September at The Jazz Cafe - from the 1920s to Infinity

(Press release/Fisk/Birkett photo by Lance - Noonan photo courtesy of Ken Drew))

The Jazz Café will be hosting two major events during September: Emma Fisk’s Hot Club Du Nord plus Birkett and Fisk on Friday 15 and Sean Noonan’s Memorable Sticks on Friday 22.

Both Hot Club Du Nord and the duo of Birkett and Fisk are led by the virtuoso jazz violin of Emma Fisk and feature the walking compendium of early jazz guitar styles, James Birkett. The duo recreates the music of Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, the Italian - American pioneers of hot violin and guitar jazz in the 1920s and 30s. The quartet takes a fresh look at the classic 1930s and 40s Hot Club repertoire of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli who, influenced by Venuti and Lang and, in Django’s case, under the noses of the Nazis, became the first European jazz stars. A welcome return by both bands to The Jazz Café and a treat for connoisseurs of swinging string jazz and lovers of all things vintage. www.hotclubdunord.co.uk

Brooklyn drummer, storyteller and composer Sean Noonan’s concept is, in the words of the New York Jazz Record, “as original as a fingerprint.” The New York Music Daily agreed: “Drummer-composers seldom write as intricate, elaborate, or haunting music as Sean Noonan does. The powerhouse drummer draws equally on Bartok, early Can, jazz, Balkan and avant garde theatre music.”

Sean Noonan sees himself as a modern-day sonic griot, wandering the globe gathering stories, legends, and folklore like a punk-jazz Alan Lomax. The treasures that he finds along the way are filtered through his distinctive vision to become the unpredictable and far-ranging sounds of his wide-spectrum music, combining discoveries from harmolodic jazz, bleeding-edge rock, and avant-garde classical music.

Sean Noonan’s Memorable Sticks Electric Trio - Johnny Richards keyboards, Michael Bardon bass and Sean drums & storytelling - will perform selections from their September 30 Haldern Pop Label release “Man No Longer Me”, which is about the transformation of a man who gets tickled by a sunbeam one morning on a mountain top, and who, as the story progresses, wanders and gets lost in a desert and transforms into a coyote.

 https://seannoonanmusic.com

Both gigs are upstairs in The Jazz Café, 25-27 Pink Lane, Newcastle NE1 5DW

Birkett & Fisk/Hot Club Du Nord - Fri 15^th Sept 9.00pm (Doors 8.30pm) - £8.00 / £6.00 concessions from The Jazz Café 0191 222 9882 or online from www.seetickets.com

Sean Noonan Memorable Sticks – Fri 22^nd Sept 9.00pm (Doors 8.30pm) - £8.00 (£6.00 advance from The Jazz Café 0191 9882)