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Bebop Spoken There

James Brandon Lewis: "Sometimes I'm not thinking about anything other than blowing the paint off the walls, and other times I'm narrating a story about my life." - (DownBeat June 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

15516 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 536 of them this year alone and, so far, 25 this month (June 7).

From This Moment On ...

Sat 10: Miners' Picnic @ Woodhorn, Ashington. Music inc. Northern Monkey Brass Band (3:00-3:50pm); New York Brass Band (4:00-4:55pm).
Sat 10: Jeffrey Hewer @ The Vault, Darlington Covered Market, Darlington. 6:00-8:00pm. Free.
Sat 10: Front Porch Three @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Americana, blues, jazz etc.
Sat 10: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 11: WORKSHOP: Tim Richards' Jazz Piano Workshop @ JG Windows, Newcastle. Time TBC. Further details tel. 0191 232 1356.
Sun 11: Jeremy McMurray's Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Ropner Park, Stockton TS18 4EF. 2:00-4:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 11: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 11: Groovetrain @ Innisfree Sports & Social Club, Longbenton NE12 8TY. Doors 6:30pm. £15.00 (£7.00. under 16).
Sun 11: Jeffrey Hewer Collective @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 11: Jam No. 19 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 12: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 13: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 13: Infusion Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:30pm.
Tue 13: Alice Grace & Pawel Jedrzejewski @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 8:00pm. £12.00 (£10.00. adv.).

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 14: NUJO Final Jazz Jam @ Bar Loco, Newcastle. 6:30pm. Free. Newcastle University Jazz Orchestra's final jam session of the academic year. All welcome.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 15: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 15: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 2:30-4:30pm. £2.00. All welcome.
Thu 15: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Thu 15: Alexander Ord Trio @ Tynedale Beer & Cider Festival, Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. Evening, time TBC.
Thu 15: Têtes de Pois + Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. Time TBC.
Thu 15: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.

Fri 16: Sue Ferris Quintet @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 16: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 16: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 16: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 16: Stu Collingwood @ Baltic, Gateshead. 7:00pm. £15.75. A Let's Caper event featuring exhibitions, food, music etc.
Fri 16: Steve Beresford-Hannah Marshall-John Butcher @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:30pm. JNE promotion.
Fri 16: James Taylor Quartet @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Fri 16: Customs House Big Band @ Customs House, South Shields. 7:30pm.
Fri 16: Sue Ferris Quintet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm.
Fri 16: New Orleans Brass Band @ Billy Bootlegger's, Arch 2, Stepney Bank, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. NOBB directed by Jason Holcomb.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Historic jazz TV programme recreated for the modern era

***DOWNLOAD VIDEO CLIP AND ADDITIONAL IMAGES HERE***
(Press release)
A golden era of music television has been faithfully recreated at Birmingham City University, as part of a major new research project looking at jazz broadcasting in the 1960s.

As well as encompassing archival research and interviews with former production staff, the study involved transforming the University’s main TV studio to simulate how a jazz programme was made. This included scrutinising the technical decisions faced by television crews and improvising musicians at each stage of producing such a broadcast.

Following months of planning, on Tuesday 22 May, Birmingham City University’s TV Studio A was transformed to evoke the aesthetics of a 1960s BBC jazz programme. Led by director Mark Kershaw, and featuring a crew of former BBC employees and current Birmingham City University students, the team utilised cutting-edge facilities in the University’s £62 million Parkside Building to precisely record the role of improvisation in the relationship between a television crew, their equipment and a contemporary working jazz group.



In a loving homage to the legendary BBC jazz concert show, ‘Jazz 625’ – so titled because the newly launched BBC Two was broadcasting on 625-UHF lines (the HD of the time) – the Birmingham City University production has been named ‘Jazz 1080’, reflecting the technological leap in broadcasting since the 1960s. In order to realise this modern incarnation, the researchers and crew worked from original documentation sourced from the BBC Written Archive in Caversham.

Presented by Birmingham rapper Juice Aleem, the 50-minute programme featured performances by rising stars from the West Midlands jazz scene. Xhosa Cole (tenor saxophone), Lee Griffiths (alto saxophone), James Owston (double bass), Euan Palmer (drums) and Eyituoyo Awala (piano) – known as The Xhosa Cole Quintet – treated the studio audience to classic works by renowned artists such as Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie.

The ambitious project came to fruition as a result of Dr Nicolas Pillai, based in the institution’s Birmingham School of Media, who secured a prestigious Early Career Research Leadership Fellowship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

He said the funding, worth nearly £170,000, is allowing him to look ahead to the future of music television, as well as considering its past:

“Producing ‘Jazz 1080’ has changed the way I think about television. As an academic, it’s tempting to stick with what you know – documents in the archive – but this project is teaching me that you can only really understand the creative decisions of the past through reliving them. Production meetings with our ex-BBC crew have convinced me that what ends up on screen depends upon the dynamic of those working behind the camera.

“Nothing prepares you for the intensity of the production gallery during a live shoot, as your director guides the cameras around musicians in complex choreography. When you’re recording this way, as live in the manner of ‘Jazz 625’, the crew are improvising with as much dexterity and imagination as the musicians.”
  
As well as giving Dr Pillai insight into the production processes of television, the project has offered Birmingham City University students the opportunity to work alongside experienced professionals who instruct at the BBC Wood Norton training academy.
 
Across two days, undergraduates from Birmingham School of Media were taught the disciplines of working on a multi-camera set and the intricacies of sound recording, studio lighting and camera operation.

Understanding production techniques of the past will give these young media professionals an edge as they embark upon their careers, Dr Pillai suggests:

“For me, the most enjoyable aspect of the shoot was seeing our students leap into the unknown with such enthusiasm and energy. We asked a lot of them and they delivered with great professionalism. Our finished programme is a testament to their potential, as well as being a record of an exciting moment in the Birmingham jazz scene, personified by The Xhosa Cole Quintet.

“Ultimately, ‘Jazz 1080’ is a tribute to a way of working within light entertainment at the BBC. My hope is that our programme will turn the spotlight back onto a wonderful period of music television, when visionary producers like Terry Henebery changed the way that this country thought about jazz.”

‘Jazz 1080’ is one output of the larger AHRC-funded research project – ‘Jazz on BBC-TV 1960-1969’ – and is being facilitated by the Jazz Research cluster at Birmingham City University, which is led by Professors Nicholas Gebhardt and Tony Whyton, as well as Dr Nicolas Pillai.

Although only five years old, the cluster boasts more than 40 members, including 10 jazz researchers from across Birmingham School of Media and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, eight doctoral students and leaders of the regional jazz community, as well as additional academic partners at University of Warwick, University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) and University of Music and the Performing Arts Graz (Austria).

Furthermore, the University’s new £57 million Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is home to Eastside Jazz Club, the first permanent jazz space in any UK conservatoire. In 2017, the Conservatoire launched its big band Ellington Orchestra, who are a regular fixture in the club.

Issued by Birmingham City University, Press Office.
Tel: 0121 331 6738, Email: press@bcu.ac.uk


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