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Bebop Spoken There

Francis Tulip: ''Music speaks louder than words''. (Jazzwise, June 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

17,596 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 560 of them this year alone and, so far, 38 this month (July 13).

From This Moment On ...

JULY 2025

Tue 15: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ The Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Sluice. Tel: 0191 237 3697. 12:30pm. ‘July Jazz Barbecue’. Tickets: £15.00.
Tue 15: Brass Bash @ Hackworth Park, Shildon, Co. Durham. 6:00-9:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Tue 15: Brass Bash @ The Witham, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Tue 15: Julian Lage Trio @ 1856 Exchange, North Shields. 7:30pm . Lage (guitar); Jorge Roeder (double bass); Joey Barron (drums).
Tue 15: Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra @ The Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm.
Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Bailey Rudd.

Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Brass Bash @ Willington Town Park, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Wed 16: Brass Bash @ Market Place, Spennymoor, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 17: Brass Bash @ Trimdon Community College, Co. Durham. 6:00-9:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Thu 17: Brass Bash @ Blackhill & Consett Park, Co. Durham. 6:00-8:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Thu 17: NONUNONU @ Elder Beer, Heaton, Newcastle. 7:00pm (doors). £11:55 (inc bf).

Fri 18: Greg Abate w. Dean Stockdale Trio @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Brass Bash @ Town Park, Newton Aycliffe, Co. Durham. 6:00-9:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Fri 18: Brass Bash @ North Terrace, Seaham, Co. Durham. 6:00-9:00pm. Free. Various bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Fri 18: Zoë Gilby Quartet @ Sunderland Minster. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Knats: Masterclass & jam session @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Fri 18: Rat Pack - Live in Concert @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Greg Abate w. Dean Stockdale Trio @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. £15.00.
Fri 18: Front Porch Three @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. A Hoodoo Blues dance class & social. Social & Front Porch Three only from 8:30pm. £5.00.

Sat 19: Streets of Brass @ Durham City. From 10:00am. Free. Various street bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sat 19: Mr Wilson’s Second Liners: BRASS Boat Cruise @ Elvet Bridge jetty (by the boat club & Tomahawk Steak), Durham City. 12 noon. £12.00.; £10.00.; £5.00. 60 mins cruise, 2 x sets. SOLD OUT! A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sat 19: Bollywood Brass Band @ Monument Metro Station & Haymarket Metro Station, Newcastle. 2:00pm & 3:00pm & 4:00pm (3 x 30 mins). Free. A Gem Arts Masala Festival event.
Sat 19: Diddy Sweg: BRASS Boat Cruise @ Elvet Bridge jetty (by the boat club & Tomahawk Steak), Durham City. 2:00pm. £12.00.; £10.00.; £5.00. 60 mins cruise, 2 x sets. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sat 19: Brazen Brass Band: BRASS Boat Cruise @ Elvet Bridge jetty (by the boat club & Tomahawk Steak), Durham City. 12 noon. £12.00.; £10.00.; £5.00. 60 mins cruise, 2 x sets. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sat 19: Party in the Park @ Wharton Park, Durham. 5:00-9:00pm. Free. Ten street brass bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sat 19: Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 19: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 19: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Chopwell Community Centre. 8:00pm.

Sun 20: Streets of Brass @ Durham City. From 11:00am. Free. Various street bands. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sun 20: Always Drinking Marching Band: BRASS Boat Cruise @ Elvet Bridge jetty (by the boat club & Tomahawk Steak), Durham City. 11:00am. £12.00.; £10.00.; £5.00. 60 mins cruise, 2 x sets. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sun 20: New York Brass Band: BRASS Boat Cruise @ Elvet Bridge jetty (by the boat club & Tomahawk Steak), Durham City. 1:00pm. £12.00.; £10.00.; £5.00. 60 mins cruise, 2 x sets. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sun 20: Das Brass: BRASS Boat Cruise @ Elvet Bridge jetty (by the boat club & Tomahawk Steak), Durham City. 3:00pm. £12.00.; £10.00.; £5.00. 60 mins cruise, 2 x sets. A Durham Brass Festival event.
Sun 20: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 20: Pope/Garner/Byrne/Alderson @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE.

