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Bebop Spoken There

Stan Woodward: ''We're part of the British jazz scene, but we don't play London jazz. We play Newcastle jazz. The Knats album represents many things, but most importantly that Newcastle isn't overlooked". (DownBeat, April 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

17923 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 244 of them this year alone and, so far, 91 this month (March 31).

From This Moment On ...

MARCH 2025.

Wed 02: Lauren Bush: The Jazz Singer’s Toolkit @ The Pele, Corbridge. 1:00-4:00pm. Vocalist Lauren Bush with pianist Jamil Sheriff presents a jazz singing workshop. £40.00. (inc. evening concert, see below). Registration required for workshop: www.laurenbushjazz.com. All ability levels welcome.
Wed 02: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 02: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 2:30-4:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Wed 02: Lauren Bush & Jamil Sheriff @ The Pele, Corbridge. 7:00-9:00pm. £10.00. Concert performance. Tickets: www.laurenbushjazz.com.
Wed 02: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 02: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. CANCELLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE! See website for updates: www.theglobenewcastle.bar.

Thu 03: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Women in Jazz.
Thu 03: Eva Fox & the Jazz Guys @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 03: New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Free. A Tees Hot Club promotion. First Thursday in the month.

Fri 04: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 04: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 04: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 04: Ruth Lambert Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Fri 04: Tom McGuire & the Brassholes @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £20.00.
Fri 04: Nicolas Meier’s Infinity Group + Spirit of Jeff Beck @ The Forum, Darlington. 7:30pm.

Sat 05: Tenement Jazz Band @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 05: Sleep Suppressor @ Head of Steam, Newcastle. 5:30-6:00pm.
Sat 05: King Bees @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 05: Raymond MacDonald & Jer Reid @ Lubber Fiend, Newcastle. 6:00-9:30pm. £7.72., £1.00. (minimum donation). MacDonald & Reid + Objections + Yotuns.
Sat 05: Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 05: Kamasi Washington @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. £33.00.
Sat 05: Vermont Big Band @ The Seahorse, Whitley Bay. 7:30pm. Tickets: £10.00 (from the venue).
Sat 05: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.

Sun 06: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm. £7.50.
Sun 06: Learning & Participation Showcase @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm (1:00pm doors). Free. Featuring participants from Play More Jazz! Play More Folk! Blue Jam Singers & more.
Sun 06: Joe Steels Group @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00. Ferg Kilsby, Joe Steels, Ben Lawrence, Paul Susans, John Hirst.
Sun 06: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 06: Paul Skerritt @ The Hooch, Quayside, Newcastle. 6:00pm.
Sun 06: Leeway @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 07: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 08: ???

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

Sunday, January 08, 2017

Zoe Gilby (vocal)/ Alan Law (piano) @ The Jazz Café - January 6

What a lovely way to start the New Year. It seemed like only Yesterday that This Boy Alan and the Girl Zoe performed a selection of Beatles and Antonio Carlos Jobim songs with great charm and invention. Something was really in the air on Friday night maybe not Across the Universe but certainly in the packed Jazz Café. I was sat next to Sexy Sadie when I said to her I Want to Hold Your Hand she flew off like a Blackbird so I guessed there was no point of asking my supplementary question Why Don’t We Do It In The Road. Now we all know How Insensitive The Jazz Café audience can be shouting at each other as if they were at the Gallowgate End but on Friday you could have heard a pin drop which just shows how captivating the duo were.  The end of the evening came so there was to be No More Blues all that remained to be done was to Wave goodbye.
Steve H.

6 comments :

Lance said...

Sounds like it was anything but a Hard Day's Night and you certainly didn't need any Help to write the review but as regards Sadie, She Loves You and sends All Her Loving even though you're Back in the USSR.

Steve T said...

