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Bebop Spoken There

Branford Marsalis: "As ignorance often forces us to do, you make a generalisation about a musician based on one specific record or one moment in time." - (Jazzwise 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

15491 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 512 of them this year alone and, so far, 133 this month (May 31).

From This Moment On ...

June

Sat 03: Newcastle Record Fair @ Northumbria University, Newcastle NE8 8SB. 10:00am-3:00pm. Admission: £2.00.
Sat 03: Pedigree Jazz Band @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 03: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Sue Ferris. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 03: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 03: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 03: Papa G's Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 04: Smokin' Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm.
Sun 04: Central Bar Quintet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. £5.00. The Central Bar Quintet plays Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus. Featuring Lewis Watson.
Sun 04: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 04: Struggle Buggy + Michael Littlefield @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Acoustic blues.
Sun 04: Swinging at the Cotton Club: Harry Strutters' Hot Rhythm Orchestra @ The Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Sun 04: Richard Jones Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 04: Jam No. 18 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 05: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 06: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 06: Jam session @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 7:30pm. House trio: Stu Collingwood (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Sid White (drums).

Wed 07: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 07: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 07: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 07: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 08: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free. CANCELLED! BACK ON JUNE 15.
Thu 08: Easington Colliery Brass Band @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00.
Thu 08: Faye MacCalman + Blue Dust Archive @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 08: Dilutey Juice + Ceramic @ The Ampitheatre, Sea Road, South Shields. 7:00pm. Free. A South Tyneside Festival event.
Thu 08: Lara Jones w. Vigilance State @ Lubber Fiend, Blandford Square, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 08: Michael Littlefield @ the Harbour View, Roker, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Country blues.
Thu 08: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Fri 09: Emma Rawicz @ Sage Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Jazz at the Lescar, Sheffield: The Josh Schofield Quartet – Oct. 24

Josh Schofield (alto); Olly Chalk (piano); Sam Ingvarsen (bass); Billy Weir (drums).
(Review by Steve T)
The venue is a backroom in a bar, just like many backrooms in many bars across the country; In the summer, we went to another one just like it in Sheffield to see a Zappa tribute band.

But this backroom in this bar is the site of the 2018 Parliamentary Jazz Awards venue of the year, and we at Bebop Spoken Here know a thing or two about the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, or at least we know a man who does.

Jazz at the Lescar is the brainchild of Jez Matthews, who's all over this night and I've no doubt the charisma and enthusiasm he exudes wouldn't have gone unnoticed by our Right Honourable jazz friends who hand out the awards. His hospitality is of the above and beyond variety too.

It was two bands on a weekly Wednesday night playing to an enthusiastic crowd of just under forty: young and old, men and women. With myself down to a single arm, (and not my drinking or driving arm), a son at University in Sheffield with the inevitable freshers’ flu, and a long-suffering Mrs. T with a long drive home and work the next day, it was agreed beforehand we'd only do the first band.

The Josh Schofield Quartet are Birmingham Conservatoire alumni and I'd received a tip-off they're kick-ass hot, or something to that effect, in a twenty-year-old's jazz parlance. My informant proved a reliable source.

The band operates In The Year of Coltrane (AC), suits and no ties all around a great look for this type of stuff.  A bold opening that I'd never have guessed was Strayhorn, with sax then piano,  nothing much by way of recurring melody, expertly delivered fours closing things to rapturous applause and some serious whooping, not least from our host.  

A slow piano introduced an original in need of a name (sounds like a song title), before it became a pacey group piece, which presently crashed into a bass-led further change in tempo, and a tastefully understated solo before drums took it out.

A Trane piece was followed by one from Shorter - the man some called 'young John Coltrane' before he came out from under the shadow as a jazz giant in his own right - just in case anybody hadn't yet guessed where this band is coming from.

A drum intro went into another head. I've no idea if or when I've heard it before and I love it when that happens, the bass player getting funky with his upright, keeping things fresh and varied.
The pace was upped again for a barnstorming final piece, the piano, following his solo with some impressionistic playing behind the sax before it, in turn, morphed into something almost, but not quite Impressions. Either I'm missing something (which is perfectly possible) or this was something extremely clever and complex, delivered with subtlety, ambition and a perfectly judged level of reverence. Extraordinary.

With an exciting programme, anybody with a forthcoming mid-week excursion to the Sheffield area is sorted, and I'd love to see the Josh Schofield quartet again, somewhere in the North East perhaps. 
Steve T.

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