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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

17444 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 718 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Oct. 10).

From This Moment On ...

October

Sun 13: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Emma Wilson @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sun 13: Catfish Keith @ The Cluny. 7:00pm. Country blues.
Sun 13: Lindsay Hannon + Eleanor Adams @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Note, this is a change to the previously advertised gig.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 13: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A DUJS event. All welcome.

Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 14: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by Nina Simone, performed by Nicholle Cherrie.

Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law (piano), Paul Grainger (double bass), Bailey Rudd (drums).

Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Cath Stephens’ improvisation workshop @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 4:30-6:00pm. Collaborative group focusing on vocal improvisations.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 17: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Olivia Cuttill Quintet @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 17: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Phoenix Theatre, Blyth. 7:30pm.
Thu 17: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 17: Niffi Osiyemi Trio @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. Guests Jeremy McMurray (keys); Richie Emmerson (tenor sax); Mark Toomey (alto sax); Adrian Beadnell (bass). 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert’s, Crook. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Chet Set @ Seventeen Nineteen, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. Pete Tanton & co.
Fri 18: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. Doors 7:30pm (upstairs). A Hoodoo Blues dance & social event. £10.00. class & social (£10.00., £7.50., £5.00. social only). Michael Woods (country blues guitar) on stage 9:00pm.
Fri 18: East Coast Swing Band @ Hexham Abbey. 7:30pm. £9.00.
Fri 18: Ben Crosland Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 18: Durham University Jazz Society’s ‘High Standards’ @ Music Dept. Music Room, Divinity House, Palace Green, Durham University DH1 3RS. 8:009-30pm. Tel: 0191 334 1419. £7.00., £5.00.
Fri 18: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sat 19: Sat 19: Paula Jackman’s Jazz Masters @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club.
Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 19: Howlin’ Mat @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Country blues guitar & vocals. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

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

Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Giles Strong Trio @ Gala Theatre, Durham, - March 1

(Review & trio photo courtesy of Brian Ebbatson. Individual photos courtesy of Malcolm Sinclair).

For the third concert of the 2019 Lunchtime Jazz series, the capacity audience at the Durham Gala was to be enthralled by a debut performance of the Giles Strong Trio, featuring the engaging and inventive playing of three musicians making their first outing together. Over the past 2 years (or more?) Giles and Roly have established a deserved reputation as a guitar duo, but this was to be their first opportunity to show their wares alongside the accomplished bass of Ian Paterson.

The setlist too was a new departure. “This was all new material for all of us,” said Roly, “so this was its first outing. Giles did most of the hard work on the arrangements, but I tried to take some of the burden with a couple of pieces”. “The bass too is important,” he went on, “it provides much more than just rhythm and harmony, it is the anchor that holds the whole performance together”.



This was clear from the first number, Gene de Paul’s I’ll Remember April, opening with a distinctive bass riff from Ian, leading Roly into the melody and an extended solo (‘That’s Jim Hall’, I wrote down immediately.) The bass then stood out while the two guitars took on the tune, each responding to and supporting each other’s solos. Then Giles came back to the theme and that riff to bring back Ian for the close.

This set the pattern for the arrangements to come. To my (non-musician) ear, Giles’ had sought to pare down the melodies to their essence, often carried by the bass, but used by all instruments to build their solos. Sometimes the interplay was between the two guitarists, sometimes between the bass and one of them, at others between all three. At different times each player led, followed, responded, soloed, stood out, then together they picked up the theme again and took the piece to its close.

Supported by Roly’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the jazz canon, Giles introduced each number, acknowledging the composers / lyricists, giving some of the background (the film, the musical, the first or most famous artist to feature it, the 40’s ‘back to nature living’ Hollywood experiment behind Eder Ahbez’s Nature Boy etc.).  

Then the music. Nature Boy, Cole Porter’s Love for Sale, Giles’ own Everything \was Beautiful,  Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach’s Yesterdays, Johnny Green’s Body and Soul, Fragos/Baker/Gasparre’s I Hear a Rhapsody, they were all vehicles for skilled arrangements, lyrical exposition, intense interplay and inspired improvisation, leaving the audience fully engaged, enthralled and warmly appreciative. There were two more compositions by the guitarists, Roly Veitch’s WT Blues, and Giles’ Billie’s Blues, both executed with the same freshness and invention as the standards and fully able to stand alongside them. (WT (Blues) stands for ‘Whole Tone’ as in whole tone scale, described by Giles as “made up of six notes with each note being a tone apart. It can sound quite restless because it doesn’t have a clear tonal centre, as compared to, for example, a major scale”. So enlightenment as well as musical inspiration for the audience!)
 
Billie’s Blues was to be the closer, but the audience wanted more, so the trio obliged with a full-length Alone Together (by Arthur Schwarz and Howard Dietz for the 1932 Broadway musical Flying Colours). For me the only disappointment was that Roly didn’t break into song at any point, but that in no way detracts from the quality or enjoyment of an excellent performance way to spend an early spring lunchtime.

Brian

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