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Bebop Spoken There

Spasmo Brown: “Jazz is an ice cream sandwich! It's the Fourth of July! It's a girl with a waterbed!”. (Syncopated Times, July, 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

17346 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 630 of them this year alone and, so far, 35 this month (Sept. 11).

From This Moment On ...

September

Sat 14: Jeff Barnhart’s Silent Film Fest @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club.
Sat 14: Customs House Big Band w. Ruth Lambert @ St Paul’s Centre, St Paul’s Gardens, Spennymoor DL16 7LR. 7:00pm (6:45pm doors). Tickets £10.00. from the venue or tel: 01388 813404. A ‘BYOB’ event.
Sat 14: Emma Wilson @ Claypath Deli, Durham. 7:00pm. £12.00. Acoustic blues.
Sat 14: Rat Pack - Swingin’ at the Sands @ Billingham Forum. 7:30pm.

Sun 15: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 15: Jude Murphy, Steve Chambers & Sid White @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 15: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Barrels Ale House, Berwick-upon-Tweed. 7:00pm. Free.
Sun 15: Panharmonia @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 16: Swing Manouche @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00.
Mon 16: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 16: John Hallam with the James Birkett Trio @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00. A Blaydon Jazz Club 40th anniversary concert!

Tue 17: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ The Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval. 12:30pm. £13.00. Tel: 0191 237 3697. ‘Indian Summer Afternoon Tea’.
Tue 17: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Joe Steels (guitar); Paul Grainger (double bass); Abbie Finn (drums).

Wed 18: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 18: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 18: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 18: Hot Club of Heaton @ Elder Beer, Heaton, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘third Wednesday in the month’ session.

Thu 19: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 19: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 19: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. THC with guests Kevin Eland, Dan Johnson, Jeremy McMurray, Ron Smith.

Fri 20: Lindsay Hannon’s Tom Waits for No Man @ Gala Theatre, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 20: Rob Hall & Chick Lyall @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. Free (donations). SOLD OUT!
Fri 20: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 20: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 20: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 20: Leeway @ 1719, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. The Old Black Cat Jazz Club. CANCELLED!
Fri 20: Gaz Hughes Trio @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Friday, April 24, 2020

CD Review: Gabriele Heller – Nightshifts


Gabriele Heller (vocals, live sound mixes, percussion); Steve Glendinning (guitar, percussion); Wolfgang Weileder (guitar on 3 tracks).

This is such a good CD that I felt compelled to play it twice before writing the review and I enjoyed it even more the second time. The songs are a heady mix of cabaret tinged songs and jazz which are intriguing, disturbing, compassionate and even amusing by turns and always interesting. Steve as always does a grand job of appropriate accompaniment and Gabi, an experienced improvising actor, writer and teacher, interprets the lyrics with feeling and skill.


Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7 are the work of Heller and Glendinning, with poetry from Graham Mort on track 7;
Weileder contributes guitar to Heller's lyrics on tracks 2,4,and 8; track 9 gives us Heller's voice unaccompanied; track 6 is a medley of Heller's words with those of other writers; and listeners will of course recognise Billie Holiday's song at track 10, and the immortal words of Meeropol's Strange Fruit bring the album to a close.

Broken is a list of many broken things, including broken hearts, dreams, shoes and ankles, with the recording of the speaking clock suggesting broken sleep: indeed many of the songs have the suggestion of insomnia and unpleasant 'nightshifts'.

 The agitated vocals of Run ('baby run') repeated many times make the listener wonder what is being run from, and the guitar seems to run along; the title track seems to be about an unpleasant bout of insomnia, sung to a rumbling heartbeat sound and fragmented guitar, yet ending with a final letting go. Tomorrow Starts Today is a more gentle love song; Wallflower is a party scene with a soundtrack of voices, and the wallflower telling us that 'you know the way they shake their beautiful bodies'. 

One of the best tracks is number 6, a medley of songs about boats and ships and migrants who are desperately trying to escape, with clever electronic sounds producing 'water' noises; Electricity concerns that energy in all its forms, which suggested to me that someone was awake listening to household electrical noises; True Love is a lively request for love, amusing, with a steady clapping rhythm and Gabi's very adventurous, unusual scat. My Tears is sung a capella, a hymn-like tune with disturbing lyrics about 'dreaming to be dead' weighed down with heavy stones.

Listeners will be familiar with the last 2 tracks, track 10, Billie Holiday's plea for love, and then Strange Fruit, which manges to bring out the horror of the 'burning flesh' and 'scent of magnolia', with eerie guitar sounds and odd bell-like percussion.

A veritable tour de force. The album is available from April 2020.

 I'd like to see a gig featuring these songs when social distancing ends. And yes, the album is dedicated 'For all doctors, nurses and health workers, who work day and night to save our lives'. The real Nightshifters
 Ann Alex

Track list 1/ Broken Silence 2/ Run 3/ Nightshifts 4/ Tomorrow Starts Today 5/ Wallflower 6/Hope, My Ship, Little Boat 7/ Electricity 8/ True Love 9/ My Tears 10/ Tell Me More And More And Then Some 11/ Strange Fruit

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