Total Pageviews

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

17777 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 98 of them this year alone and, so far, 23 this month (Feb.8).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Sun 09: The New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 09: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 09: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 09: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ The Forum, Billingham. 3:00pm.
Sun 09: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 09: Tom Remon & Mark Williams @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 09: Rod Oughton’s Tomorrow’s New Quartet with Ben van Helder @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Line-up inc. Deschanel Gordon.
Sun 09: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 10: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 11: Steve Summers Quintet @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm.

Wed 12: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 12: Jam session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free.
Wed 12: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 12: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 13: Student Performances @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 4:00pm. Free. Inc. Olly Styles (tenor sax).
Thu 13: MOBO Awards Fringe 2025: Artist Showcase @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:00pm. Free (ticketed). Line-up inc. Hannabiell & Midnight Blue.
Thu 13: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.

Fri 14: John Rowland Trio @ Jesmond Library, Newcastle. 12:30-1:30pm. £5.00. at the door. New second Friday in the month concert series.
Fri 14: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 14: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 14: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 14: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 14: Archipelago + Anna Tempest @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £12.00., £10.00., £8.00.
Fri 14: Paul Jones & Dave Kelly @ Alnwick Playhouse. 7:30pm. Rhythm & blues.
Fri 14: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The White Room, Stanley. 7:45pm.
Fri 14: Jazz Sabbath @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Sat 15: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 15: James Birkett & Emma Fisk @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 7:30pm. £15.00. at the door; £14.35. (inc £0.35 bf) online, in advance.
Sat 15: Elkie Brooks @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. ‘The Long Farewell Tour’.
Sat 15: Milne Glendinning Band @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. 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

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

William Bell @ Barbican London EFG Jazz Festival November 18.

All them Stax songs ya'll.
(Review by Steve T).
When Simon Mayo asked him (nicely) on Radio 2 last Wednesday how it fit into a Jazz Festival, he replied that Sonny Stitt once did one of his songs.
Jazz, soul, funk, blueshe went on, on the night. It's all Black Music and, at its best, it's all soulful music, and any listeners who don't get that miss so much. 
He's more youthful than you'd think from the artist who scored the first hit on Stax at the start of the sixties, but his career was interrupted by two years in the military, indicating how young he was at the time.
I'm not altogether sure when quality soul music became defined by the hits since the vast majority never went anywhere near a chart - pop or R’n’B - and Bell inevitably came under the shadow of Otis Redding, who came to dominance while Bell was in the military.
However, in my inverted world, while O was the big deal, our man was the real deal; avoiding croaky clichés, his voice clear and effortlessly full of joy and jouissance, though still exuding the grain and the pain of the very best soul voices.
Drums, bass, guitar, keys, trumpet, alto and tenor, a lone British female backing singer, all dipped in whatever river runs through Memphis. How do Memphis musicians: black or white, Stax or Hi, Goldwax or Koko, get that unique sound? Often copied, never equalled.
The set was culled from his sparse, intermittent recording career: on Stax til the early eventies, Coming Back for More on his comeback album of the same name on Mercury later in the decade, and his fine latest album This is Where I Live, back on Stax. When Simon Mayo said everybody should hear it, for once he sounded genuine.
Sods law and I'm back from the loo watching Trying to Love Two on the screens, from the seventies comeback album and my favourite of his ever, though the version by southern soul songstress Barbara Lynn is even better.
When he segued into a medley, with the potential to go on, I pleaded with the attendant to let me in, descending into an infantile soul fans don't do this cr^p as she disappeared inside.
I was back in for Stand by Me into CupidThe perennial pitfall of going to see great soul singers is that they all think we want the same 'hits' we've heard a zillion times before, and so it will continue as long as soul fans refuse to turn out and 'real' soul fails to get a voice in the media.
This is where I Liveand in another world this would be number one, on the radio, the TV, on the cover of a magazine; odd groups of girls dancing at their seats. 
Some of these dusty old records (mostly the hits) now seem passé while others seem timeless, and You'll Lose a Good Thing is of the latter.
Private Number, his most famous record in this country, and the London singer stepped up to the late Judy Clay plate wonderfully. Of the massed North East soul fraternity - myself, my Bowie, Iggy, Elvis, Beatles (in that order) loving best man and my 'everything that isn't Jazz (or Zappa) is just pop music' firstborn, all imbibed - we could only identify her as Suzie.
Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday served up his best opportunity for some serious testifyin - early in the mornin, late in the midnight hour, followed by that first hit, You Don't Miss Your Waterrevived on his Mercury comeback album.
The set ended with I Forgot to be Your Lovertaking a short diversion into Sam Cooks You Send Me.
The lights remained though some of the audience didn't - big mistake. I've now heard Born Under a Bad Sign by the two people who wrote it: William Bell and Booker T, and the man they wrote it for, Albert King. A run through each of the musicians, though names were all but inconspicuous, the keyboardist playing a real live Hammond, the singer shaking hands along the front row, and he was gone.
Time is running out to catch these giants who walked the earth while cartoon characters ruled the waves; we'll not hear their like again.
Support came from Incognito frontman Tony Momrelle, a Brit and a different generation of soul singer, in the Luther Vandross strain but without the irritating excesses. He's a fair songwriter too and is due at Hoochie in Newcastle next summer.
Steve T.  

1 comment :

Steven T said...

Just stumbled across his 74 Stax album Phases of Reality feat track Man in the Streets which topples Trying to love 2 as my favourite track of his.
Anybody who was getting tapes from me in the 80s will know it and I believe it has had a few spins on the soul scene since.

Blog Archive