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Bebop Spoken There

Van Morrison: ''Basically, I'm coming from jazz. Not pop, not rock, not what's commercial. That's where I started, and that's still where I am. I feel the same as I did when I was listening to Louis Armstrong, Lead Belly, Jelly Roll Morton''. (The Northern Echo, 12 June 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

1803759 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 480 of them this year alone and, so far, 58 this month (June 18).

From This Moment On ...

JUNE 2025

Mon 23: MSK Trio @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00. at the door; £8.20. (inc £0.20 bf) online, in advance.
Mon 23: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club (1:00pm). Free.

Tues 24: ???

Wed 25: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 25: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 25: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 25: The Magpies of Swing @ The Roxy, Leadgate, Co. Durham. 7:30pm. A Ginger Jitterbugs swing dance event, all welcome.

Thu 26: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Brass Instruments & the use of mutes.

Fri 27: Lewis Watson Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm.
Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 27: Strictly Smokin’ Big Band @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 8:00pm. ‘Time After Time’.

Sat 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Linskill Centre, North Shields. 4:00-10:30pm. Free, but ticketed (over 18s only). A multi-bill, multi-genre ‘Canny Shiels - North Shields 800’ event. Three Kings Brewery on site.
Sat 28: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 28: Jude Murphy & Dan Stanley @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 29: Jude Murphy & Dan Stanley @ Wallington, Northumberland. 12 noon-1:00pm & 2:00-3:00pm. Tel: 01670 773606. National Trust admission prices apply. ‘Tunes in the Blooms’.
Sun 29: Glenn Miller Orchestra UK @ The Fire Station, Sunderland. 3:00pm. Ray McVay & co.
Sun 29: Ruth Lambert Trio @ Juke Shed, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 29: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 29: Zoë Gilby w. Ryton Choral Society @ Corbridge Middle School NE45 5HX. 5:30pm. £15.00. Gilby w jazz trio & choir. ‘An evening of jazz song for choir’.
Sun 29: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 29: John Wilson & the Sinfonia of London @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. ‘Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Greatest Hits’.
Sun 29: Out Front @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE.

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

Monday, May 22, 2017

London Vocal Project - Jon Hendricks’s Miles Ahead (Kings Place, London N1), Sunday May 21

(Review/Photo by Peter Jones)
The room was swarming with family, friends and admirers, but most of all, singers on Sunday night in the acoustically perfect Hall 1 at London’s Kings Place. Yes, there were more singers than you could shake a tuning fork at. And it seemed as if they all personally knew choirmaster extraordinaire Pete Churchill and his wife Nikki Iles, or had at the very least participated in a vocal workshop at some time with the dynamic, charismatic Churchill. It was, in short, a musical love-fest.
The pianist, composer and arranger has been immersed for seven years in rendering the Gil Evans/Miles Davis Miles Ahead album into vocalese, and performing it with the 23-strong London Vocal Project. In order to achieve this Churchill has crossed the Atlantic a number of times to collaborate with the legend that is Jon Hendricks, helping to add the great man’s lyrics to the themes and solos on that epoch-busting album. Way back in 1957, Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Annie Ross prepared the ground with their Sing a Song of Basie album, an early exercise in multi-tracking, on which all Basie’s instrumental parts were sung rather than played.
It’s not easy getting humans to sing like trumpets or alto saxophones. And never mind that the chords are rich - and sometimes richly crunchy. You find yourself holding your breath just listening to it, wondering how anyone could sing that low, or that high, let alone making it sound as good as this.
Not surprisingly, Hendricks wanted it done right. ‘Each singer,’ he stated in an email written in 2010, ‘must have a copy of this album, to which they should listen first thing each morning and the last thing each night until the performance. No other way will they be able to keep pace with the endless subtleties and nuances the work is fraught with.’

It helped that they had Hendricks’s daughter Michele as one of the soloists, along with New York veteran Kevin Fitzgerald Burke and also a woman introduced by Churchill as a ‘national treasure’ – Norma Winstone.

Before the main event they limbered up with some other tunes with Hendricks lyrics: It’s Sand, Man, followed by Summertime; then I’ll Bet You Thought I’d Never Find You, introduced by Burke as the first song to be written about stalking. His vocal solo was fabulously trumpet-like. Then Hi-Fly (sung by Winstone); Ev’rybody’s Boppin’ (sung by Michele Hendricks, with an amazing high-velocity scat solo); and finishing off with Li’l Darlin’ and O Pato.

But it was the album that everyone had come to hear, and the Project did not disappoint. As everyone who has heard it knows, Miles Ahead is a sweet and lyrical listen, but tunes like My Ship or Lament reveal new harmonic beauties when sung by a choir of this calibre. It was a highly emotional occasion for Churchill, particularly as he told the story of Blues for Pablo, whose lyrics Jon Hendricks had to change when he learned from composer Gil Evans that it was about the Spanish Civil War, and not what he’d thought it was about.

Hendricks has been working on this project since the late Sixties, and was finally rewarded last February in New York when he witnessed this ensemble perform it for the first time. Tonight they were sensitively backed by Dave Whitford on bass and Steve Brown on drums.
Peter Jones

3 comments :

Lance said...

This got me back to listening to Miles Ahead again. Reminding me, as if I need to be reminded, what a wonderful arranger/composer was Gil Evans. Listen to his arrangements for Claude Thornhill and how far advanced they were of the other swing bands of the time. This vocal project, however, needs to be heard far and wide - are you listening Sage Gateshead?

John Warren (on F/b) said...

It was sublime. And you missed something special if you weren't there. Make sure you buy the album when it comes out.

Elaine Crighton (on F/b). said...

It was one of the best things I've ever seen. Totally joyful and goosebumpy throughout!

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