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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

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.

Thu 26: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 26: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘Contemporary Jazz & the Piano’.
Thu 26: The New 58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 26: Jo Harrop & Friends @ Hexham Abbey. 8:00pm. ‘An Evening with Jo Harrop & Friends’. A Hexham Abbey Festival of Music & Arts event. £20.00., £5.00. child/student.
Thu 26: Neil Yates & Tom Remon @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 26: Loco House Band @ Bar Loco, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 26: Tees Hot Club @ Dorma’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. Mark Toomey, Neil Brodie, Graham Thompson, Adrian Beadnell.

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 2:15-4:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Nothing in Rambling @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £10.00. + bf. Upstairs. Acoustic blues duo + Michael Littlefield & Lyndon Anderson.
Fri 27: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Downstairs. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Fri 27: Tim Bloomer Collective @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 27: Jo Harrop @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm. All-star line-up.
Fri 27: Faye MacCalman @ Jesmond Pool, Newcastle. 8:30pm. Tickets £6.00. from: www.seetickets.com. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & improvised Music event in association with Jesmond Pool. Note 16+ only.

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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