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Bebop Spoken There

Abbie Finn: "Even though there's a lot of great work being done to promote women in jazz, I still come up against some attitudes! I pulled up at a recording session with my drums in the car and the studio owner said, 'I'm sorry, this space is reserved for the drummer!'" - (Jazzwise April 2023).

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

15245 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 264 of them this year alone and, so far, 77 this month (March 25).

From This Moment On ...

March

Sun 26: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm.
Sun 26: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Mar 26: Pop Jazz @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. 'Jazzified' tunes by the likes of Sylvester, Bowie, the Monkees etc., feat. Alan Law, David Gray, Richard Herdman & Jude Murphy.
Sun 26: Outlines @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE promotion (upstairs).

Mon 27: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 28: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 28: Sanaz Lavasani Trio @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 8:00pm. £12.00 (£10.00. adv).

Wed 29: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 29: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 29: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 29: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 30: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 2:30-4:30pm. £2.00. All welcome.
Thu 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. Back to 1:00pm stomp off. Free.
Thu 30: '58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 30: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm.
Thu 30: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 31: Lewis Watson Quartet @ Bishop Auckland Town Hall. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 31: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 31: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 31: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm. CANCELLED! Back next week (April 7).
Fri 31: Jasmine Myra + Waclaw Zimpel @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Fri 31: The Revolutionaires @ The Shack, Boldon Colliery. 7:30pm. £10.00. The Revolutionaires' big band (horn section) line-up.
Fri 31: Andrew McCormack @ Maltings, Berwick. 8:00pm. £20.00.

April
Sat 01: The Big Easy @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - In a Minor Key. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Hot Club du Nord @ Pleased to Meet You, Bridge St., Morpeth. 8:00pm. £79.00. A charity fundraising event.
Sat 01: Boys of Brass @ Stack, Seaburn. 7:00-9:00pm.
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00. RESCHEDULED to next week (Sat 08).

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.

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