Thought about it but I'd have to drive my car. Somebody said all you need is love for the Beatles but if I were to list my favourite bands and songwriters the Beatles would be nowhere man. They're here, there and everywhere eight days a week. Zoe was on and I love her but if big Andy's around you've got to hide your love away, especially if she loves you.
Also Uni started back up so Number One (only ever considered a recommendation when it's the Beatles) Son had to get back and we weren't sure when so I said let it be Friday. When we got there we saw one of the staff who knew I'd done the Southport preview and said here comes the son.
I don't have room for the Beatles in my life, maybe when I'm 64 and give up on the revolution. Til then all my loving is for soul, jazz, blues, rock and reggae; proper singers, proper songwriters and proper musicians. Not a walrus in a strawberry field with diamonds.

Lance said...

So, you didn't have a Ticket to Ride and she didn't say Baby You Can Drive my Car plus the threat of Lovely Rita Meter Maid put you off your Magical Mystery Tour. Well it would have been a Hard Day's Night without any Help but, With a Little Help From Your Friends...
Seriously, at the end of the day it's the interpretation as much as the material and many a performer has made a purse out of a sow's ear and I'm sure that Zoe and Alan wouldn't have gone into the purse-making business (musically speaking) if they regarded the Fab Four's songs as 'sow's ears'.
From Me To You - The End.

Steve T said...

I agree entirely; Arun Ghosh played a stunning version of TNK at the Sage. Mind that is a brilliant original; Phils Collins and Manzanera both did decent versions as well. I saw Andy Sheppard do And I Love Her and it was brilliant; way better than the original. JJ Barnes did a decent version of Daytripper, I think it was Stevie Wonder who did We can work it out and the Impressions did Fool on the Hill but, as my second favourite Fabs track, it should have been better. MJ did probably the best version of Come Together.
But how did they become SO over-rated?

Lance said...

Obviously, marketing. If you'd been on the scene in the early '60s you couldn't escape them. Mainstream press, TV, pirate radio. "We're greater than God" said Lennon and in the eyes of the young they were. And many of the tunes are still excellent (did they really write all those numbers in such a relatively short space of time? They probably did although the jury's still out on that one.)
The fact that so many of their songs have become standards and performed across the genres is proof of their quality. I think Ray Davies is one of the few of their contemporaries whose material displays the same longevity.
I was unfamiliar with 'And I Love Her' until I heard it by Roland Kirk. Imagine my surprise upon discovering it wasn't by some revered name from the (then) past. As I type I'm listening to José Feliciano playing the same tune and, if I'd heard it first I'd have probably thought it was by Jobim!

Steve T said...

I was born in 61 so I remember them being everywhere, like the Spice Girls 30 years later only more so. For my generation they weren't even teenybop songs but nursery rhymes.
I'm not sure artists, and particularly jazz artists, covered them because they thought they were great but, as Dylan said when Joan Baez covered Yesterday, 'it's the thing to do to tell the teenyboppers you dig the Beatles'.
Certainly they had a knack for writing catchy pop songs only matched by people like Abba and the Beegees, but were more prolific. In my view that doesn't put them with the great songwriters.
I'm pretty sure the quote was 'we're more popular than Jesus' but this was among the young. Nobody really cared much about them in the seventies and in the eighties they became the most unlikely cult band for the growing number of fans of a growing number of dead popstars with, give or take Marvin Gaye in soul, the best death story.
Young people think we've all been listening to them since the early sixties but it's only really in the nineties, with their army of original fans grown up: parents, grandparents, teachers, lecturers, reporters, media executives, authors etc that they, and particularly John Lennon, became all things to all people; like Mozart, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Churchill, Leonardo, Picasso, the Dali Lama and Jesus rolled into one. The reason the sun rises, the sky is blue, water falls, flowers grow and wilderbeast sweep majestically across the Torquay skyline. If this sounds over the top, it's probably because we've had so much of it, we accept it as normal. Van Morrison claimed the media made it all up and the bands - though not all of them - just went along with it and so-called British Blues artists still think of them as teenyboppers; I recall one comparing them to Westlife and Steve Wright spluttering, though he had to agree.
George Harrison became a huge critic of the mythology in his final years, referring to it as Beatle-lore.
I expect something similar to happen with Bowie in the coming years - I call it the revenge of the teenyboppers.
On Ray Davies, I knew you liked him and wondered whether it was his heavy riffs and/or English (rather than American) lyrics.

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