phoenix Theatre, Blyth. 7:30pm.
Thu 17: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 17: Niffi Osiyemi Trio @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. Guests Jeremy McMurray (keys); Richie Emmerson (tenor sax); Mark Toomey (alto sax); Adrian Beadnell (bass). 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert’s, Crook. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Chet Set @ Seventeen Nineteen, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. Pete Tanton & co.
Fri 18: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. Doors 7:30pm (upstairs). A Hoodoo Blues dance & social event. £10.00. class & social (£10.00., £7.50., £5.00. social only). Michael Woods (country blues guitar) on stage 9:00pm.
Fri 18: East Coast Swing Band @ Hexham Abbey. 7:30pm. £9.00.
Fri 18: Ben Crosland Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 18: Durham University Jazz Society’s ‘High Standards’ @ Music Dept. Music Room, Divinity House, Palace Green, Durham University DH1 3RS. 8:009-30pm. Tel: 0191 334 1419. £7.00., £5.00.
Fri 18: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sat 19: Sat 19: Paula Jackman’s Jazz Masters @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club.
Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 19: Howlin’ Mat @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Country blues guitar & vocals. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

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

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Noel Dennis Trio @ Jazz Café - May 20.

Noel Dennis - trumpet, flugelhorn. Paul Edis - piano. Andy Champion - double bass.
(Review by Steven T/sketches by Vanessa/photos by Pam)
It was a tough choice, Blaydon last Sunday or Jazz Café tonight. I'm a known philistine for my preference for bands with drums, but Friday night at the Caff has become a regular part of the routine. Man pneumonia intervened and the Caff won out.
I was sat with an American couple from Oregon and Hawaii, now resident in Newcastle, who weren't sure whether to stay or not. She was grinning from the start but he held out until Andy’s' first big solo when pleasure burst out all over his face. I know you're not supposed to have favourites, he told me afterwards. He's a bassoon player and music student and she's a conservation scientist, which means she tries to prevent the deteriation of art - a bit like the band I suppose - and she drew a picture of them while they performed.
Two music stands and a microphone stand from the night before set for seated musicians served to illustrate that these musicians are giants on the local scene. Birthday boy Mark Williams told me 'these guys are world class' and I wasn't going to argue. Just as well, following Shorters' Fe Fi Fo Fum he shouted - I smell the blood of an… enough! intervened the ladies he was sat with. I explained to our American friends why everyone found this hilarious.
I'm claiming the Surman amendment - again? - but I know we got the aforementioned Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and two from Dennis favourite Tom Harrell. Highlight of the night for me was a Miles Davis mash-up - is that blasphemy? - starting with Blue in Green, in my view one note short of a masterpiece like album mate Flamenco Sketches. He'd warned us it was going into something else and, when Paul lifted the piano lid and started twanging the strings, I wondered whether all this talk of progressive rock - I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it - had got to him and he was going to start banging in nails like the late Keith Emmerson. Re-enter Noel Dennis and it was clear this was something from Bitches Brew, the title track as it happens.
With the tangled web of North East Jazz musicians I wasn't sure whether I'd heard Noel Dennis before but once he got playing I knew I had. He does Miles, whether Kind of Blue or Bitches Brew. As well as Miles, on several occasions he reminded me of Freddie Hubbard, which is just about as high a compliment as I can pay any trumpet player.
Having previously said Andy is, if anything, even better on electric bass, I've changed my mind again and, if anything, he's even, even better on upright. He has phases he told me afterwards.
What's left to say about the good doctor? Musician, composer, educator extraordinaire, held in such regard by the many young musicians under his wing that can border on hero-worship. King Oliver, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and now Lord Paul. He is to North East Jazz what Curtis Mayfield was to Chicago soul in the sixties and early seventies, and they called him the gentle genius. And Chris always says what a lovely lad he is. I hate him me.
Following a particularly boisterous piano solo, Mark announced - I love it when he does that shhhh said the ladies around him. But Mark wasn't the star of the night; that accolade went to Chaplin, Lindsay Hannon's dog, when another Lord Paul solo had him in a spin when he started chasing his tail, which sounds like the name of a song.
There's a quintet version of this band in Darlington in a couple of weeks, presumably with a drummer yeh, which is utterly mouth-watering. I've got my sleeping bag and flask ready to queue overnight to ensure a seat, just in case there's any sense in the world.
Steven T

No comments :

Blog Archive