MAY 2025
Mon 19: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 19: Lewis Watson Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.
Tue 20: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Bailey Rudd.
Tue 20: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ Pleased to Meet You, Bridge St., Morpeth NE61 1ND. 8:00pm.
Wed 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 21: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public). b
Wed 21: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 22: Nuevo Castillo Orquesta @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £5.00.
Thu 22: Anna Reay & Deon Krishnan @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 7:30-9:15pm. Free.
Thu 22: Pedal Point Trio @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Fri 23: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. ‘Celebrating Oscar’.
Fri 23: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 23: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 23: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 23: Anna Reay & Deon Krishnan @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:00-6:00pm. Free.
Fri 23: Joe Steels Group @ The Pele, Corbridge. 7:00pm. £10.00. + £1.55. bf. A Northumberland Jazz Festival fringe event.
Fri 23: Spilt Milk @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Fri 23: Gaz Hughes Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm.
Fri 23: Strictly Smokin’ Big Band @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 8:00pm. £19.00.; £17.00. ‘Time After Time’.
Sat 24: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 12:30-2:15pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 24: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Bywell Hall, Stocksfield. 1:30pm. Northumberland County Show.
Sat 24: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 24: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ The Peacock, Sunderland. 6:00pm.
Sat 24: Dean Stockdale Quartet + Mingus Sings @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 7:00pm. Admission: see website: www.queenshall.co.uk. Stockdale (piano); Tim Williams (guitar); Gavin Barras (double bass); Gaz Hughes (drums) + Mingus Sings: Sara Oschlag (vocals); Alan Barnes (reeds); Tim Lapthorn (piano); Arnie Somogyi (double bass); Clark Tracey (drums). A Northumberland Jazz Festival event.
Sat 24: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 24: Saltburn Big Band @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Sat 24: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). £3.00. + bf.
Sat 24: Papa G’s Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 25: Zoë Gilby & Andy Champion: Bandstand Sessions @ The Sele, Hexham. 12 noon. Free. A Northumberland Jazz Festival event.
Sun 25: Musicians Unlimited @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 25: Northern Monkey Brass Band @ Spanish City Plaza (outdoor stage). 1:00pm. Free. A Whitley Bay Carnival event.
Sun 25: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 25: Catriona Bourne Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm. Admission: see website: www.queenshall.co.uk. Bourne (harp), Francis Tulip (guitar), James Owston (double bass), Joe Bainbridge (drums). A Northumberland Jazz Festival event.
Sun 25: Ruth Lambert Trio @ Juke Shed, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 25: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 25: Struggle Buggy @ The Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sun 25: Joe Steels Group + Norma Winstone (vocals); Nikki Iles (piano); Mike Walker (guitar); Steve Watts (double bass). 7:00pm. Admission: see website: www.queenshall.co.uk. Steels (guitar); Ferg Kilsby (trumpet, flugelhorn); Ben Lawrence (piano); Paul Susans (double bass); John Hirst (drums). A Northumberland Jazz Festival event.
Sun 25: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 25: Xhosa Cole/Neil Charles/Mark Sanders @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A JNE promotion. Note: Xhosa Cole replaces Nicole Mitchell.
6 comments :
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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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