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Bebop Spoken There

James Brandon Lewis: "Sometimes I'm not thinking about anything other than blowing the paint off the walls, and other times I'm narrating a story about my life." - (DownBeat June 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!"

Postage

15516 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 536 of them this year alone and, so far, 25 this month (June 7).

From This Moment On ...

Sat 10: Miners' Picnic @ Woodhorn, Ashington. Music inc. Northern Monkey Brass Band (3:00-3:50pm); New York Brass Band (4:00-4:55pm).
Sat 10: Jeffrey Hewer @ The Vault, Darlington Covered Market, Darlington. 6:00-8:00pm. Free.
Sat 10: Front Porch Three @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Americana, blues, jazz etc.
Sat 10: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 11: WORKSHOP: Tim Richards' Jazz Piano Workshop @ JG Windows, Newcastle. Time TBC. Further details tel. 0191 232 1356.
Sun 11: Jeremy McMurray's Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Ropner Park, Stockton TS18 4EF. 2:00-4:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 11: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 11: Groovetrain @ Innisfree Sports & Social Club, Longbenton NE12 8TY. Doors 6:30pm. £15.00 (£7.00. under 16).
Sun 11: Jeffrey Hewer Collective @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 11: Jam No. 19 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 12: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 13: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 13: Infusion Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:30pm.
Tue 13: Alice Grace & Pawel Jedrzejewski @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 8:00pm. £12.00 (£10.00. adv.).

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 14: NUJO Final Jazz Jam @ Bar Loco, Newcastle. 6:30pm. Free. Newcastle University Jazz Orchestra's final jam session of the academic year. All welcome.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 15: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 15: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 2:30-4:30pm. £2.00. All welcome.
Thu 15: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Thu 15: Alexander Ord Trio @ Tynedale Beer & Cider Festival, Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. Evening, time TBC.
Thu 15: Têtes de Pois + Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. Time TBC.
Thu 15: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.

Fri 16: Sue Ferris Quintet @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 16: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 16: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 16: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 16: Stu Collingwood @ Baltic, Gateshead. 7:00pm. £15.75. A Let's Caper event featuring exhibitions, food, music etc.
Fri 16: Steve Beresford-Hannah Marshall-John Butcher @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:30pm. JNE promotion.
Fri 16: James Taylor Quartet @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Fri 16: Customs House Big Band @ Customs House, South Shields. 7:30pm.
Fri 16: Sue Ferris Quintet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm.
Fri 16: New Orleans Brass Band @ Billy Bootlegger's, Arch 2, Stepney Bank, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. NOBB directed by Jason Holcomb.

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 BirdlandShe 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

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

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

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.

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