Total Pageviews

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

17372 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 656 of them this year alone and, so far, 61 this month (Sept. 17).

From This Moment On ...

September

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.

Sat 21: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 1:00-2:45pm. Free.
Sat 21: Vieux Carré Hot Four @ The Beehive, Hartley Lane, Earsdon Whitley Bay NE25 0SZ. 4:30pm-6:30pm.
Sat 21: Baghdaddies @ Two by Two, Albion Row, Byker, Newcastle NE6 1RQ. 6:00pm.
Sat 21: Jude Murphy & Alan Law @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 22: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 22: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 2:30-4:30pm. Free.
Sun 22: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 22: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 22: Richard Herdman @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 22: Remy CB Band @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 8:30pm. Free. Remi, 2024 Newcastle Uni graduate, superb soul/blues voice!

Mon 23: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 23: Paul Booth with the Paul Edis Trio @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00. A Blaydon Jazz Club 40th anniversary concert! SOLD OUT!

Tue 24: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv. from Tully’s of Rothbury). Coquetdale Jazz.
Tue 24: Sarah Gillespie @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £16.50. Duo performance with Chris Montague.

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Album review: Thelonious Monk Quartet - MONK: Palo Alto - New date for release!

Charlie Rouse (tenor sax); Thelonious Monk (piano); Larry Gales (bass); Ben Riley (drums).

Last year saw some previously unreleased Coltrane albums surface, this year it's Monk's turn.

All the great jazz musicians from Louis to Bird to Trane to Ornette and beyond had periods when, rightly or wrongly, it was defined as being their classic line-up. Although Monk recorded with Bird, Diz, Trane and Rollins among others it was his long association with Rouse where it all seemed to come together and this live recording from October 1968 is proof if indeed further proof should be needed.

Monk and Rouse, like Desmond and Brubeck, Mulligan and Baker. Brown and Land, are among the great modern jazz partnerships and to turn up a gem such as this, 50 years on, makes me wonder how much more is gathering dust in vaults and attics.

A mix of Monk classics and a couple of standards delighted the lunchtime high school audience in Palo Alto, California. How the Monk Quartet came to be playing at a school in Palo Alto is one of those jazz moments that will be go down in legend and, even now, I bet there are many elderly Americans saying "I was there" even if they happened to be in New York at the time!*

All  47 minutes of the concert are on the album: Ruby, My Dear; Well You Needn't; Blue Monk and Epistrophy are by the quartet whilst Don't Blame Me and I Love You (Sweetheart of All My Dreams) are piano solos - the latter quite dazzling, the former a little bit tongue in cheek! The 14 minutes of Blue Monk surely ranks as the definitive with Rouse in blistering form. Gales and Riley also shine solowise. 
Tremendous!

Impulse have the album scheduled for release on Sept. 18. Order now online or from your friendly neighbourhood record shop.
Lance

In the autumn of 1968, a sixteen-year-old boy named Danny Scher had a dream. He wanted to bring the renowned jazz pianist Thelonious Monk and his quartet to play a benefit concert at his high school in Palo Alto, California to raise funds for his school and to help bring about racial unity in his community. Armed with little more than a telephone, posters, a persuasive pitch, an impressive knowledge of jazz and an iron-willed determination, Scher made the concert happen.

After miraculously securing Monk’s services to perform on Sunday,  October 27, 1968, for $500, Scher initially had trouble selling tickets and convincing people that Monk would even show up. With many twists and turns along the way, including Scher’s older brother having to drive to San Francisco to bring the quartet to the school, and hundreds of people waiting in the school’s parking lot to await Monk’s arrival before purchasing their $2 tickets, the concert went ahead, sold out, and was a triumph. 

“It was a total pleasure,” says Scher, whose two idols in his youth were Monk and Duke Ellington. “There was nothing odd. I loved Monk, I loved his music, and I loved producing. It was great seeing Monk dancing around the stage and then coming back to the piano when it was the right time. There was zero drama.”

1 comment :

Mike Farmer said...

Great review and being a Monk and Charlie Rouse fan ever since I saw them at the Free Trade Hall Manchester I can't wait to hear this CD. This reminds me of a series of concerts years ago at the Octogon Theatre Bolton which were promoted by a sixteen year old schoolboy. He put on poets,be-bop, avant guard, trad bands etc. They were well attended. Keep the bop flame burning Lance!

Blog Archive