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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

17755 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 76 of them this year alone and, so far, 1 this month (Feb.1).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Fri 07: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 07: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 07: James Birkett & Emma Fisk @ Old Lowlight, Clifford’s Fort, North Shields NE30 1JE. 7:00pm. £15.00. + bf. www.oldlowlight.co.uk. SOLD OUT!
Fri 07: Stuart Turner Trio @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Jazz, blues, Americana etc.
Fri 07: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Fri 07: Rose Room @ Wylam Institute. 8:00pm. £19.67.
Fri 07: John Rowland Quartet @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 08: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 12:30-2:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 08: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 08: Milne Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 08: Lewis Watson Quartet @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 7:30pm. £15.00. at the door; £14.35. (inc £0.35 bf) online, in advance.
Sat 08: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. ‘Swing Jazz Guitar’.
Sat 08: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A Newcastle University Jazz Orchestra event. All welcome.

Sun 09: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ The Forum, Billingham. 3:00pm.
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: 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.

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, April 16, 2017

Faye MacCalman/John Pope Duo @ Jazz Café - April 14

Faye MacCalman (tenor sax, clarinet), John Pope (bass).
(Review/photo courtesy of Steve T).
Of all the Jazz Cafés in all the world, I wonder how many featured a double bass, sometimes bowed, and a tenor sax, sometimes a clarinet, playing Blakey, Shorter, Ornette Coleman Hawkins - see what I did there? MacCalman, Monk, Roland Kirk, Sonny Rollins and Sun Ra - see what I did there? - on Friday. And by a lady in her early/mid-twenties and a 'slightly' older male. This is why Jazz is so unique.
We expected more pedals than the Tour de France, more loops than a primary school playground and more freefall than a Bridge too far. What we got was certainly edgy, but in a very different way. Only Jazz can defy expectations in this way. 
I'd wondered how it would work out, without percussion, a keyboard or even a guitar, but half way through the opener, Moanin, I knew it was going to be just fine.
Faye is a raspy, breathy player with a classic tenor sound all the way from Pres and Webster, through Dexter and Sonny to Trane and Wayne, a mischievous hint of Ornette and Roland lingering never far beneath the surface.
Pope is one of the very best and most exploratory bass players around, whether acoustic or electric, though he stayed upright here, some subtle slapping giving a bit of percussive affect.
JuJu, Body and Soul, Ornette and Archipelago reflecting some of their other shared ventures. Monks Dream, Roland Kirk and Sun Ra, fairly 'out there' in their own right but here used as springboards, sometimes barely recognisable, for their own improvisations and innovations. Always on that tightrope, that knife edge between success and failure, the site of much great art, and if at times they seemed to flounder - what the long suffering/eternally skint Mrs T calls Jazz - one or other was never far away with a means of resolution. 
They shared the announcements conversationally, Faye personable and human and expect her to grow into this role as she increasingly becomes a regular fixture at the Caff and beyond, Pope the seasoned pro and mentor.
At one point half way through set two, it felt like Trane and Garrison during that vital moment between relatively straight Jazz and the warp factor launch into hyperspace, and I can give no higher praise than that.
With big names at the O2 Arena and City Hall, and hundreds passing after something up the road at Sid James' Park, the faithful sat silently around the duo with comers and goers noisy around the corner, but not to the point of distraction. A highly enjoyable evening and I'm now very much looking forward to something very different from them round the corner at the Swan on 30th May.
Steve T.

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