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Bebop Spoken There

Art Blakey: "You [Bobby Watson] don't want to play too long, because you don't know they're clapping because they're glad you finished!" - (JazzTimes, Nov. 2019)..

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

15848 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 855 of them this year alone and, so far, 53 this month (Sept. 18).

From This Moment On ...

September

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: La Malbec Orchestra @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 21: Linsday Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Ray Stubbs R & B All Stars @ The Schooner, Gateshead. 8:30pm. Free.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: Brief Encounter @ Bardon Mill Village Hall, Northumberland. 7:00pm. Tickets: £10.00. adv from 07885 303166; £12.00. on the door. Chris & Veronica Perrin improvising to a screening of the 1929 'Jazz Age' silent film Piccadilly (Dir. Ewald André Dupont).
Fri 22: Paul Edis & Graeme Wilson + Three Tsuru Origami @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 22: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 22: Abbie Finn's Finntet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 23: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Tanfield Railway, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. Free. A '1940s Weekend' event.
Sat 23: Jason Isaacs @ Stack, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 23: Andrew Porritt & Keith Barrett @ Cullercoats Watch House, Front St., Cullercoats NE30 4QB. 7:00pm.
Sat 23: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Country blues.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 7:00pm.

Tue 26: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.

Wed 27: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 27: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 27: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Saturday, January 06, 2018

King Bees @ Billy Bootleggers – Jan 5

Michael Littlefield (guitar & vocals), Scott Taylor (vocals, harmonica & guitar), Dominic Hornsby (piano, guitar & vocals), Simon Hedley (double bass) & Giles Holt (drums)
(Review by Russell). 
The Downbeat, the Newcastle New Orleans Jazz Club on Forth Banks, Club-A-Gogo, and latterly Crombie’s Jazz Café. Legendary venues, stories galore (apocryphal or not), add Billy Bootleggers to the list.   
Overheard at the bar: I stumbled across this place by chance. Now I come here all the time. The place is Billy Bootleggers, an American dive bar which is packed to the rafters every time. Blues, American beers, a seat if you’re lucky, and a dance floor full of jivers and wannabe jivers in front
of the band. On stage it’s lounge suits, collars loosened, sweat dripping, this is Chicago’s South Side circa 1950 relocated lock, stock and two smokin’ blues barrels to Newcastle, England 2018.

Tonite’s band, the King Bees, fronted by Michael Littlefield and Scott Taylor, delivered the goods. Close your eyes and you were in Chicago. Littlefield’s vocal style incorporates Sonny Boy (I Don’t Know, the evening’s opening number), Otis Rush (If You Were Mine) and Louis Jordan (Caldonia).  His guitar playing,  obsessive in its quest for authenticity, Littlefield’s approach is that of the Chicago guitar greats – he isn’t interested in flashy solos. Scott Taylor is a mean harp player (frustratingly a little low in the mix) with a terrific blues voice (Big Walter Horton’s Hard Hearted Woman). Dominic Hornsby could be Otis Spann playing piano, and he played guitar, and he sang. A talented young man. Talking of talent, the towering Simon Hedley’s double bass playing cut through – a welcome change from the usual, pragmatic electric bass alternative of so many blues band bass players. A young man sat obscured behind Littlefield and Taylor. His name? Giles Holt. Occupation? Rhythm and blues drummer par excellence. Secreted in the corner, not seen all night but heard playing the drums that many can’t/don’t/won’t play. Holt’s restrained style is to die for.                       
An unexpected instrumental, the only one of the night, covered for Littlefield as he changed a rare broken string, with the band playing Don’t Get Around Much Anymore. Restrung, Littlefield and co ripped through their set list culminating in no fewer than three encores with the band referencing a legendary early sixties appearance at Newport by Muddy Waters as the King Bees played Got My Mojo Working not once but twice! And, of course, Hoochie Coochie Man.The King Bees gig around town (Billy Bootleggers is the place to hear them), be sure to check them out, they’re the business.       
Russell.

2 comments :

Stewartd said...

Spot on Russell - I was there too, and will be back next month for their residency!

Anonymous said...

I was there too. Love this venue and loved the band. Spot on when it comes to the guitarist too - nothing your average person would call flashy but as a guitarist myself, I really appreciated his style - so authentic and so tasteful.

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