Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Van Morrison: ''Basically, I'm coming from jazz. Not pop, not rock, not what's commercial. That's where I started, and that's still where I am. I feel the same as I did when I was listening to Louis Armstrong, Lead Belly, Jelly Roll Morton''. (The Northern Echo, 12 June 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

17,533 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 497 of them this year alone and, so far, 75 this month (June 23).

From This Moment On ...

JUNE 2025

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: The Magpies of Swing @ The Roxy, Leadgate, Co. Durham. 7:30pm. A Ginger Jitterbugs swing dance event, all welcome.

Thu 26: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Brass Instruments & the use of mutes.

Fri 27: Lewis Watson Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm.
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: Strictly Smokin’ Big Band @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 8:00pm. ‘Time After Time’.

Sat 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Linskill Centre, North Shields. 4:00-10:30pm. Free, but ticketed (over 18s only). A multi-bill, multi-genre ‘Canny Shiels - North Shields 800’ event. Three Kings Brewery on site.
Sat 28: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 28: Jude Murphy & Dan Stanley @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 29: Jude Murphy & Dan Stanley @ Wallington, Northumberland. 12 noon-1:00pm & 2:00-3:00pm. Tel: 01670 773606. National Trust admission prices apply. ‘Tunes in the Blooms’.
Sun 29: Bal Bruch Social Dance @ As You Like It, Sandyford, Newcastle. 12:30pm. Free. Dance event with Hot Club de Heaton performing live (2:00-3:00pm). A ‘Jar on the Bar’ event.
Sun 29: Glenn Miller Orchestra UK @ The Fire Station, Sunderland. 3:00pm. Ray McVay & co.
Sun 29: Ruth Lambert Trio @ Juke Shed, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 29: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 29: Zoë Gilby w. Ryton Choral Society @ Corbridge Middle School NE45 5HX. 5:30pm. £15.00. Gilby w jazz trio & choir. ‘An evening of jazz song for choir’.
Sun 29: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 29: John Wilson & the Sinfonia of London @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. ‘Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Greatest Hits’.
Sun 29: Out Front @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE.

Mon 30: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club (1:00pm). Free.

JULY 2025

Tue 01: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Joe Steels, Paul Grainger, Mark Robertson.
Tue 01: Customs House Big Band @ Masonic Hall, Ferryhill. 7:30pm. Free.

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

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Paul Edis and Friends: A Jazzy Christmas @ Ushaw College – Dec. 20

(Review by Steve T/ Photos courtesy of Jerry E).

Tonight promised some changes from the set at Middlesbrough Town Hall the previous Sunday, presumably for us die-hards taking in more than one of the four shows this year.

The first came with the full ensemble on stage for the opening Winter Wonderland. Solos from trumpet, sax and violin; piano and guitar switching comping duties, as they would throughout the set; more exchanges between sax and violin during the extended fade.

All I Want for Christmas is You is a new one for this year, which doesn't feature on the accompanying album. Taken at a slower pace than Maria Carey's original brought out the blues, guitar taking a solo, violin cutting through above the horns. This is another Christmas song which seems to have gained some credibility recently - apparently it's currently no 1 in America - perhaps because she's a serious singer, and Paul rightly paid tribute to Jo - another seriously good singer.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree was taken as a rhumba, before The Christmas Waltz, which, following an introduction from horns and violin, featured solos from soprano and piano, Paul's first and, in amongst everything else, it's easy to forget what a fine pianist he is.

From our vantage point I noticed the juxtaposition of the combination of horns: muted trumpet and flute, trombone and clarinet, all, trombone and trumpet, clarinet and flute.

I'll be Home for Christmas took it down to voice, piano, bass and drums and featured a lovely light-touch bass solo from the Champion.

Another new piece for this year, via Home Alone, is Carol of the Bells, a piccolo feature with another violin solo, both ladies acquitting themselves splendidly.

Paul and wife Kate's Christmas original followed, sang by Paul, and the number one spot will need to wait for another year; a beautiful, short piano solo followed by tenor unravelling for another appropriately concise solo.

The first set finished with the return of Jo Harrop for some throaty, sassy, sexy singing on Santa Baby, intermingled with Basie's Splanky.

Set two opened with my favourite track from the album (sorry Jo), an instrumental, sax led version of Chris Rea's Driving Home for Christmas. Paul noted he'd forgotten the previous week that Rea is a Boro native. I don't rate the chances of the original if this version ever gets out.

Jo was back for Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, muted trumpet taking it back to New Orleans, solos from soprano and bass before a round of fours from the ever resourceful Russ Morgan.

What are you doing New Year’s Eve? took it down to voice and piano as the band scattered to the four corners of the theatre for Once in Royal David's City, led by piano, violin, flute, trombone, drums, bowed bass and sax.

New Year New You is another new song from Paul and Kate Edis - an expanded edition of the album next year perhaps - and is a twelve bar blues with solos from sax and guitar, followed by a singalong.

The Christmas Song, complete with chestnuts metaphorically roasting on an open fire, featured a lovely violin part before the final song Sleigh Ride lost the strings and slimmed the horns down to sax and trumpet for a race to the finish, stopping for a solo piano interlude which found our maestro in Scott Joplin territory.

Edis had hinted at an encore without all the fuss of leaving the stage and White Christmas - more a Christmas anthem than song - gave Jo a last chance to pull at our emotions, Emma adding some beautiful embellishments, sharing solos with clarinet, before finishing with a lovely final flourish.

I can only imagine this is going to grow and grow. 
Steve T          

Paul Edis (piano/vocal); Jo Harrop (vocal); Emma Fisk (violin); Matt Anderson (tenor/soprano saxes); Graham Hardy (trumpet/flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone); Megan Robinson (flute/piccolo); Faye Thompson (alto sax/clarinet); Francis Tulip (guitar); Andy Champion (bass); Russ Morgan (drums).

3 comments :

Steve T said...

Watching it again at the Sage tonight (and I've no doubt Russell will be reviewing it), as the band dispersed around the three levels, I thought I'd put the wrong choon in my review of Ushaw, until Paul explained there were six carols going on, depending on where you were in the theatre. Genius.

JERRY said...

At Ushaw we were two seats away from Faye on clarinet and we got The Sussex Carol. Proper title for all was A Congregation of Carols. Pun intended, surely?

Lance said...

At Sage Gateshead we got Emma and Hark the Herald Angels Sing. That's three down and three to go!

Blog Archive