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Bebop Spoken There

Spasmo Brown: “Jazz is an ice cream sandwich! It's the Fourth of July! It's a girl with a waterbed!”. (Syncopated Times, July, 2024).

The Things They Say!

Hudson Music: Lance's "Bebop Spoken Here" is one of the heaviest and most influential jazz blogs in the UK.

Rupert Burley (Dynamic Agency): "BSH just goes from strength to strength".

'606' Club: "A toast to Lance Liddle of the terrific jazz blog 'Bebop Spoken Here'"

The Strictly Smokin' Big Band included Be Bop Spoken Here (sic) in their 5 Favourite Jazz Blogs.

Ann Braithwaite (Braithwaite & Katz Communications) You’re the BEST!

Holly Cooper, Mouthpiece Music: "Lance writes pull quotes like no one else!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

17372 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 656 of them this year alone and, so far, 61 this month (Sept. 17).

From This Moment On ...

September

Sat 21: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 1:00-2:45pm. Free.
Sat 21: Vieux Carré Hot Four @ The Beehive, Hartley Lane, Earsdon Whitley Bay NE25 0SZ. 4:30pm-6:30pm.
Sat 21: Baghdaddies @ Two by Two, Albion Row, Byker, Newcastle NE6 1RQ. 6:00pm.
Sat 21: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Northumberland Club, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Sat 21: Jude Murphy & Alan Law @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 22: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 22: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 2:30-4:30pm. Free.
Sun 22: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 22: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 22: Richard Herdman @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 22: Remy CB Band @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 8:30pm. Free. Remi, 2024 Newcastle Uni graduate, superb soul/blues voice!

Mon 23: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Paul Booth with the Paul Edis Trio @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00. A Blaydon Jazz Club 40th anniversary concert! SOLD OUT!

Tue 24: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv. from Tully’s of Rothbury). Coquetdale Jazz.
Tue 24: Sarah Gillespie @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £16.50. Duo performance with Chris Montague.

Wed 25: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 25: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 25: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 25: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Middlesbrough Theatre. 7:30pm.

Thu 26: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 26: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘Contemporary Jazz & the Piano’.
Thu 26: The New 58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 26: Jo Harrop & Friends @ Hexham Abbey. 8:00pm. ‘An Evening with Jo Harrop & Friends’. A Hexham Abbey Festival of Music & Arts event. £20.00., £5.00. child/student.
Thu 26: Neil Yates & Tom Remon @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 26: Loco House Band @ Bar Loco, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 26: Tees Hot Club @ Dorma’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. Mark Toomey, Neil Brodie, Graham Thompson, Adrian Beadnell.

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 2:15-4:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Nothing in Rambling @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £10.00. + bf. Upstairs. Acoustic blues duo + Michael Littlefield & Lyndon Anderson.
Fri 27: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Downstairs. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Fri 27: Tim Bloomer Collective @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 27: Jo Harrop @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm. All-star line-up.
Fri 27: Faye MacCalman @ Jesmond Pool, Newcastle. 8:30pm. Tickets £6.00. from: www.seetickets.com. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & improvised Music event in association with Jesmond Pool. Note 16+ only.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Geoff Eales @ The Maltings Jazz Weekend - October 14

Geoff Eales (piano)
(Review by Russell)
Lunchtime Saturday, the rain just about holding off on the second day of the inaugural Maltings’ ‘Jazz Weekend’. Berwick upon Tweed bustled as tourists mingled with locals out shopping, bed and breakfasts advertising ‘no vacancies’, the YHA on Dewar’s Lane doing good business.  
At two o’clock a near capacity Henry Travers Studio audience set off on a whirlwind tour of jazz piano from A to Z through one hundred years and more of the recorded history of the music. An almost impossible task, but if anyone could do it, Geoff Eales was the man. Billed simply as ‘The History of Jazz Piano’ Eales adopted the maxim ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. From Scott Joplin to Geoff Eales, and several superstar pianists in between, the chronology was laid out before us.
Ragtime Scott Joplin – Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer – played by Geoff Eales at the Maltings’ Steinway piano – not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Eales introduced each piece to, one suspects, an audience more than familiar with both pianists and tunes performed. Jelly Roll Morton (Eales) playing Maple Leaf Rag demonstrated the new thing – ‘swing’. It was clear to all that Eales had the history of jazz piano literally at his fingertips.
A Fats Waller medley – Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Honeysuckle Rose – received rapturous applause, likewise Art Tatum and Tea for Two replete with quotes. Eales said: He was like god. A narrative was developing…Oscar Peterson. On hearing Tatum the great Canadian decided to stop playing,   said Eales. Sometime later OP returned to his practice and the rest is (jazz piano) history. Eales headed straight down the historical track on Night Train calling at Bebop Central to take a look at Bud Powell’s Bouncing with Bud and Thelonious Monk’s ’Round Midnight and Well, You Needn’t.
The house lights went up as Eales closed the first set with Errol Garner’s Misty.

As the second set opened, Fred Thelonius Baker was in the house to listen to his old pal Eales in the ‘locked-hands’ style of George Shearing. From Lullaby of Birdland to Bill Evans. Eales took a moment to fondly recall a tour he had undertaken in 2005 playing the music of Evans, adding the itinerary on that occasion sadly didn’t take him as far north as Berwick. Waltz for Debby provided some compensation, and, perhaps, the Welshman will one day return to play a Bill Evans’ concert. Eales made the observation that Evans, Horace Silver and Cecil Taylor were born within a twelve month period (1928-29), yet each went on to forge his own distinctive style…the impressionism of Evans, Silver’s contrasting Blue Note bluesy bop style and the freeform idiom pioneered by Taylor.

Geoff Eales rounded off his entertaining presentation with compositions by a stellar triumvirate of contemporary jazz pianists. McCoy Tyner’s Passion Dance – in an aside Eales suggesting those present with an understanding of such matters would know that Trane’s one-time sparring partner often incorporates fourths rather than thirds in his playing – and ECM mainstay Keith Jarrett’s My Song leading into Chick Corea’s up tempo Armando’s Rhumba.

Eales’ matinee performance comprised a plethora of styles and to think all were expertly executed by one man…Geoff Eales! By way of farewell, Eales played Eales. The Maltings’ Jazz Weekend is in its infancy. On this evidence, it could develop into a fully-fledged Berwick Jazz Festival.                     
Russell                                    

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