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Bebop Spoken There

Billy Boy Arnold: “As long as you don't think old you're good.” - DownBeat, December, 2023.

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...

Postage

16051 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 1058 of them this year alone and, so far, 12 this month (Dec. 6).

From This Moment On ...

December

Wed 06: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 06: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 8:00pm. Free. Note later start time, concert performance (open to the public).
Wed 06: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 07: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free CANCELLED!
Thu 07: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ Spanish City, Whitley Bay, Newcastle. 12 noon - 4:00pm. £26.00 (inc 3-course meal in in St Mary's Lighthouse Suite). SOLD OUT!
Thu 07: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm. All welcome.
Thu 07: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.Donations. Feat. Mark Sanders. CANCELLED!
Thu 07: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00. Downstairs. CANCELLED!
Thu 07: Tees Hot Club: Just Friends @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. Guest band night w. Richie Emmerson, Ian Bosworth, Dave Archbold, Ron Smith, Mark Hawkins. 9:00pm.

Fri 08: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 08: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 08: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 08: Giles Strong Quartet @ The Old Library, Auckland Castle. 1:00pm. £7.00.
Fri 08: Hayley's Little Big Band @ Woodland Village Hall, Bishop Auckland. 7:00pm. £12.00.
Fri 08: Sleep Suppressor + Redwell @ Head of Steam, Neville St., Newcastle. 8:00pm. £10.00. (£8.00. adv); £5.00. student.
Fri 08: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert's Church, Shadforth, Co. Durham.
Fri 08: Têtes de Pois + Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.00., £8.00.

Sat 09: Prudhoe Community Band @ Central Station, Newcastle. 10:00am - 12 noon. Charity fundraiser.
Sat 09: Durham Alumni Big Band @ Number One Bar, Skinnergate, Darlington. 1:00pm.
Sat 09: Castillo Nuevo Trio @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30pm. Free.
Sat 09: Hayley's Little Big Band @ Middleton & Todridge Village Hall, Morpeth. 7:30pm. £12.00., £6.00.
Sat 09: Paul Skerritt @ Slaley Hall, Hexham NE47 0BX. 7:30pm. From £42.00.

Sun 10: Musicians Unlimited’s Xmas Party with Zoe Gilby Quartet @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. MU 1:00-3:00pm; Zoë Gilby Quartet 4:00-6:00pm. Tickets: £7.50.
Sun 10: Alan Law, Paul Grainger & Abbie Finn @ Darlington Market, Market Square, Darlington. 1:00pm. Free. A ‘Christmas Market’ outdoor gig. Wrap up warm!
Sun 10: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00-4:00pm. Free.
Sun 10: Funk Soul Sista @ Stack, Seaburn. 5:00-7:00pm. Free.
Sun 10: Beth Clarke @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 10: Hayley's Little Big Band @ Whittingham Memorial Institute, Alnwick. 7:30pm. £12.00., £10.00.
Sun 10: Tele-Port @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Line-up inc. Zhenya Strigalev.

Mon 11: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 11: Interim Final Recitals @ Newcastle University. Details TBC.

Tue 12: Stu Collingwood Organ Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:00pm. £10.00.

Monday, April 29, 2019

Preview: Darlington Jazz Festival (May 3-5)


(Preview by Russell)

This year's Darlington Jazz Festival, the eighth, promises to be the best yet. Established venues will continue to play host to top-flight jazz and a new initiative will see major concert performances presented in a town centre marquee. And, for night owls, there will be a late night jam session. From parish centre to church to cafe bar to ancient hostelry jazz will spill out onto the streets enticing the unsuspecting passer-by...Is this jazz? Yes, come on in!


Walk into the Voodoo Cafe on Friday evening (May 3) and you'll fall under the spell of the Matt Roberts Sextet playing the music of Blue Mitchell. Year after year Darlington-born trumpeter Roberts returns from his London home to present workshops, conduct ensembles and, here on Skinnergate, blow the roof off the joint! Down the years the affable Roberts has chalked-up some killer sessions featuring the music of (invariably Blue Note hard bop) trumpet legends including Nat Adderley, Lee Morgan and Fats Navarro. Year after year Roberts brings in an absolutely stonking sextet and this year it won't be any different. In recent times we've had to make do - make do! - with tenor players of the calibre of Leo Richardson and Riley Stone-Lonergan, this year, how about Josh Arcoleo? Oh, yes! Add the brilliant George Grant on alto, Sam Watts, piano, the fabulous Daisy George, double bass, and drummer Sam Gardener and you've got yourself the dream band. This Voodoo Cafe gig is always a sellout. If you want to be sure of getting in - the atmosphere is terrific - arrive by eight o'clock, buy a beer, queue on the stairs, eight quid in for a nine o'clock start. Unmissable!  

