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HOWAY THE LADS!

Bebop Spoken There

John McLaughlin: '' A Love Supreme coincided with my search for meaning in life". (DownBeat, March 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

17873 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 194 of them this year alone and, so far, 41 this month (March 14).

From This Moment On ...

MARCH 2025.

Sat 15: Hot Teapots @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 15: Lagos to Longbenton + Belladonna @ Whitley Bay Big Social, Whitley Road, Whitley Bay. 2:00pm. Free. Afrobeat/jazz fusion + soul/funk/R&B
Sat 15: Creakin’ Bones @ Billy Bootleggers. Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free.
Sat 15: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 15: Is This Jazz? @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk. Performances by Mu Quintet, Jinjé, A Brief Utopia, John Pope & Co + André Marmot (author of Unapologetic Expression: The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosion) in conversation + DJ sets ‘til 3:00am. ‘A Festival of New Jazz’.
Sat 15: Vintage Explosion @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm. SOLD OUT!
Sat 15: Alligator Gumbo @ The Forum, Darlington. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Sat 15: One Night Standards @ The White Room, Stanley. 8:00pm. £8.67 (inc. bf). Note - previously advertised Salty Dogs cancelled.
Sat 15: Howlin’ Mat @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Blues guitar.

Sun 16: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 1:00-2:45pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sun 16: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 16: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 16: Pearl Blossoms @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Ragtime.
Sun 16: Hot 8 Brass Band @ Wylam Brewery. 7:30pm. ‘Big Tuba Tour’.
Sun 16: ARQ @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 16: Air4ce @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:30pm (8:00pm doors). £12.00.; £10.00. Tom Atkinson’s all-star band (line-up inc. Lindsay Hannon & Sue Ferris).
Sun 16: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 17: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 17: Jamie Toms Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

Tue 18: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Laurence Harrison, Paul Grainger, Tim Johnston.
Tue 18: Phil Bancroft’s Beautiful Storm @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £13.20 & £11.00.. A JNE-Gem Arts co-promotion.

Wed 19: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 19: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 19: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 20: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 20: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Nicknames.
Thu 20: Terri Green Experience @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £15.90.
Thu 20: Lindsay Hannon Trio @ The Harbour View, Roker, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Hannon’s ‘Tom Waits for No Man’ set.
Thu 20: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Mill Tavern, Hebburn. 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 21: Paul Skerritt @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 21: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 21: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 21: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 21: Giles Strong Quartet @ 1719, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. CANCELLED!
Fri 21: New Century Ragtime Orchestra @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Featuring special guest Martin Litton (piano).

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, July 23, 2017

William Bell and the state of soul music. The SummerTyne Americana Festival, Sage Gateshead, July 22.

(Review by Steve T)
Without checking, this was much the same set as I reviewed at the Barbican last November. While that was at the London Jazz Festival, under the umbrella of Black Music, this was the SummerTyne Americana Festival, under the umbrella of American Roots Music, reflecting the changing times.
I'm old enough to remember the time when most people agreed with Muddy Waters, that the blues had a baby and called it rock and roll. Nowadays rockabilly is considered the most prominent strand of rock and roll and came from country and western.
Soul music emerged primarily from blues and gospel, but more recently the country element has become greatly exaggerated with the discovery, by the BBC, Mojo and writers like Guralnick, that many of the musicians, songwriters and producers were southern whites, even though virtually all of the artists, including all of the greats were black. 
White artists have done much better in Jazz than in any other serious Black Music: Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, Zawinul, John McLaughlin and Chick Corea to mention a few, but it's important to keep in mind that Louis Armstrong, Duke, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bird, Diz, Monk, Miles, Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Trane, Ornette and the vast majority were black.
Just seventeen years into the new millennium and it's already considered racist to refer to the C20th as the century of Black Music.
When Beatles T shirt in front of me sang along to the support band I'm a Soul Man, I responded in true gospel/soul fashion, No You’re Not!
At least he turned up. A few days out, I thought a team may come down from Scotland, a crew might travel up from Yorkshire, and surely a posse will make the journey across the Pennies from the North West heartland. Ah well, Teesside will be with us, Darlo, Bish, Chester-le-Street, Gatesheed, Toon, Northern Soul stronghold Aycliffe… William Bell ticks the northern soul, modern soul, rare groove, deep soul and club classic boxes, but maybe they all had more important vinyl festivals to go to.
At least Durham was there; well me, big bro, our mate Fen and my old rock mate Tony, who spread his wings to blues, soul, reggae and Jazz; and of course our much better halves.
If the soul people don't want him, the country and western people will have him. I keep having stabs at C & W and, while I don't think I'm allergic, they seem to need a name like Womack to come up with anything great. When I go to see Marty Stuart at Sage Gateshead in October, I promise not to sing I'm a C & W man, though I may wear an inappropriate T shirt.
By now our fearless editor will no doubt be pulling out hair in chunks, so about the concert.
Again, without checking, I think it was a slightly smaller band and certainly the real live Hammond organ was a miss. At nearly eighty, the quality of Bell’s voice is quite extraordinary, and without simply surrendering to the grain like some of his contemporaries; and he has fantastic microphone technique.
Standouts are inevitably the duet Private Number and blues classic Born Under a Bad Sign, but I also love the deep soul ballads, down to the bare bones of his voice, and this is what separates artists like Bell from singers like Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett. While they have the grain covered, people like Bell are loaded with pain, but it's an optimistic, joyous jouissance that comes from gospel.
Knowing the set gave me an opportunity for a comfort/ bar break during a medley of Stand By me and Cupid that follows Trying to Love Two, another high pointbut an unexpected encore of one of Otis Redding’s better hits worked surprisingly well, even though I'd far rather listen to William Bell (and he presumably prefers to be alive than have a media myth based on a premature death), and unsurprisingly it went down a storm.
Artists like William Bell don't always make the news so we don't always know about them, but there can't be many of these giants left walking the earth, while cartoon repeats continue to dominate the waves.
Steve T.

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