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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

17346 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 630 of them this year alone and, so far, 35 this month (Sept. 11).

From This Moment On ...

September

Tue 17: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ The Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval. 12:30pm. £13.00. Tel: 0191 237 3697. ‘Indian Summer Afternoon Tea’.
Tue 17: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:00-5:00pm. Free.
Tue 17: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Joe Steels (guitar); Paul Grainger (double bass); Abbie Finn (drums).

Wed 18: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 18: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 18: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 18: Hot Club of Heaton @ Elder Beer, Heaton, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘third Wednesday in the month’ session.

Thu 19: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 19: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 19: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. THC with guests Kevin Eland, Dan Johnson, Jeremy McMurray, Ron Smith.

Fri 20: Lindsay Hannon’s Tom Waits for No Man @ Gala Theatre, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 20: Rob Hall & Chick Lyall @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. Free (donations). SOLD OUT!
Fri 20: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 20: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 20: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 20: Leeway @ 1719, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. The Old Black Cat Jazz Club. CANCELLED!
Fri 20: Gaz Hughes Trio @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 21: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 1:00-2:45pm. Free.
Sat 21: Baghdaddies @ Two by Two, Albion Row, Byker, Newcastle NE6 1RQ. 6:00pm.
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!

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Graeme Wilson Quartet @ The Jazz Café - Jan 19


Graeme Wilson (tenor & baritone saxophones, bass clarinet, flute & whistling), Paul Edis (keyboards, flute & whistling), Andy Champion (bass, double bass, flute & whistling) & Adam Sinclair (drums & whistling)  
(Review and flute trio photo by Russell/quartet photo courtesy of Mike Tilley).
We know the Graeme Wilson Quartet, we know what to expect, or rather we did. This Newcastle Jazz Café date produced surprise upon surprise. The atmospheric first-floor performance space works best when there is a good crowd in and as the first set was about to get underway the few remaining seats were being snapped up.
Composer, multi-instrumentalist, Honourary Geordie, Graeme Wilson arrived from his Edinburgh home to link up once again with pals Paul Edis, Andy Champion and Adam Sinclair. Wilson said there would be lots of new material (premiere pieces, no less!), and there was, together with two tracks from the quartet’s excellent CD Sure Will Hold a Boat. Wilson opened on tenor saxophone playing a new number titled Hyvot Mill. It bore all the hallmarks of a Graeme Wilson composition with its intricate harmonic structure (the lads were concentrating hard, real hard!) and ‘slow burn’ tenor solo culminating in near volcanic eruption only for our tenor man to take it down then out.
Five Floors Up from Sure Will Hold a Boat heard yet more wonderful tenor playing by Wilson and, as the bandleader took a breather, the trio – Edis, keyboards, Champion, double bass and Adam Sinclair, drums – stretched out in classic piano trio style before Wilson returned to lead the quartet in a most entertaining whistled coda. A new tune without a title prompted Wilson to announce that   Profane Drawings of Trees would suffice. An urgent, swift opening (this had the makings of a new favourite number), the composition’s title inspired by the nineteenth-century novelist James Hogg, pianist Edis crafting a fine solo, inviting the brilliant Sinclair to engage in musical conversation.

Spinning Slowly from Sure Will Hold a Boat featured Sinclair’s imperious, ever-so-slow percussion work (a master at work). A good idea would be to acquire the album – let’s call it a ‘recommended purchase’. Oh, a new album is in the pipeline, watch this space.                 

Earlier your eagle-eyed BSH correspondent spied Wilson’s baritone saxophone lying to one side of the stage…difficult to miss given that it isn’t something easily concealed in a jacket pocket. Golden Gate is a composition that Wilson took along to a rehearsal session by the sadly now defunct John Warren Splinter Group. That rehearsal session would be the last time the orchestra met, as shortly after, the pride of the north east of England would disband due to early-onset austerity cuts. Wilson put the charts away in his study drawer, to be dusted off one day. That day was January 19, 2018. The Jazz Café audience heard the premiere public performance of the tune, a tune Wilson was at pains to point out was named after the Golden Gate Quartet, a magnificent gospel vocal quartet at its peak in the thirties (second-hand vinyl recordings of the Golden Gate Quartet are scarce, one of which resides on the shelves of your reviewer). Amazingly, Wilson’s facility on baritone is equal to his tenor playing, and he’s more than adept on other instruments…

Second set, likely to settle down, fewer surprises. No chance! Flautists Wilson, Edis and Champion – yes, three flutes on stage! – began the set playing an intro to a new chart, Wilson’s After School. Is there no end to their talents? Apparently not! Adam Sinclair wasn’t to be left out, once again the amiable drummer par excellence showing what he could do ahead of our three Pied Pipers taking it out. Why Are You Staring at Me? saw Andy Champion switching to electric bass (echoes of Shiver and other outfits) bookended by Edis’ wonky harpsichord contribution. At its conclusion bandleader Wilson led the applause for ‘Paul Edis on harpsichord’. Moments earlier review notes read: wonky harpsichord. It’s good to be in accord, wonky or not.

Wilson like crosswords (each to their own) and took great delight in discovering ‘brainless act’ is an anagram of bass clarinet! At which point, our man picked up his bass clarinet. The reed didn’t quite behave itself, necessitating a change as Andy Champion, on double bass once more, played a fine solo; considered, restrained, chops in check. The tune? A Dwindling (another new one). The Bold Sammy (referencing firebrand and scourge of the establishment, novelist James Kelman) featured Wilson (tenor) and drummer Sinclair on what would be the penultimate number of the evening. The final tune, yet another new one – Friction Motor – did what a closing number should do, knock ’em dead. That doesn’t tell half the story. This was masterful stuff with its stop time device, the counting in the head (band and audience!), the elision of rip-roaring, full-on sections into swing time feel and back again. Brilliant, quite simply, brilliant.  
Russell. 

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