Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

George Porter Jr.: ''To me, syncopation is like jazz. It wasn't meant for the masses. It was meant just for a hip few". (DownBeat, May 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

17985(and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 306 of them this year alone and, so far, 62 this month (April 26).

From This Moment On ...

April 2025.

Tue 29: ???

Wed 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 30: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 30: International Jazz Day @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £16.00.; £14.00. adv.. Feat. Guido Spannocchi, John Pope & Steve Hanley + Take it to the Bridge participants + Open Mic Night participants.

MAY 2025

Thu 01: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Member’s Contribution.
Thu 01: Alabaster de Plume @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 01: Living in Shadows + OUTRI @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 01: The Shayo Experiment @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Shayo Oshodi & Liam Oliver.
Thu 01: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 02: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 02: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 02: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 02: Anna Reay & Deon Krishnan @ STACK, Seaburn. 4:30-6:15pm. Free.
Fri 02: Nauta @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 7:00pm. £7.50. A ‘Nauta’s House’ gig featuring Nauta & guests Shayo Oshodi & David Gray.
Fri 02: Spilt Milk @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Fri 02: Dom Pipkin @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). Solo piano.
Fri 02: Abbie Finn Trio @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00. + bf.

Sat 03: Hot Fingers @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 03: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £25.00. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Summer Samba Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 03: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 03: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 03: Postmodern Jukebox @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm.
Sat 03: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). £3.00. + bf.
Sat 03: Eva Fox & the Jazz Guys @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 03: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 03: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:30pm. Free.

Sun 04: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm. £7.50.
Sun 04: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 04: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 04: Spilt Milk @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:00-5:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Sun 04: Rivkala @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 04: Ben Crosland Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 05: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 05: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30pm. 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

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