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Bebop Spoken There

Art Blakey: "You [Bobby Watson] don't want to play too long, because you don't know they're clapping because they're glad you finished!" - (JazzTimes, Nov. 2019)..

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

15867 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 874 of them this year alone and, so far, 72 this month (Sept. 25).

From This Moment On ...

September

Wed 27: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 27: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 27: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 28: Alice Grace Quartet @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 28: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm. All welcome.
Thu 28: Faye MacCalman + Snape/Sankey @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 28: Zoe Rahman @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Thu 28: '58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm.
Thu 28: Speakeasy @ Queen's Hall, Hexham. 7:30pm. £15.00. A Southpaw Dance Company presentation. Dance, audio-visuals, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, swing dancers etc.
Thu 28: Mick Cantwell Band @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Ace blues band.
Thu 28: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 29: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 29: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 29: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.

Sat 30: John Pope Quintet + Late Girl + Shapeshifters @ Bobik's, Jesmond, Newcastle.
Sat 30: Papa G's Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

OCTOBER

Sun 01: Smokin' Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm.
Sun 01: Dulcie May Moreno sings Portrait of Sheila @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00. Moreno sings Sheila Jordan with Giles Strong, Mick Shoulder & John Bradford.
Sun 01: Middlesbrough Jazz & Blues Orchestra @ Saltburn Community Hall. 2:00pm.
Sun 01: The Easy Rollers @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £13.70., £11.55.
Sun 01: Brand/Roberts/Champion/Sanders @ Blank Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sun 01: Papa G's Troves @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 02: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 02: FILM: Wattstax; 50th Anniversary @ Forum Cinema, Hexham. 8:00pm.

Tue 03: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 03: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. House trio: Michael Young (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Paul Wight (drums).

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Thomas Strønen – Time is a Blind Guide @ Sage Gateshead. May 20

Thomas Strønen (percussion), Kit Downes (piano), Lucy Railton (cello), Håka Aase (violin) & Ole Morten Vågan (double bass)
(Review by Russell/Photo courtesy of Ken Drew).
A busy Friday evening at Sage Gateshead – the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Sage One, the soulful Laura Mvula playing to a standing-room-only crowd in Sage Two and the Anglo-Norwegian project of Thomas Strønen and friends in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall.  
The cabaret-style layout in the flexible studio space of the Northern Rock helps engender an informal air, making the connection between performer and audience more immediate. Percussionist Thomas Strønen’s Time is a Blind Guide project recorded an album a year or so ago and it is only now that the musicians were able to commit to a short tour such is the busy schedule of all concerned. This Sage Gateshead date, the first of four concerts in four days (London, Birmingham and Norwich to follow), renewed Strønen’s connections with the Borough of Gateshead. 
The tall, tanned percussionist recalled a gig at Caedmon Hall with Iain Ballamy in their Food days, long before the Norman Foster-designed Sage Gateshead first laid its foundations. Time is a Blind Guide (its inspiration Anne Michaels' novel Fugitive Pieces) is an elegant conception. Countrymen Håka Aase (violin) and Ole Morten Vågan (double bass) share Strønen’s cool Nordic mindset; still, at rest, listening. The quintet’s British component – Kit Downes (piano) and cellist Lucy Railton – have a clear empathy for the music, similarly stilled, at rest, yet fully engaged.
Baka, The Drowned City and Lost Souls – three pieces, without pause, to open the concert with Strønen’s subsequent observation: Cheerful and positive! The Norwegian was aware that the music was anything but foot-tapping Dr Jazz material. He referred to the current tour as a tour of ‘cultural capitals’. Sage Gateshead, Kings Place, London, CBSO Centre, Birmingham and Norwich Playhouse succeed as bastions of culture making possible gigs such as Strønen’s Time is a Blind Guide. A final piece (Fugitive Pieces) developed from a typical minimalist opening to something approaching sophisticated swing via Strønen’s virtuosic brush work. The Jazz Police went home satisfied.
Tell Tale: David Ferris (piano), James Banner (double bass) & Ric Yarborough (drums)
Earlier, a support set featured the Birmingham-based trio Tell Tale. Recent graduates of the Birmingham Conservatoire hot house, this half hour set proved to be a real bonus. Structured improv (rehearsed to the nth) drawing on Dostoyevsky, Conlon Nancarrow – Numbers (for Conlon), comp. James Banner – and French impressionist painter Corot, Tell Tale maintained the ‘High Art’ connection, a million crochets away from N’Awlins.    
Russell.

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