Bebop Spoken There

Donovan Haffner ('Best Newcomer' 2025 Parliamentary Jazz Awards): ''I got into jazz the first time I picked up a saxophone!" - Jazzwise Dec 25/Jan 26

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

18146 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 24 of them this year alone and, so far this month (Jan. 7), 24

From This Moment On ...

JANUARY 2026

Fri 09: The House Trio @ Bishop Auckland Methodist Church. 1:00pm. £9.00.
Fri 09: Nauta @ Jesmond Library, Newcastle. 1:00pm. £5.00. Trio: Jacob Egglestone, Jamie Watkins, Bailey Rudd.
Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Warren James & the Lonesome Travellers @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Fri 09: The Blue Kings @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £10.00. (£8.00. adv.). All-star band.

Sat 10: Mark Toomey Quintet @ St Peter’s Church, Stockton-on-Tees. 7:30pm. £12.00. (inc. pie & peas). Tickets from: 07749 255038.

Sun 11: New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Eva Fox & the Sound Hounds @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 12: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 12: Saltburn Big Band @ Saltburn House Hotel. 7:00-9:00pm. Free.

Tue 13: Milne Glendinning Band @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm. £11.00. Coquetdale Jazz.
Tue 13: Jazz Jam Sandwich @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: Jam Session @ The Tannery, Hexham. 7:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 15: Mark Toomey Quartet @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Free. Quartet + guest Paul Donnelly (guitar).

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

Monday, September 12, 2016

New York Saxophone Star teams up with top UK Jazz Musicians for rare Newcastle club date










Hailed as being at the forefront of the global creative improvised music scene for the past 30 years, New York saxophonist Ellery Eskelin is preparing to perform a number of gigs in the North of England in October 2016. They will close their tour with a performance at the Globe in Newcastle on October 14th.
Eskelin is the second featured artist to take part in the Orpheus Project, an ambitious programme set up by jazz venues across the North of England in partnership with Apollo Jazz Network to bring internationally renowned artists to intimate venues in the region and expose audiences to extraordinary live jazz. Joining Eskelin will be guitarist Chris Sharkey and pianist Matt Bourne.
We couldn't be more excited about Ellery's tour. It provides a rare chance to see a world renowned musician in small, intimate venues and really experience this music close up.
What better way to close the tour than with a gig in our guitarist Chris Sharkey's home town and a jazz scene brimming with exciting musicians and hardworking promotersKim Macari, Director

Eskelin appears at Marsden Jazz Festival on October 8 at 6pm followed by performances in London (October 10th), Birmingham (October 11th), Sheffield (October 12th), Leeds
(October 13th) and Newcastle (October 14th).
More about the artists
Based in New York City, Eskelin has traveled widely performing, recording and amassing a very personal and iconoclastic body of work. And yet he has always remained deeply committed to the traditions of jazz and American music. Eskelin embodies this seeming contradiction with ease. He does not see jazz as a style or idiom but as a process. Further, a process of creative development that has great relevancy to our time. In this pursuit Eskelin consistently delivers to the listening public unadulterated, passionate music with no excuses and no apologies.

Chris Sharkey is known across Europe as being at the cutting edge of creative music. He has been a member of numerous groundbreaking groups in the UK –including TrioVD, Acoustic Ladyland and Bilbao Syndrome. Internationally, he has collaborated with musicians in France (Christian Sebille), Norway (Nils Henrik Aarsheim) , Lithuania (Liudas Mockūnas) and Spain (Asociación Musica Libre).

Matt Bourne first came to national attention as a winner of the Perrier Jazz Award in 2001, which was followed by an award for innovation at the BBC Radio Jazz Awards in 2002, and the International Jazz Festivals Organisation’s International Jazz Award in 2005.
Renowned for his intensely personal and sometimes confrontational solo work, Bourne’s uncanny ability to balance delicacy and virtuosity, while establishing a close affinity with his audience, have become hallmarks of his concert performances.

"Eskelin could get away with murder. That tone is all the alibi he'd need...incarnating the horn's romantic tradition while inking fresh initials on it's tattooed heart.” (Jazziz)

"...Eskelin continues to be the most inventive American tenor player in creative music..." (Down Beat)

"Ellery Eskelin, a rugged tenor saxophonist with a romantic streak that runs parallel to his experimental leanings…" (The New Yorker 2013)


“Eskelin’s warm sound and flowing melodic invention may be the first things to catch a listener’s attention. He has one of the great tenor sounds...” (The New York City Jazz Record – December 2013)

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