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Bebop Spoken There

Wendell Brunious: "Because the blues is not 1,4 and 5 or 1,4,5,2,1. You could wake up with a flat tyre or a headache this morning, that's the blues, man" - (DownBeat, Oct. 2023).

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!"

Postage

15878 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 885 of them this year alone and, so far, 83 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Mon 02: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 02: FILM: Wattstax; 50th Anniversary @ Forum Cinema, Hexham. 8:00pm.

Tue 03: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 03: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. House trio: Michael Young (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Sid White (drums). CANCELLED!

Wed 04: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 04: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 04: Paul Skerritt @ Vespa Italian Bar & Steakhouse, Primrose Hill, Jarrow. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 483 3355.
Wed 04: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 05: Sound the Trumpets @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 05: Hot Club du Nord @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00. POSTPONED!
Thu 05: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 05: Tommy Bentz Trio + Mark Croft Duo + George Shovlin & George Lamb @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Harbour View Speakeasy's USA blues double bill + Shovlin & Lamb!
Thu 05: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 05: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 06: Alcyona Mick @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 06: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 2:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Balo @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Fri 06: Lexer/Mayes/Noble + Semay Wu + Miman @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Vault, Hexham. 7:30pm. £20.00. Book in advance. Moreno with Alan Law, Paul Grainger & John Bradford.
Fri 06: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. 'Celebrating Oscar'.
Fri 06: Nu Brass Sounds: Big Brass Bash @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Fri 06: TBC @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Blind Pig Blues Club. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sat 07: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 10:15am. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Hot Club du Nord @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 07: Bugge & Niccols + Moore & Fairhall @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - All the Things You Are. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 07: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 07: Rie Nakajima @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Sat 07: Samuel Blaser Trio + Toxvaerd & Zeeberg + Muramatsu & Welch @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sat 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.

Sun 08: Zoë Gilby Quintet + Ubunye @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Line-up inc. Tony Kofi. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sun 08: Tommy Bentz Band @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. USA blues band.

Friday, November 24, 2017

The BBC Big Band: Swing Legends @ Middlesbrough Theatre - November 22

(Review by Russell)
The BBC Big Band made a rare visit to the region to play a concert at Middlesbrough Theatre with vocalist Jeff Hooper as special guest. As a full house took its seats a star-studded line-up ambled out onto stage bang on time…professional from beginning to end. The BBC’s Big Band Special is long gone from the Radio 2 schedules but the orchestra continues to defy the odds with a concert diary stretching into next year.
Les Brown’s Leap Frog opened the show and the first, albeit brief, soloist to stand up (there was a lot of standing up and sitting down and standing up as a section and sitting down and…) was Paul Booth on tenor. From these parts, well, slightly further north, Booth no doubt felt quite at home. An enthusiastic MD helps, and trooper Barry Forgie is nothing if not enthusiastic about big bands. The evening’s programme ranged across the great big band years and Forgie was keen to tell how the bands back in the day, or rather the band leaders, made small fortunes playing to packed dances, the next big selling 78 eagerly awaited by their adoring public.

Artie Shaw…Begin the Beguine (rec.1938), looking around the auditorium it appeared that one or two members of the audience could have been there first time around! And, what’s more, a dark, drizzly Middlesbrough November evening wasn’t going keep them at home. The trumpet section’s star man Martin Shaw made his way down to front of stage for a flugelhorn feature on Strayhorn’s  Lush Life. As with most of the band, Shaw was making a 600 miles round trip to play on Teesside, and this kind of made it all worthwhile. MD Forgie reckoned Terry Gibbs’ big band was something special, at this point introducing the BBC Big Band’s ‘secret weapon’ Mr Anthony Kerr. Something up tempo? Try Sweet Georgia Brown.

Time for a song. Welcome Mr Jeff Hooper. You know the routine…suave, debonair, this is Vegas, after all. Mack the Knife. One of life’s mysteries…how do vocalists remember the lyrics of this odd, faintly ridiculous, but ever-popular number? No such problems for Hooper, managing to reference the, by now, swinging BBC Big Band. The band motoring, Hooper didn’t miss a beat. Time to take it down a notch; I’ve Got You Under My Skin with Kieran McLeod’s spot on trombone blast, Nancy with the Laughing Face and more.  

Let’s have some Harry James. Vibes man Kerr featured, as did the killing trumpet section, on The Mole. Then some Tommy Dorsey (Opus One), Jimmie Lunceford (For Dancers Only), MD Forgie asked if we were dancing? Not exactly, more a toe-tapping shuffle. Aye, those were the days!

Hard liquor passed few lips during the interval, more like a hard-living choc ice (what the band got up to backstage is another matter!).

Quincey Jones’ arrangement of For Lena and Lennie for the Basie band reintroduced Anthony Kerr with a muted Martin Shaw featuring once again. A set-piece affair brought tenor men Julian Siegel and Paul Booth to front of stage to slug it out Herman’s Herd style on Hallelujah Time. An absolute blast! Phew! Ding! Ding! Break! Our pugilists returned to their cornermen (reeds’ section) Smiles, a score draw. There’ll be a rematch and when it happens, make sure you’re ringside.*  

The BBC Big Band’s pad is probably as comprehensive as any and MD Barry Forgie plucked from it Mood Indigo featuring the latter day Harry Carney, baritone saxophonist Adrian Wilkinson, and a further beautifully executed trumpet part by Martin Shaw. One O’Clock Jump bounded towards the finishing line with one final blast awaiting. Drummer Tom Gordon, a tower of strength throughout, brought the show to a thunderous close with an extended, exhausting solo on Sing, Sing, Sing.          Russell    
                      
*The BBC Big Band will be in concert at Darlington Hippodrome (formerly Darlington Civic Theatre)  on April 10th next year. There is no guarantee Messrs Siegel and Booth will be there, after all, they are very busy musicians, but you wouldn’t want to miss a rematch, would you? Telephone the box office now: 01325 405405.                 

Barry Forgie MD; Jeff Hooper (vocals); Euan Mayne, Danny Marsden, George ?, Martin Shaw (trumpets); Kieran McLeod, Liam Kirkman, Ashley Horton, Peter North (trombones); Julian Siegel, Paul Booth, Alan Barnes, Steve ?, Adrian Wilkinson (reeds); Anthony Kerr (vibes); Robin Aspland (piano); Nick Walsh (double bass); Tom Gordon (drums).  


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