Mon 21: Gerry Richardson Quartet @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00. at the door; £8.20. (inc £0.20 bf) online, in advance.
Mon 21: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club (1:00pm). Free.
Mon 21: New Century Syncopated Seven @ 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 23, 2017

Mike had a sense of humour!

The passing of Mike Carr (seen here with guitarist Willie Payne) reminded me of some emails we exchanged a few years ago. His friend Adrian had collated a lot of quotes which Mike hoped would make me laugh as much as they did him.
Well Mike, they certainly did - and still do. Thank You.
Lance.

"Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them." Richard Strauss.
"One of the perks of being an unemployed musician is that you get to play much less bad music." Jack Daney.
"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Aldous Huxley.
"Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself. “Igor Stravinsky.

"Hell is full of musical amateurs." George Bernard Shaw.
"The drummer drives. Everybody else rides!" Panama Francis.
"Some days you get up and put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win. Some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die and the horn wins." Dizzy Gillespie on playing the trumpet.
 "Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one." Duke Ellington.
"Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time." Ornette Coleman.
"We never play anything the same way once. “Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians.
"Someone who knows how to play the accordion, and doesn't." AI Cohn's definition of a gentleman.
"Music is a very hard instrument." Vido Musso.
"The only tune they play in 4/4 is 'Take Five!"' (unknown-talking about the Don Ellis band).
"If I could play like Wynton (Marsalis), I wouldn't play like Wynton. Chet Baker.
"I'm too old to pimp, and too young to die, so I'm just gonna' keep playin'. Clark Terry.
"A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves." Herbie Hancock.
"To be a musician is a curse. To NOT be one is even worse. Jack Daney.
"Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already" Gustav Mahler, to Bruno Walter who had stopped to admire mountain scenery in rural Austria. 
"I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve." Xavier Cugat.
"Musicians talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me businessmen every time. They really are interested in music and art." Jean Sibelius, explaining why he rarely invited musicians to his home.
"Only become.a musician if there is absolutely no other way you can make a living." Kirke Mecham, on his life as a composer.
"I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet." Niccolo Paganini.
What is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste?" Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"Flint must be an extremely wealthy town: I see that each of you bought two or three seats." Victor Borge, playing to a half-filled house in Flint, Michigan.
 "If one hears bad music it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation. “Oscar Wilde.
"Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together." Mel Brooks.
"Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years." William F. Buckley, Jr. 
"You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow." Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket. 
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Mark Twain.
"Berlioz says nothing in his music, but he says it magnificently." James Gibbons Hunekar.
"If a young man at the age of twenty-three can write a symphony like that, in five years he will be ready to commit murder."  Walter Oamrosch on Aaron Copland.
 "There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major." Sergei Prokofiev.
"I never use a score when conducting my orchestra. Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion?" Dimitri Mitropolous.
 "God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way. “Arturo Toscanini to a trumpet player.
"Already too loud! “Bruno Walter at his first rehearsal with an American orchestra, on seeing the players reaching for their instruments.
"I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere." Frederic Chopin.
 "When she started to play, Steinway himself came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano. “Bob Hope, on comedienne Phyllis DilIer.
 "In opera, there is always too much singing." Claude Debussy.
"Oh how wonderful, really wonderful opera would be if there were no singers!" Giacchino Rossini.
"I think popular music in this country is one of the few things in the twentieth century that has made giant strides in reverse." Bing Crosby.
 “A ponderous orchestral absurdity." Frank Zappa on his rock symphony debuted by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
"The bottom line of any country is, what did we contribute to the world? We contributed Louis Armstrong." Tony Bennett.
"It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing!" - Duke Ellington.

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