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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

17372 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 656 of them this year alone and, so far, 61 this month (Sept. 17).

From This Moment On ...

September

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: Vieux Carré Hot Four @ The Beehive, Hartley Lane, Earsdon Whitley Bay NE25 0SZ. 4:30pm-6:30pm.
Sat 21: Baghdaddies @ Two by Two, Albion Row, Byker, Newcastle NE6 1RQ. 6:00pm.
Sat 21: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Northumberland Club, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. SOLD OUT!
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!

Tue 24: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv. from Tully’s of Rothbury). Coquetdale Jazz.
Tue 24: Sarah Gillespie @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £16.50. Duo performance with Chris Montague.

Wed 25: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 25: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 25: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 25: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Middlesbrough Theatre. 7:30pm.

Saturday, June 09, 2018

King Bees @ The Magnesia Bank, North Shields - June 8

Michael Littlefield (guitar & vocals); Scott Taylor (vocals, harmonica & guitar); Dominic Hornsby (piano, guitar & vocals); Simon Hedley (double bass) & Giles Holt (drums)
(Review by Russell)
If Friday at the Magnesia Bank isn’t busy then we really are struggling. In time, the punters arrived, the band on stage, back in time Chicago 19 and 55. The King Bees reign supreme playing a brand of South Side Chicago blues you expect to find only in your heavenly dreams. Down the Metro line in town a singer-songwriter inexplicably held 50,000 in his thrall, ready to do it again tonight, then a third time tomorrow night. Make no mistake, the Maggie Bank is where it was at.

Sonny Boy, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Magic Sam…these are the guys to go hear. Yeah, they’re long gone but their music lives on thanks to many a two-bit bar room blues band. Find yourself the best blues band around and it puts things into perspective – King Bees are in a class of their own.
I Don’t Know opined frontman Scott Taylor…Sonny Boy would have approved, no two ways about it. You Got Me Cuckoo protested Michael Littlefield…Little Walter would have sympathised with the man. Taylor, vocals and harmonica to die for, Littlefield, student of rhythm and blues guitar, vocals too, these guys are the business and what’s more they’re probably still the right side of thirty. King Bees’ rhythm section is an unusual beast – Simon Hedley, the senior man of the partnership does it right…he plays double bass, sidekick Giles Holt, most definitely a twenty-something, doesn’t do blues-rock, he’s cut from the Chess Records’ back catalogue…can you hear Fred Below hollerin’ and a whoopin’ in praise of the young man?

Keep it to Yourself insisted Taylor/Sonny Boy, and a delirious Littlefield sang Little Walter: My baby gimme a high temperature, My baby gimme a high temperature, 101 when we kiss and dance, 102 for a night romance, 103, 4 and 5King Bees play the occasional instrumental. First set Hideaway, second set Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, the dancers were up shaking their thing, right in front of the band, on a night that the PA couldn’t have been worse - at one point harmonica ace Taylor a tad afraid to stand close to the mic for fear of an electric shock (!), stepping back to wail and shout on Big Walter’s Hard Hearted Woman.

The band’s piano player is a frontman in the making. Dominic Hornsby rattles the 88s, straps on a guitar from time to time, sings a rollicking Kansas City, yeah, not bad at all. Michael Littlefield is a fifties’ throwback, he’s got the look, he’s got the voice, great guitar too, move on over Louis Jordan, here comes Caldonia!                  

A ropey PA, distracting dancing queens, it all added up to a cracking night of Chicago blues down at the Maggie Bank. King Bees’ residency at Billy Bootleggers resumes July 6th. It’s the only one game in town.   
Russell

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