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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

Fri 11: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 11: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Old Library, Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 11: The Jazz Quartet + Stratosphonic @ Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. 7:00pm. £15.00. A Rotary Club of Hexham event. The Jazz Quartet (Jude Murphy & co), Stratosphonic (blues/rock). CANCELLED!
Fri 11: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Market Place, Corbridge NE45 5AW. 7:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 11: Mo Scott Band @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free. CANCELLED!

Sat 12: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Michael Woods @ Victoria Tunnel, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv.). Country blues guitar & vocals.
Sat 12: Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £13.28, £11.16, £9.04. A two-track recording launch gig.
Sat 12: Stuart Turner @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Rockabilly, rhythm & blues etc. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 12: Lapwing Jazz Trio @ The Ship Inn, Low Newton. 8:00pm. Free. New trio: Paula Whitty, Richard Herdman, Jude Murphy.

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: Cath Stephens & Paul Grainger @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Stephens & Grainger, one third of a triple bill.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

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.

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

Thursday, November 03, 2016

CD Review: Stuart McCallum & Mike Walker - The Space Between

Stuart McCallum (acoustic guitar, electronics), Mike Walker (electric guitar).
Tracks 1,3,6,7: Laura Senior, Gemma South (violins), Lucy Nolan (viola), Peggy Nolan (cello).
(Review by Steve T)
I'm already familiar with Mike Walker in the excellent Impossible Gentlemen and he's amazing. Not (knowingly) familiar with Stuart McCallum but, in a different way he's equally amazing, at least insomuch as they play different guitars here. In fact he's one of the most complete, precise acoustic guitarists I've heard in a long while, with none of the squeaking and sliding so many are prone to.
The album title celebrates what's not played as much as what is. The fast fingers seem to have fallen out of fashion again, perhaps as a local guitar teacher told me that everybody's a virtuoso nowadays or, as one non-guitarist musician said to me, 'guitarists play fast, that's what they do'.

Walker at least can play as fast as you like but here they're exploring the spaces and demonstrating taste as well as that abstract, enigmatic, subjective notion of 'soul.'
Two guitars and electronics sounds like a recipe for 'mood music' and 'ambient soundscapes' and there's plenty of that here but much more besides.
I believe the songs of Bacharach/ David to be the most likely contender for a latter day inclusion in the Great American Songbook. With Bob Dylan, the mismatch between music and myth is too stark and two of his best were comprehensively Hendrixed more or less on release, and for my generation Bobs greatest contribution was convincing Hendrix it didn't matter that he wasn't a great singer.
Moreover, the songs of genre writers like Curtis Mayfield, Dan Penn and Holland, Dozier Holland, were already transformed beyond mere catchy pop songs, now recognised as a skill in itself though it still takes thirty years for them to be recognised. 
Like the Gershwins and Cole Porter before, the likes of Miles and Gil or Frank and Nelson respectively got hold of them, Bacharach/David songs encapsulate an impersonal neutrality which renders them rife for interpretation.
Two of the North Easts' leading guitarists - James Birkett and Bradley Johnson - have performed and recorded Alfie to great affect but the version here scores from the interplay between acoustic and electric.
Moment Us takes me back to Earl Klugh before he became 'smooth' Jazz or at least before it became a dirty word, and The Yewfield sounds like he's been joined by his old mentor and regular collaborator George Benson.
Some Debussy and, as one of only half a dozen or so classical composers I ever listen to, it's always welcome.
The title track sounds like something Pink Floyd would have recorded but with keyboards and benefits enormously from the string quartet, sounding to me like a full orchestral string section.
Best track is saved until the end which McCallum holds on acoustic, some wood-slapping and simultaneously reminiscent of McLaughlins immense acoustic trios and his Indian Fusion band Shakti, raising tension to fever pitch, particularly on repeated listens when you anticipate the arrival of Walker, plugged in and turned up for the first time, but you don't quite know when it's going to happen.
An album of many moods and great contrasts comprising a very satisfying whole.  
Steve T.

Release date: November 25 on Edition Records.

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