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Farewell Blues

R.I.P. HRH Queen Elizabeth ll (1926 - Sept. 8, 2022).
R.I.P. Trevor Tomkins (1941 - Sept. 9, 2022).
R.I.P. Gordon McGregor (Sept. 11, 2022).
R.I.P. Ramsey Lewis (1935 - Sept. 12, 2022).
R.I.P. Pharoah Sanders (Oct. 13, 1940 - Sept. 24, 2022).
R.I.P. Sue Mingus (April 2, 1930 - Sept. 24, 2022).

Bebop Spoken There

Larry Klein: "- in a certain way - Leonard [Cohen] is the greatest songwriter ever." - (Jazzwise October 2022)

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!"

Postage

14602 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 14 years ago. 880 of them this year alone and, so far, 80 this month (Sept. 26).

From This Moment On ...

September

Tue 27: Beth Clarke @ British Legion Club, West Jesmond, Newcastle. 1:00-4:00pm. Free.
Tue 27: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Durham. 7:00pm. Free (to reserve a table phone 0191 386 5556).
Tue 27: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Alnwick Playhouse. 7:30pm. One woman stage play (the life & times of Nina Simone).

Wed 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 28: Battle of the Bands @ NE Volume Music Bar, Yarm Lane, Stockton. Doors 6:00pm. Tickets: £5.00. adv., £6.00. on the door. Participants inc. Milne Glendinning Band.
Wed 28: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 28: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 28: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Wed 28: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Alnwick Playhouse. 7:30pm. One woman stage play (the life & times of Nina Simone).
Wed 28: Laura Jurd @ Sage Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Thu 29: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, North Tyneside. 1:00pm.
Thu 29: Ushaw Ensemble @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 29: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 3:00-5:00pm. £1.00. All welcome.
Thu 29: Czajka & Puchaz + Mark Solborg + Anthropology @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Thu 29: ‘58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm.
Thu 29: Peter Morgan Trio @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 30: Adam Johnson @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 30: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 30: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 30: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 30: Pete Churchill & Noel Dennis: Exploring the Jazz Metaphor in Leadership & Management @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 2:30-4:00pm. Workshop.Tickets: £3.30 (inc. bf). A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 30: FILM: Bird (Dir. Clint Eastwood) + Swing Bridge (in the bar) @ Forum Cinema, Hexham. 6:30pm.
Fri 30: Orphy Robinson + Maniscalco-Bigoni-Solborg + Nicole Mitchell + Binker Golding-Alexander Hawkins-John Pope-Paul Hession @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle (7:00pm). A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 30: Ushaw Ensemble @ St Mary’s Church, Holy Island. 7:30pm.
Fri 30: Alter Ego @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Fri 30: King Bee @ The Craig Charles Funk & Soul Club, Independent, Sunderland. 9:00pm. £22.50. DJs + King Bee.

October

Sat 01: Dale Storr @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 01: Nicole Mitchell & Alexander Hawkins @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Pete Churchill. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Orphy Robinson (in conversation); Beck Hunters w John Pope & Laura Cole; Daniel Levin; Black Top w Mariam Rezaei @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm.
Sat 01: King Bees @ Grainger Market, Newcastle. 9:00-9:45pm. A Great Market Caper multi-bill event. Superb Chicago blues band. Doors: 6:30pm. Tickets: £10.00. + bf.

Sun 02 RUTH LAMBERT TRIO @ Spanish City, Whitley Bay. 12 noon.
Sun 02: Helena Anahita Wilson @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sun 02: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm.
Sun 02: Zoë Gilby Trio w Noel Dennis + John Garner & John Pope + Dilutey Juice @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. £7.00.
Sun 02: Foundry Jazz Ensemble @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 02: Lindsay Hannon's 'Tom Waits for No Man' @ Three Tanners Bank, North Shields. 6:00pm. Free.
Sun 02: Celebrating the Life & Music of Pharoah Sanders @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £8.00. on the door. Feat. Sue Ferris, Paul Gowland, Tom Atkinson, Jude Murphy, Jeff Armstrong.
Sun 02: Shifa + Bex Burch & Leafcutter John + Farida Amadou @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.

Mon 03: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Wednesday, February 05, 2020

Alice Grace & Paul Edis @ Jazz Cafe Mezzanine - Feb 5

Alice Grace (vocals); Paul Edis (piano)
(Review by Russell/Photos courtesy of Mike Tilley)

George Shearing, Kenny Garrett, Freddie Hubbard, three seemingly disparate composers with which to open a set. Today's duo on the Mezzanine in Newcastle Arts Centre can handle all kinds of material and so it was that a capacity audience heard Lullaby of Birdland, She Waits for the New Sun and Little Sunflower. 

All seats were occupied long before the one o'clock start and little wonder given that this afternoon's concert performance reunited Alice Grace and Paul Edis following their hugely successful first gig working together as a duo in November last year. Horace Silver's Sister Sadie featured a Paul Edis piano solo which matched the composer's effort when he appeared many moons ago at the Newcastle Jazz Festival!  


Alice Grace sang Trudy Kerr's lyrics to Dave Holland's Dream of the Elders and followed up with You Don't Know What Love Is. The art of jazz singing is alive and well in the hands - should that be vocal chords? - of adopted Geordie Ms Grace. A light yet commanding approach, inventive, a wonderful elision of the straight lyric and magical, musical scatting beyond compare. 

The full house hung around for a second set of GASbook to contemporary numbers, a set which opened with the combined talents of Norma Winstone, John Taylor and Alice Grace. A vocal dexterity not dissimilar to Winstone and a love of Taylor's (and Kenny Wheeler's) compositions place Ms Grace at the forefront of today's vocalists capable of singing the GASbook and more contemporary material. 

Scat to die for on If I Should Lose You underpinned by Edis' walking left hand, Midnight Sun (comp. Hampton & Burke) with AG namechecking Ella, Everybody's Song but My Own (comp. K. Wheeler) then, as the three o'clock finish approached, Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams or, as Edis quipped, Wrap Your Dreams in Troubles! It had been a wonderful couple of hours or so, Grace and Edis should do it again, after all a capacity audience tells a story.  
Russell
at

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

Alice Grace & Paul Edis what a jazz duo! an absolute delight, we live in a contemporary world that has some good stuff that was displayed by Alice and Paul, but an ultra sound stereo injection of the GASB juice gave the second half real class, midnight sun, you don't know what love is, and if I should lose you, had me saying YES! YES! YES!, I really can't help myself, men with white coats will one day take me away to a place that grown ups seldom understand.
I spent the first 25 years of my life living in London, and I have to that Alice Grace a fellow Londoner really hit the nail on the head
about London, the North East is far better, I hope that Paul Edis has a fruitful time in London, but a short one, Jazz in the north east is poorer without him.

BRIAN SHINE

Wednesday, February 05, 2020 11:39:00 pm
JERRY said...

I've been to the original Jazz Cafe before, but never to the mezzanine: a great venue. especially for a gig of this kind. As for the music, I agree with all the above (Russell's review and the comment)- both sets were fantastic but, for me, the stand-out number was Sister Sadie. Unforgettable!
JERRY

Friday, February 07, 2020 8:47:00 am
Patti said...

All of the above, plus Russell's review - I'm adding my agreement. Aren't we lucky to live in Geordieland - I say that as a transplanted Southerner! And aren't we doubly lucky to have amazing performers like Alice and Paul - with venues like this right here.

Friday, February 07, 2020 4:15:00 pm

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