Saturday (May 4), blue skies (here's hoping!) and more jazz than you can shake a drum stick at. Noon, can you be in three places at once? Friend of Darlington Jazz Festival, Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club presents the New Century Ragtime Orchestra with not one, not two, but three special guests. Multi award-winning trumpeter Enrico Tomasso will join the NCRO along with period percussion virtuoso Nick Ward and Tyneside's star vocalist Ruth Lambert. Doors at twelve, £10 admission for a half past start. But wait! You'll need to be around the corner in Mechanics' Yard for a similarly early start to catch the Josh Arcoleo Quartet. It's free admission to the Quakerhouse session and following tenor man Arcoleo it's MGB (that's the Debra Milne - Steve Glendinning four piece) and after the Tynesiders' set it's playtime with Jamie TomsNot Now Charlie. Three bands for nowt (there will be a bucket collection), now that's a bargain! Oh, yes, the CAMRA recognised Quakerhouse keeps tip-top beers. And there's more free jazz - that's free admission as opposed to the genre - in Darlington town centre which will include the ever-popular Northern Monkey Brass Band, again, from midday. 
 
Saturday evening will be interesting. A new venture for Darlington Jazz Festival sees the first use of a marquee in the Market Square. At 7:00pm drummer Sebastiaan de Krom leads a starry quintet. Mere mention of the names should guarantee a full house - Martin Shaw, trumpet, Brandon Allen, sax, Gareth Williams, piano, and double bassist Steve Watts. £12 admission, recommended. And if you still want more there will be a late night jam session with a plethora of sitters-in (Dean Stockdale, piano) at the Pennyweight pub. Two pints of your finest and a packet of crisps, please!

Sunday (May 5). Come on, wake up! The Gypsy Jazz Brunch starts at ten! At Hush Bar on Coniscliffe Road, free admission - do buy a pastry - there will be a world-class start to the final day of this year's Darlington Jazz Festival. James Birkett and Emma Fisk of Eddie Lang-Joe Venuti fame will be partaking of a latte in between playing some six and four string 'classic era' jazz. As a bonus Strings Attached (the guitar and violin of Shaun Henderson and Gordon Dyke) will be brunching with James/Eddie and Emma/Joe.

Get me to the church - St Cuthbert's - on time...two o'clock prompt for a rare appearance by Triptych (Paul Edis, piano, Paul Susans, double bass, bass guitar, and Rob Walker, drums, percussion), and a special guest from London Aga Serugo-Lugo (clarinet, sax, vocals) together with a full-scale Darlington-based choir. £5 on the door. At six o'clock in the Market Square marquee Matt Roberts conducts County Durham's premier big band Durham Alumni Big Band in what promises to be a Darlington Jazz Festival concert finale with a difference. Think iconic 1980s tunes, TV themes - who knows what else?! - the DABB has been busy working on Roberts' wonderfully bizarre Born in the 1980s' charts. £12 admission, it should be fun!  

Darlington Jazz Festival in association with Darlington Food and Drink Festival, Creative Darlington, Durham Music Service, Musicians' Union, Arts Council England, Darlington Borough Council. For further details visit: www.darlingtonjazzfestival.co.uk      
Russell

5 comments :

Lance said...

Wow! It sounds like it's going to be a great weekend. However, for those staunch Tynesiders who think Darlo is 'doon sooth' then all is not lost. You can cut your journey by half and go to Durham where the ace of aces, Simon Spillett, will be wowing us with some of the greatest tenor playing either side of Tubby Hayes. Yes, Simon - who is to tenor playing what Billy the Kid was to gunslinging (and he has yet to meet up with a tenor-toting Pat Garrett who could out blow him) - plays two sessions on Friday in and around Durham. Friday lunchtime, catch him with Paul Edis at the Gala Theatre then, in the evening, long before sundown, Spillett and Edis are in quartet mode at Ushaw College. Both sessions are unmissable but, as the Gala is invariably sold out, Ushaw is the place for me!

Steve T said...

Not to mention the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, one of the biggest and worst organised in the country. As always, the listener must decide for themselves where the genuine quality ends and the naff stuff begins.
For me the big attractions are Swing Out Sister, Dave Sanborn, Joshua Redman, Soweto Kinch, Partisans, Sergio Mendes, Vula Viel, Yazz Ahmed, Bad Plus, Omar Sosa, Kandace Springs, John Surman, Abdullah Ibrahim, Incognito and Level 42, so I'm guessing a couple of surprises there.
Leading the naff end are Jamie Cullum, Gregory Porter, James Morrison, Katie Melua and Madeleine Peyroux.

Steve T said...

And not forgetting Ribble Valley Jazz Festival, featuring ace north east guitarist Mark Williams. I recall last year or the year before planning to do a festival crawl from Darlo to Ribble to Cheltenham but the long suffering, eternally skint Mrs T put a stop to it so we missed out Ribble.

Russell said...

Emma Fisk's six string partner at Sunday's jazz brunch session in Hash Bar on Coniscliffe Road will be Dave Harris not James Birkett.

Steve T said...

Another fine guitarist who knows his Gypsy Jazz.

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