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Bebop Spoken There

Kurt Elling: ''There's something to learn from every musician you play with''. (DownBeat, December 2024).

The Things They Say!

Hudson Music: Lance's "Bebop Spoken Here" is one of the heaviest and most influential jazz blogs in the UK.

Rupert Burley (Dynamic Agency): "BSH just goes from strength to strength".

'606' Club: "A toast to Lance Liddle of the terrific jazz blog 'Bebop Spoken Here'"

The Strictly Smokin' Big Band included Be Bop Spoken Here (sic) in their 5 Favourite Jazz Blogs.

Ann Braithwaite (Braithwaite & Katz Communications) You’re the BEST!

Holly Cooper, Mouthpiece Music: "Lance writes pull quotes like no one else!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

17630 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 904 of them this year alone and, so far, 49 this month (Dec. 20).

From This Moment On ...

December

Tue 24: Lindsay Hannon & Mark Williams @ Ernest, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 11:00am-1:00pm. Free.
Tue 24: Paul Skerritt @ Mambo Wine & Dine, South Shields. 1:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.

Wed 25: Wot? No jazz!

Thu 26: The Boneshakers @ Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. The 17th annual Boneshakers’ Shindig.

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free. Business as usual!.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 27: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar & vocals.

Sat 28: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 11:30am. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 28: Fri 20: Castillo Nuevo @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30pm. Free.
Sat 28: Jude Murphy, Rich Herdman & Giles Strong @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 28: Ray Stubbs R & B All-Stars @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Stepney Bank, Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sun 29: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 29: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 30: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 30: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.

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

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Mahler, Schoenberg and Finzi by Durham University Orchestral Society @ Durham Cathedral, June 17

(Review by Steve T)
To misquote a famous John, 'before Schoenberg there was nothing'. Just like before Elvis there were men, they just didn't have moving legs, there was music before Schoenberg, it was just the nice, pretty, fluffy type aimed at posh, rich men to conduct along to.
Schoenberg is the composer most associated with atonality, who deliberately set out to make difficult music to challenge the listener, which didn't comply with rules laid down by Bach and Handel and the moon and stars before them. Like the best Jazz, and his peers and followers were influenced by Jazz artists who were in turn influenced by them.
Robert Wyatt, original drummer with prog/jazz/rock band Soft Machine drew a line from Schoenberg, through Cecil Taylor to punk rock so he must have missed the point of Schoenberg and Free Jazz. I know he didn't miss the point of punk rock because there wasn't one; while they were perhaps too clever for their own good, punk rock just wasn't clever at all.  

Part one was the Chamber Orchestra which began with a short, pointless piece by British composer Finzi called Romance. This was followed by Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony no 2 which was written before his conversion but the second movement was significantly re-written after it, so it offered a contrast between early Schoenberg and the later crazy stuff, though, to these untrained ears, it was all pretty crazy.
Part two was the main event with the Symphony Orchestra playing Mahler’s Symphony no 1. Ironically, or maybe not, Mahler is thought to be the first composer to experiment in atonality, but died the following year.
Less cynically and more seriously, much pre C20th tonal classical music is difficult to contemporary ears trained to expect a verse and a chorus, and this was no exception, though long passages were interspersed with moments of real beauty and nothing quite sounds like massed violins, the juxtaposition of  plaissure and jouissance proving irresistible,  and Stravinsky, Miles with Gil, and Zappa were masters of this. 
It sounds idyllic: a lovely evening cooling down after the hottest day of the year so far, a building some consider the finest on planet earth, my loudest, brightest shirt and some of the poshest, cleverest, richest, most successful, most promising and most pretentious people anywhere. In real time, once you've admired the splendid building, watched the few fiddlers elbows you can actually see, it gets boring and, while I'd have stayed, I'm more used to this type of stuff than my way better half and we'd agreed five minutes of Mahler, so the opening movement and five minutes of the second seemed fair enough. 

Steve T.

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