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Bebop Spoken There

Steve Coleman: ''If you don't keep learning, your mind slows down. Use it or lose it''. (DownBeat, January 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

17733 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 53 of them this year alone and, so far, 53 this month (Jan. 20).

From This Moment On ...

January 2025

Wed 22: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 22: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 22: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 22: Pasadena Roof Orchestra @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.

Thu 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free. Fortnightly.
Thu 23: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Obituaries 2024.
Thu 23: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:30-6:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Thu 23: Pedal Point Trio @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Fri 24: Zoë Gilby Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 24: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 24: Creakin’ Bones & the Sunday Dinners @ Lindisfarne Social Club, Wallsend. 9:00pm. Admission: TBC. Jazz, blues , jump jive, rock ‘n’ roll.

Sat 25: Boys of Brass @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 25: New '58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson's Wharf, Hartlepool. 6:30pm (doors). Free. A Burns' Night event. Jazz, swing, funk, soul, blues etc.
Sat 25: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 25: Red Kites Jazz @ Parish Hall, St Barnabas’ Church, Rowlands Gill. 7:30pm. £10.00. BYOB (tea & coffee available), raffle. Proceeds to St Barnabas’ Church. Performance feat. Shayo (vocals).
Sat 25: Jack & Jay’s Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 26: Musicians Unlimited @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: Graham Hardy Eclectic Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 26: Ruth Lambert Trio @ The Juke Shed, Union Quay, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 26: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Barrels Ale House, Berwick-upon-Tweed. 7:30pm. Free.
Sun 26: Gratkowski, Tramontana, Beresford, Affifi @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.00. JNE.
Sun 26: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 27: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 28: ???

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

Thu 30: Matters Unknown (aka Jonathan Enser, Nubiyan Twist) + support TBA @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm (7:00pm doors). £12.22 (gig & food); £9:04 (gig only).
Thu 30: Soznak @ The Mill Tavern, Hebburn. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 30: Struggle Buggy @ Harbour View, Roker, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Rhythm & blues.

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

Monday, December 03, 2018

Royal Northern College of Music plays Frank Zappa: Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance @ Union, Metropolitan University, Manchester, Nov. 30

(Review by Steve T)

Five tickets left at the start of the week but I had to wait until Wednesday to find out if I could drive. Worth the risk? Worth spending four times longer in the car than the time the band were on the stage? Hell yes!

A medley from the Make a Jazz Noise Here album, though it goes back even further, to the Ahead of Their Time album recorded in ‘68, and the whole bunch of them are cross-fertilising rock with classical music, infused in a baroque style and the whole thing underpinned with a jazz sensibility.

The segue from Oh No to Son of Orange County (on Weazels Ripped my Flesh and  Ahead) is one of the most resounding tension resolutions in the whole of Zappa, but loses something on this version where the latter is taken at a syncopated, almost novelty pace. Furthermore, this version of the medley leads into a jingly jangly, country and western(ish) style version of  Lumpy Gravy, which plays to the view of Zappa as a comedy, novelty act.*

The horns dropped out for Peaches en Regalia, which opens Hot Rats - Britain's Favourite Zappa album - and March played the guitar parts heavily laden with effects, which isn't how Zappa played, only fully adopting the Hendrix revolution in the mid-seventies. Cannonball Adderley alumni, one time Mother and best mate of Stanley Clarke claimed Zappa was an under-rated guitarist, appreciated more in jazz or classical music than rock.

Then the band dropped out for Study on 6 by Conlon Nancorrow, one of Zappa's classical influences, and the gig more or less alternated between classical and rock until the final medley. The former included Frank's own tribute to Stravinsky, Igor's Boogie and Octandre by his favourite classical composer Edgard Varese. The latter included Take your Clothes Off When You Dance during which many removed items of clothing (which was in the spirit of Zappa) only to reveal they were wearing extra clothing underneath (which wasn't), and Big Swifty, keyboards taking some very jazzy solos and a fine bass soloSome keyboard strobes reminded us when it was rock and some old rockers talking rather loudly through the classical stuff reminded us when it wasn't. I don't generally get upset by this but I found their selectivity selfish and inappropriate.
 
Frank mixed every style of music you can think of into something entirely original, which wasn't rock, classical, or jazz but all of them and much more and I think it's a mistake to separate it out and suggest, on the one hand, he did this and, on the other, he did that. Certainly, he used juxtaposition to achieve the whole and I've no doubt this was arbitrary, but you lose something when you mess with it.
It sounds like I'm being critical but it was amazing to see these young musicians playing this music to young people, old rockers, suitably eccentrics and classical nerds. I was excited, moved, overjoyed, and restless and by the time the horns took over the melody of Duke of Prunes (orchestral), I felt like I was pinned to the wall.
Look out world, Zappa's on the move.   
Steve T.
 *Ahead of Their Time was recorded live in London and ends abruptly due to a curfew because of the 'subway' so it's possible it may have led to Lumpy Gravy.

Band: Jack March (guitar), Tom Chapman (bass guitar), Andrew Jones (keyboards), Gabriel Alexander (drums), Simeon Evans (sax), Cameron Lockett (trumpet).

RNCM Wind Ensemble: Michael Ready (flute, piccolo), Adam Bowman (oboe, cor anglais), Chao Chen (clarinet, bass clarinet), Leonardo Bizzotto (bassoon), Lauren Collings (horn), Daniel Tarrant (trumpet), George Hardwick (trombone), Darren Gallacher (percussion), Nigel Smith (double bass).
Conductors: Clark Rundell, Andrew Casey, Laurent Zufferey.

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