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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

18043 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 364 of them this year alone and, so far, 42 this month (May 15).

From This Moment On ...

MAY 2025

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: Bellavana @ Newcastle Arts Centre. 7:30-10:00pm. Free. A Late Shows event.
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.

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.

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

Friday, June 16, 2017

CD Review: Stanton Moore - With You in Mind, the Songs of Allen Toussaint.

Stanton Moore (drums); David ‘Tork’ Torkanowsky (keys); James Singleton (bass) + Trombone Shorty; Nicholas Payton; Donald Harrison; Maceo Parker;  Jolyanda Kiki Chapman; Cyril Neville; Wendell Pierce.
Lance: I could write at length and wax eloquent but the press release says it all and, on this occasion, the press release doesn’t lie. An album that defies genre but pays tribute to one of New Orleans’ greatest musicians of the latter part of the twentieth century and beyond – Allen Toussaint.
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(Press release).
Toussaint’s sudden death on November 10, 2015 (in Madrid, far from home, of a heart attack, after playing a concert) shocked New Orleans. The polymath producer, songwriter, arranger, bandleader, pianist, singer, and all-around figure of elegance had been a vital, active presence in New Orleans since the 1950s.
Moore, Torkanowsky and Singleton immediately shelved a planned album and went into creative hyper drive. “We already had studio time booked, we couldn’t wait,” Moore recalls. “It’s not like we wrote out all these arrangements ahead of time. We were flying by the seat of our pants.” 
As they began working up pieces from Toussaint’s vast repertoire, it quickly became a vocal album with guest singers. “As Tork likes to say,” Moore comments, “being a musician in New Orleans is like having the greatest musical toolbox at your disposal.” Supplementing their trio with some of New Orleans’s living legends – their friends -- they reimagined Toussaint’s songs, conceptualizing and building out an album on the fly. 
It was Torkanowsky who brought in the first guest vocalist, Jolynda Kiki Chapman, best known in New Orleans for singing with her mother, Topsy Chapman. She delivers perhaps the most straightforward performance on the album: Toussaint’s tender ballad “All These Things.” “The first time I heard her sing was when we were tracking,” Moore says.  “The hair on my arms stood up. I took it home and played it for my girlfriend and she burst into tears.” The record was under way.
New Orleans music doesn’t recognize genre boundaries, so With You In Mind crosses effortlessly from funk to jazz and back. Two of New Orleans’s most eminent jazz thinkers, Nicholas Payton and Donald Harrison, appear on two instrumentals. The first is a version of “Java,” which became a top-5 hit for Al Hirt in 1963 and the other is “Riverboat,” Toussaint’s 1960 record with Lee Dorsey (which also doubles as an homage to the session’s original drummer, one of Moore’s heroes, James Black). 
They called in Cyril Neville to sing a song. “It turned into him singing four songs,” laughs Moore, “plus one as a spoken-word performance.” Neville kicks off the album with “Here Come the Girls,” with the added muscle of the musicians’ longtime colleague Trombone Shorty, the former child prodigy who is now a marquee attraction all over the world. Neville gamely sings one of Toussaint’s best-known numbers, “Life,” in 7/8 (James Singleton’s idea). Inspired by that, Moore put the 1969 Lee Dorsey classic “Everything I Do Gone Be Funky (From Now On)” into 5/4 (It was Tork, says Moore, who figured out how to make “fun-ky” line up on the 1). And Neville’s version of “Night People” features an alto solo by funk legend Maceo Parker.
But then they did something altogether new. “Tork said, ‘there’s this book of poetry that Allen wrote.’ We got a copy from Reggie Toussaint, Allen’s son. It’s just a little thin book of poetry -- a lot of it was different re-workings of some of his lyrics – but we found one, ‘The Beat,’ which he hadn’t recorded.” Cyril Neville pronounced the poetry virtuosically, with a characteristically funky musicality.
The album’s striking closer is another spoken-word number. Possibly the most experimental piece on the album, it’s also comfort music: a completely unexpected version of “Southern Nights,” a #1 hit in 1977 for Glen Campbell and a cornerstone of Toussaint’s own concerts. The catalyst for this number was Nicholas Payton, who’s doing compelling work these days in shows where he plays both trumpet and keys, sometimes at the same time.  And after it was recorded, Tork said, ‘what would be cool would be to get Wendell Pierce.’ “I was like, ‘uh, okay, I dunno.’ I thought it was a wacky idea at first, but it turned out to be a great idea.”
With You in Mind: The Songs of Allen Toussaint is built on the livest grooves the trio could deliver. It was a bittersweet project for all concerned, celebrating the memory of someone whose living presence was so important. “I didn’t get to work with Allen as often as I’d have liked to,” Moore says, “but I did get to.” Their friendship went back twenty years. Through the years we crossed paths a few times. The first time he played with us was also the first time we played the Saenger Theater,” referring to the 2,600-seat New Orleans landmark.
“Allen Toussaint wrote the soundtrack to New Orleans,” says Moore. “He came out of an environment that no longer exists. The level of talent and ability and artistry that he embodied – we won’t see this again.” 

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