Total Pageviews

HOWAY THE LADS!

Bebop Spoken There

John McLaughlin: '' A Love Supreme coincided with my search for meaning in life". (DownBeat, March 2025).

The Things They Say!

This is a good opportunity to say thanks to BSH for their support of the jazz scene in the North East (and beyond) - it's no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for them many, many fine musicians, bands and projects across a huge cross section of jazz wouldn't be getting reviewed at all, because we're in the "desolate"(!) North. (M & SSBB on F/book 23/12/24)

Postage

17873 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 194 of them this year alone and, so far, 41 this month (March 14).

From This Moment On ...

MARCH 2025.

Sat 15: Hot Teapots @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 15: Lagos to Longbenton + Belladonna @ Whitley Bay Big Social, Whitley Road, Whitley Bay. 2:00pm. Free. Afrobeat/jazz fusion + soul/funk/R&B
Sat 15: Creakin’ Bones @ Billy Bootleggers. Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free.
Sat 15: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 15: Is This Jazz? @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk. Performances by Mu Quintet, Jinjé, A Brief Utopia, John Pope & Co + André Marmot (author of Unapologetic Expression: The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosion) in conversation + DJ sets ‘til 3:00am. ‘A Festival of New Jazz’.
Sat 15: Vintage Explosion @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm. SOLD OUT!
Sat 15: Alligator Gumbo @ The Forum, Darlington. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Sat 15: One Night Standards @ The White Room, Stanley. 8:00pm. £8.67 (inc. bf). Note - previously advertised Salty Dogs cancelled.
Sat 15: Howlin’ Mat @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Blues guitar.

Sun 16: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 1:00-2:45pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sun 16: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 16: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 16: Pearl Blossoms @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Ragtime.
Sun 16: Hot 8 Brass Band @ Wylam Brewery. 7:30pm. ‘Big Tuba Tour’.
Sun 16: ARQ @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 16: Air4ce @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:30pm (8:00pm doors). £12.00.; £10.00. Tom Atkinson’s all-star band (line-up inc. Lindsay Hannon & Sue Ferris).
Sun 16: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 17: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 17: Jamie Toms Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

Tue 18: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Laurence Harrison, Paul Grainger, Tim Johnston.
Tue 18: Phil Bancroft’s Beautiful Storm @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £13.20 & £11.00.. A JNE-Gem Arts co-promotion.

Wed 19: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 19: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 19: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 20: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 20: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Nicknames.
Thu 20: Terri Green Experience @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £15.90.
Thu 20: Lindsay Hannon Trio @ The Harbour View, Roker, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Hannon’s ‘Tom Waits for No Man’ set.
Thu 20: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Mill Tavern, Hebburn. 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 21: Paul Skerritt @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 21: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 21: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 21: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 21: Giles Strong Quartet @ 1719, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. CANCELLED!
Fri 21: New Century Ragtime Orchestra @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Featuring special guest Martin Litton (piano).

Reviewers wanted

Whilst BSH attempts to cover as many gigs, festivals and albums as possible, to make the site even more comprehensive we need more 'boots on the ground' to cover the albums seeking review - a large percentage of which never get heard - report on gigs or just to air your views on anything jazz related. Interested? then please get in touch. Contact details are on the blog. Look forward to hearing from you. Lance

Thursday, June 28, 2018

JazzLeeds Festival - July 19-24.

Allan Friswell talked to Steve Crocker about the much expanded 2018 LeedsJazz Festival posted here by the kind permission of Steve Crocker.
----- 
Steve Crocker has been a mainspring of Leeds jazz for many years. A highly experienced jazz double bass player who worked with Harry Edison, Kenny Davern, Bob Wilbur, Jimmy Witherspoon and Art Farmer amongst others, he’s also a respected radio presenter, promoter and organiser of jazz, and has worked tirelessly to encourage this music at venues throughout Leeds. He talks here about this year’s ambitious JazzLeeds Festival (July 19 – 24).
Given that there are already several major jazz festivals in the north, why do you feel Leeds needs to provide another?
Leeds has always been a fantastic city for jazz. The College of Music offered Europe’s first-ever jazz course 50 years ago and produced alumni like Alan Barnes, Dave Newton and Chris Batchelor. The first woman big band leader in the UK, Ivy Benson, was born in Leeds. There are currently 24 venues here putting on regular jazz events. But so far it’s been an undiscovered city for the outside world, whereas the festivals in other northern towns and cities have thrived. Given the extraordinary amount of high-quality music produced in Leeds, the musical talent in the city deserves to be much better known.
How did the Leeds One Day Jazz Festival go last year?
Oh, it went very well. It let us test the water with free jazz concerts in Millennium Square, jazz workshops and a ticketed evening concert. All of these proved very popular so last year’s success has given us the confidence to put on a six-day festival in the city this year.
A big programme! Tell us something about it.
We launch the festival on 19 July in one of Leeds’ jazz cradles, Seven Arts in Chapel Allerton. The opening big band, Leeds Youth Jazz Rock Orchestra led by Brendan Duffy is made up of musicians still at school, which in itself says a great deal about the healthy state of the jazz scene here. And the festival then rolls out until the following Tuesday, like a long weekend! There are three main venues - The Wardrobe, the College of Music, and Millennium Square. We’ve over 300 musicians playing in 50 bands performing everything from traditional jazz via swing dance band music through to free-improvisation. And there will be small jazz groups busking in the city and even an “Otley Jazz Run” with street band Bassa Bassa to whet appetites for free!
And Leeds has so much social history attached to its jazz which we rarely hear about. So we’ll remember Duke Ellington’s 1958 Odeon concert when he met The Queen and in her honour wrote the now rarely heard Queen’s Suite. Some people may remember Studio 20, the city’s top 1950s jazz club, now the Sela Bar, where top British jazz musicians like Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes would play, drink the rest of the night and go back blearily to London on the milk train! The Carriageworks is staging a special play about those days written by Leeds author Chris Nickson, along with an exhibition of many b & w photographs of the place and players by the late Leeds photographer Terry Cryer.  Then our final festival concert will be a celebration of the music of Xero Slingsby, Leeds’s late-great punk-jazz sax player featuring the Shuffledemons from Canada.
What of the New Jazz Wave coming through the festival?
We’re showcasing a number of young players who are driving up the extraordinary renewed interest in jazz not merely in London but across the country. Nubya Garcia leads the London Jazz Warriors-born group Nérija. Archipelago bring their fusion of garage-rock and avant-garde, while from Leeds we have Têtes De Pois, who play jazz with added soul and Latin / Afro beats; and Morpher, a contemporary experimental jazz trio.
How much of the Festival’s music is played by past or present College of Music students?
The College influences not just the festival but jazz performances across the UK every year. They produce amazingly creative and technically very able young jazz musicians playing everything from jazz standards to their own original material. Some stay here, others move on to settle elsewhere, of course, but the College is a superb source of UK jazz for the future.
And finally, what do you hope will be the legacy of this year’s festival?
By Leeds 2023, the city’s year-long year celebration of culture, we want to have established a still larger ten-day international jazz festival which will rival the best in the UK and the world.      


No comments :

Blog Archive