Bebop Spoken There

Donovan Haffner ('Best Newcomer' 2025 Parliamentary Jazz Awards): ''I got into jazz the first time I picked up a saxophone!" - Jazzwise Dec 25/Jan 26

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

18146 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 24 of them this year alone and, so far this month (Jan. 7), 24

From This Moment On ...

JANUARY 2026

Thu 08: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £5.00. Subject: Jazz Milestones of 1976.

Fri 09: The House Trio @ Bishop Auckland Methodist Church. 1:00pm. £9.00.
Fri 09: Nauta @ Jesmond Library, Newcastle. 1:00pm. £5.00. Trio: Jacob Egglestone, Jamie Watkins, Bailey Rudd.
Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Warren James & the Lonesome Travellers @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Fri 09: The Blue Kings @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £10.00. (£8.00. adv.). All-star band.

Sat 10: Mark Toomey Quintet @ St Peter’s Church, Stockton-on-Tees. 7:30pm. £12.00. (inc. pie & peas). Tickets from: 07749 255038.

Sun 11: New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Eva Fox & the Sound Hounds @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 12: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 12: Saltburn Big Band @ Saltburn House Hotel. 7:00-9:00pm. Free.

Tue 13: Milne Glendinning Band @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm. £11.00. Coquetdale Jazz.
Tue 13: Jazz Jam Sandwich @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: Jam Session @ The Tannery, Hexham. 7:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

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

Thursday, July 13, 2017

CD Review: Liane Carroll - The Right To Love

Liane Carroll (vocals/piano); Mark Edwards, Malcolm Edmonstone (piano); Mark James (guitars); Kirk Whalum (sax); Loz Garratt, Roger Carey (bass); Ralph Salmins, Russell Field (drums)  Which tracks each musician played on is not stated.
(Review by Ann Alex).
Blogmaster Lance handed me this CD for review, casually declaring that I’d have few problems in dealing with it, but he failed to mention that it was a real gem. He gets so many of these CDs, poor lamb. I reckon that the 27 bus should do the next review.  But less of this nonsense.  Liane Carroll, a resident of Hastings, is a stellar singer and pianist (classically trained from the age of 3), whose vocals are ‘deeply soulful, wonderfully honest’, as quoted by The Times newspaper. The Right to Love is Ms. Carroll’s tenth CD, and it was produced and recorded by James McMillan in his studio in Hastings.
The album concerns many different facets of love, some of them unusual. Skylark concerns hopeful beginnings, with a soulful sax opening and some clever vocal scat; The Right To Love was written originally about the taboo of interracial marriage; It’s a Fine Line is a jazz take on a Nashville country song; If You Go Away, a beautiful song of insecure love, is performed very sensitively with tasteful piano and striking nature images in the lyrics. Then comes You Don’t Know What Love Is, with a superb guitar solo, and honest lyrics about ‘love that cannot live yet never dies'; there’s an atmospheric feel on the song Goin’ Back and this is followed by Stevie Wonder’s Lately, with a tasty piano and guitar duet. The happiest song on the CD is Georgia On My Mind, cheerfully scatted, which I believe to be about both a woman and the USA state; then comes an interesting Tom Waits number, In The Neighbourhood, led by guitar, a description of a run-down neighbourhood, which somehow manages to sound like a place you could nevertheless love. The final track is heartfelt, voice and piano only, I Get Along Without You Very Well, heartfelt because it is sung about Ms Carroll’s Mother, who died last year. The lyrics mean the opposite of the title, of course. 
The CD is due to be released on July 28, 2017, on Quiet Money QMR0004, and if you care to travel, there are launch shows at Hastings on July 22 and at Soho's  Pizza Express on August 1 and 2 [both nights sold out].
Ann Alex

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