Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Steve Fishwick: “I can’t get behind the attitude that new is always somehow better than old” - Jazz Journal, April 15, 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!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Postage

16034 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 1041 of them this year alone and, so far, 73 this month (Nov. 27).

From This Moment On ...

November

Wed 29: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 29: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 29: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 7:30pm (7:00pm doors). Tickets: £25.00. inc. buffet. A Gatsby themed evening.
Thu 30: Jools Holland's R & B Orchestra @ Newcastle City Hall. 7:30pm.
Thu 30: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 30: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. Guest band night: Mark Toomey Quintet (Mark Toomey, sax; Paul Donnelly, guitar; Jeremy McMurray, keys; Peter Ayton, bass; Mark Robertson, drums). 9:00pm.

December
Fri 01: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 01: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 01: Paul Skerritt @ All Saints’ Church, Eastgate, Co. Durham. 7:00pm. Xmas Tree Fest.
Fri 01: Alligator Gumbo @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm.
Fri 01: Nu Sound Brass @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Fri 01: Struggle Buggy w. Jim Murray @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Blind Pig Blues Club. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 02: Paula Jackman's Jazz Masters @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 02: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 02: Abbie Finn Trio @ Claypath Deli, Durham. 7:00pm.
Sat 02: Tenement Jazz Band @ John Marley Centre, Newcastle. Swing Tyne Winter Social. £8.00. + bf. Advance purchase only, no admission at the door. BYOB. Lindy hop workshop from 11:00am. £39.00.
Sat 02: Zoë Gilby Quartet @ The Masham, Hartburn Village, Stockton. 7:00pm. Feat. Noel Dennis.
Sat 02: Classic Swing @ The Nuthatch, 9 - 11 Bedford St, Middlesbrough TS1 2LL. 7:00-9:00pm. Classic Swing in trio format.
Sat 02: Paul Skerritt w. Danny Miller Big Band @ Westovian Theatre, South Shields. 7:30pm.
Sat 02: Vermont Big Band @ Whitley Bay FC. 7:30pm. £10.00. (inc. hot buffet). Tickets available from WBFC’s Seahorse pub club house.
Sat 02: Milne-Glendinning Band @ Ponteland Social Club, Northumberland. 7:30pm. £18.00 (inc. stotties & soup supper). A fundraiser for Hexham Constituency Labour Party.
Sat 02: Tom Remon & Laurence Harrison @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 02: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. Xmas party night inc. buffet & special raffle. £3.00.
Sat 02: Groovetrain @ The Unionist Club, Laygate, South Shields. 9:00pm.

Sun 03: The Central Bar Quartet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00. The Central Bar Quartet plays Lou Donaldson’s Gravy Train. Featuring Jamie Toms.
Sun 03: Paul Skerritt @ Smith’s Arms, Carlton, Stockton-on-Tees. 7:00pm.
Sun 03: Johnny Hunter Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 03: Jam session @ The Schooner, Gateshead. 8:00pm. Free.

Mon 04: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 04: Northern Monkey Brass Band @ People’s Kitchen, Bath Lane, Newcastle. From 5:30pm. On-street gig supporting the work of the People’s Kitchen charity. Wrap up warm! Donate!
Mon 04: Michael Young Trio w Lindsay Hannon @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 7:00pm. Free.
Mon 04: James Birkett Trio @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £8.00.
Mon 04: Durham University Jazz Orchestra + Durham University Big Band @ Durham Castle DH1 3RW. 8:30pm. £6.00.; £5.00. concs; £4.00. DSM. ‘Jazzy Christmas’.

Tue 05: Customs House Big Band @ All Saints Church, Cleadon. 7:00pm. Concert in the church hall. BYOB.
Tue 05: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Michael Young, Paul Grainger, Sid White. The best free show in town!

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.

No comments :

Blog Archive