Total Pageviews

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

18018 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 339 of them this year alone and, so far, 17 this month (May 7).

From This Moment On ...

MAY 2025

Tue 13: ???

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Recital (stage 2): Leah Kirk (voice) @ The Band Room, Music Studios, Assembly Lane, Newcastle University. 3:00pm. Free.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: Tannery jam session @ The Tannery, Hexham. 7:00pm.
Wed 14: Jerron Paxton @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £24.20. Excellent country blues multi-instrumentalist.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. BACK IN BUSINESS, all welcome!

Thu 15: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: The Greatest in Jazz - Guitarists.
Thu 15: Pete Tanton & the Cuban Heels @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 15: New Ways of Moving in the Counterworlds @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). John Garner & John Pope.

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: 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.

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

Saturday, September 16, 2017

CD Review: Sam Boshnack Quintet - The Nellie Bly Project

Samantha Boshnack (composer, trumpet, vocals); Beth Fleenor (clarinet, bass clarinet); Alex Chadsey (piano, keyboards); Isaac Castillo (upright/electric bass); Max Wood (drums); Valerie Holt, Anne Mathews (vocals tracks 1 and 3); Anne Whitfield (spoken vocals tracks 2 and 4)
(Review by Ann Alex).
Sam Boshnack, a bandleader based in Seattle, works with various ensembles and has been influenced by free jazz, Cuban rhythms and modern jazz. She has at least 4 previous albums to her credit, such as Go To Orange (2013) and Exploding Syndrome (2014). I enjoyed The Nellie Bly Project, which was as I expected from the notes supplied, full of a free jazz feel, lots of repeated riffs and unusual sounds.  In fact I must quote from the blurb in Downbeat ‘...’open voicings, jaunty tempos and buoyant timbral mixes have a friendly monster feel that achieves a bittersweet and elegiac mood of orchestral grandeur.’ 
Lance had earmarked the album for my attention, as it concerns the life and doings of Nellie Bly (real name Elizabeth Cochran), an American feminist, civil rights activist, and journalist, who lived from 1864 to 1922. A fascinating woman who wrote a book about the abuse suffered by mental health patients which led to reforms in the USA; she also travelled the world in order to challenge the fictional accounts of Jules Verne. Ms. Bly is also casually mentioned in the song Frankie And Johnnie but I don’t think that that has any bearing on her actual life.

The CD consists of 4 tracks, each one illustrating an aspect of her work. Expositions opens with a strong bass clarinet and concerns Bly’s statement that a true woman is ‘innocent, unaffected and frank’, which is sung chant-like over a rhythmic bass. The voice is joined by another, singing that ‘energy, rightly applied, can accomplish anything.’ The ensemble illustrates all this with energetic driving rhythms and repeated riffs.
Track 2, which I liked best, After One Is In Trouble, is all about Bly’s undercover assignment for the New York World newspaper, in which she feigned insanity so that she could investigate alleged brutality at a women’s lunatic asylum. This was illustrated by pounding persistent drumming, a crying, wailing trumpet, and a final mash up of madness by the whole band. This was not always easy to listen to, but I admired it as the music was true to the subject being explored.
Track 3 was on the happier theme of 72 Days, telling us about Bly’s attempt at going round the world in less time than it took Jules Verne in his fictional account. Bly had to fight hard to even be allowed to take this journey, which was by railroad and steamship, as shown by the rhythms and sounds of drums, bass clarinet and cymbals. Bly’s words are constantly repeated: ‘It’s only a matter of twenty-eight thousand miles... I shall be back again’ and ‘I would rather go in dead and successful than alive and behind time.’
The final track is Legacy, summing up Bly’s hope that things can be changed, with effective ensemble playing, then a final lone trumpet, which I reckon was Nellie Bly’s final plea for more justice in the world.
The CD was released on August 18, 2017, on the label Artists Recording Collective
 UPC-A 8-93682-00277-2
Ann Alex

No comments :

Blog Archive