DECEMBER 2025
Sun 07: Ian Bosworth Quintet @ Chapel, Middlesbrough. 1:00pm. Free. Feat. special guest Donna Hewitt (sax, clarinet).
Sun 07: Finn-Keeble Group @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 07: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 07: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Sun 07: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 2:30pm. Free. Trio + Ruth Lambert.
Sun 07: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 07: Jason Isaacs Big Band @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 5:15pm (4:00pm doors). £21.50 (inc. bf).
Sun 07: Paul Skerritt @ 3 Stories, High St. West, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Sun 07: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Support set from Play More Jazz! course participants. Note earlier start.
Mon 08: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Tue 09: Jazz Jam Sandwich @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm
Wed 10: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 10: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 10: Jam Session @ The Tannery, Hexham. 7:00pm. Free.
Wed 10: Mike Lindup Jazz Trio @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £26.50 (inc. bf). Lindup, Yolanda Charles (bass), John Sam (drums).
Wed 10: Bold Big Band @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Thu 11: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: West Coast (cool ) / Wordsearch (cool) Cool Jazz or ‘Cold’, ‘Cool’, ‘Hot’, ‘Warm’ in the title or lyrics.
Thu 11: George Robinson @ Prohibition Bar, Albert Road, Middlesbrough TS1 2RU. 7:00pm (doors). £5.42 (inc. bf). Vienna’s Voice charity evening featuring ’15 year old singing sensation the ‘Redcar Crooner’ George Robinson’. Over 35s only.
Thu 11: Paul Skerritt @ Chakh Dhoom, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Indian restaurant. Skerritt w. back tapes.
Thu 11: Ransom Van @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 11: Down for the Count Swing Orchestra @ Middlesbrough Town Hall. 7:30pm. £37.70 (inc. bf). ‘Swing into Xmas’.
Fri 12: Pete Tanton’s Chet Set @ Bishop Auckland Methodist Church. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 12: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 12: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 12: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 12: Milne Glendinning Band @ Northumberland Club, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £15.00. ‘Xmas Soiree’.
Fri 12: A Jazzy Xmas @ St Cuthbert’s Centre, Crook. 7:30pm. £15.00. Paul Edis (MD, piano); Jo Harrop (vocals); Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor sax, soprano sax); Matthew Forster (alto sax, clarinet); Sue Ferris (flute, piccolo); Graham Hardy (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone);Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Champion (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums). SOLD OUT!
Fri 12: Tony Hadley: Xmas Big Band Tour 2025 @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm.
Fri 12: Alexia Gardner @ The New Ship Inn, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. 8:00pm. Gardner, Alan Law, Jude Murphy, Abbie Finn. CANCELLED!
Fri 12: Jive Aces: Swingin’ Xmas Show @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 8:00pm.
Sat 13: A Jazzy Xmas @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 2:00pm. Paul Edis (MD, piano); Jo Harrop (vocals); Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor sax, soprano sax); Faye Thompson (alto sax, clarinet); Sue Ferris (flute, piccolo); Graham Hardy (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone);Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Champion (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums).
Sat 13: Milne Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 13: Teresa Watson Band @ Billy Bootleggers, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sat 13: Washboard Resonators @ The White Room, Stanley. 7:45pm. £14.09 (inc. bf).
Sat 13: Salty Dog @ Alnwick Playhouse. 7:45pm. Americana, blues, jazz.
Sat 13: A Jazzy Xmas @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm. Paul Edis (MD, piano); Jo Harrop (vocals); Vasilis Xenopoulos (tenor sax, soprano sax); Faye Thompson (alto sax, clarinet); Sue Ferris (flute, piccolo); Graham Hardy (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone);Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Champion (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums).
The sad news is that HMV is once again going into administration and, sadly, this time it looks as if Nipper, like HMV's 2000 plus employees, will no longer be the musical face of the High Street.
2 comments :
Well Said !:) Shame about Nipper though 😕
The only thing vinyls have going for them is the album sleeve; so nothing - just buy a poster (my friend bought a magnifying glass to read the liner notes of Mingus' Black Saint). Vinyls were designed specifically for radio play and the artists didn't actually like the snap, crackle and pop.
The problem with downloads/streaming is that people tend not to play the album. Some bands - ie Genesis/ Pink Floyd - have tried to stop people selecting tracks, but nobody takes any notice.
Some people in the media have tried to say CDs never took off, which is patently nonsense. I remember Piers Morgan saying, in a claim befitting of a Dallas scriptwriter, we went from vinyls to downloads.
Five years ago the only people who cared about vinyls were the half a dozen people who weren't sufficiently interested in music to replace their half a dozen vinyls. Does nobody else think it curious that all of these people went back to vinyls at the same time, which just so happens to coincide with the time the media started telling us to; a bit like the Beatles in the nineties.
We flatter ourselves it's about freewill, taste, opinion. There's a very famous essay by Marshall McLuhan called ' the Medium is the Message' (written in the sixties (I think)) where he claims people are more interested in the means of transmission than the content.
The figures are also grossly exaggerated by the media. Just over 4 million last year against nearly 3 million of just one Ed Sheeran album, and over 40 million CDs; the media didn't tell us that; they didn't mention Cds at all.
Since the media tells us that music fans prefer vinyls (vinyls fans prefer vinyls, music fans prefer music), if each one gets one for christmas, one for birthday, one for fathers day, one on vinyls record shop day and one just because they're such big music fans, that's about 2 thousand people buying vinyls.
Last year the BBC claimed that almost half of vinyls bought remained sealed, while they download/stream the music. The vinyls are left lying around as a demonstration of how right-on he is - it's always always stupid, white, straight men.
No doubt it'll be up again this year, now that all us middle class, middle aged, square men got a player last christmas. Christmas, birthday, fathers day presents for life.
I've even heard people say they prefer vinyls because great music is supposed to be difficult, and it requires effort to turn it over after side one and you have to go to a shop or a post-office because it won't fit through a letter-box. I don't think this is what people mean when they say the best music requires effort.
The insistence on vinyls has been catastrophic to the Soul Scene. When I left it in the early nineties, it was the best it's ever been and going in the right direction (in no small part, because of me). I had the best collection of vinyls in the region (probably still unsurpassed) and now have one of the best collections (on CD) in the country, perhaps the world. Now any fool with half a box of not very good vinyls can turn up and play the same rubbish every night and middle-aged men who went to Wigan Casino years too late and haven't been anywhere since will say KTF.
The media tell us that vinyls will save music (like punk-rock and the Beatles) but the reverse is true (in all three cases). The greatest collections of music on a hard copy the world will ever see has been CDs. The good news for me is they're drying up; the bad news is they're rocketing in price. The media don't tell us that either.
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