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Bebop Spoken There

Kurt Elling: ''There's something to learn from every musician you play with''. (DownBeat, December 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

17630 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 904 of them this year alone and, so far, 49 this month (Dec. 20).

From This Moment On ...

December

Sat 21: Lindsay Hannon Quartet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £15.00. ‘Swinging with Christmas Songs’.
Sat 21: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 21: Jackson’s Wharf Xmas Party @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 7:00pm. Free. Featuring the New ’58 Jazz Collective.
Sat 21: Brass Fiesta @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 10:30pm. Free.

Sun 22: Hot Club du Nord @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:00pm. £15.00. + bf. Xmas party. SOLD OUT!
Sun 22: Red Kites Jazz @ Gibside Chapel, nr. Rowlands Gill. 1:00pm. Admission charge applies.
Sun 22: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 22: Ruth Lambert Trio @ The Juke Shed, Union Quay, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 22: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 22: Revolutionaires @ Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Superb rhythm & blues outfit.
Sun 22: Laurence Harrison, Paul Grainger & Mark Robertson @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Line-up TBC.
Sun 22: The Globe Xmas Party @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Live music (musicians TBC).
Sun 22: Ray Stubbs R & B All-Stars @ Zerox, Sandhill, Newcastle. 7:00pm (doors).

Mon 23: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free. CANCELLED!
Mon 23: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 4:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Mon 23: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.

Tue 24: Lindsay Hannon & Mark Williams @ Ernest, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 11:00am-1:00pm. Free.
Tue 24: Paul Skerritt @ Mambo Wine & Dine, South Shields. 1:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.

Wed 25: Wot? No jazz!

Thu 26: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free. TBC.
Thu 26: The Boneshakers @ Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. The 17th annual Boneshakers’ Shindig.

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free. Business as usual!.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 27: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar & vocals.

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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