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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

18018 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 339 of them this year alone and, so far, 17 this month (May 7).

From This Moment On ...

MAY 2025

Tue 13: ???

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Recital (stage 2): Leah Kirk (voice) @ The Band Room, Music Studios, Assembly Lane, Newcastle University. 3:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: Tannery jam session @ The Tannery, Hexham. 7:00pm.
Wed 14: Jerron Paxton @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £24.20. Excellent country blues multi-instrumentalist.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. BACK IN BUSINESS, all welcome!

Thu 15: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: The Greatest in Jazz - Guitarists.
Thu 15: Pete Tanton & the Cuban Heels @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 15: New Ways of Moving in the Counterworlds @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). John Garner & John Pope.

Fri 16: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 16: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 16: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 16: Sophie Speed with the Dean Stockdale Trio @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 16: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 1:00-2:45pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 16: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 16: Giles Strong Quartet @ Longframlington Memorial Hall. 7:00pm (doors). Tickets: £12.00. from 01665 570984.
Fri 16: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert’s Centre, Crook. 7:30pm. £10.00.
Fri 16: Peter Donegan & Anthony Donegan @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 7:30pm. ‘Lonnie Donegan - The Stories’.

Sat 17: Teresa Watson Band @ Billy Bootleggers, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sat 17: The Society Quartet @ Hilton Garden Inn, Sunderland. 6:00pm. Tel: 0191 500 9494. £26.00 (inc. two course meal). Line-up: Jason Holcomb, Hannah Taylor, Alix Shepherd & Abbie Finn.
Sat 17: Milne Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 17: Archie Brown & the Young Bucks @ Billy Bootleggers, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Rhythm & blues, Americana etc.
Sat 17: Rockin’ Turner Brothers @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Rockabilly, Western swing etc.

Sun 18: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Seaburn. 12 noon-2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sun 18: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 18: Ruth Lambert & Giles Strong @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 18: Steve Summers Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 19: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 19: Lewis Watson Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

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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