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Bebop Spoken There

Abbie Finn: "Even though there's a lot of great work being done to promote women in jazz, I still come up against some attitudes! I pulled up at a recording session with my drums in the car and the studio owner said, 'I'm sorry, this space is reserved for the drummer!'" - (Jazzwise April 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

15245 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 264 of them this year alone and, so far, 77 this month (March 25).

From This Moment On ...

March

Tue 28: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 28: Sanaz Lavasani Trio + Abbie Finn @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 8:00pm. £12.00 (£10.00. adv).

Wed 29: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 29: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 29: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 29: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 30: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 2:30-4:30pm. £2.00. All welcome.
Thu 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. Back to 1:00pm stomp off. Free.
Thu 30: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Thu 30: '58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 30: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm.
Thu 30: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 31: Lewis Watson Quartet @ Bishop Auckland Town Hall. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 31: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 31: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 31: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm. CANCELLED! Back next week (April 7).
Fri 31: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Fri 31: Jasmine Myra + Waclaw Zimpel @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Fri 31: The Revolutionaires @ The Shack, Boldon Colliery. 7:30pm. £10.00. The Revolutionaires' big band (horn section) line-up.
Fri 31: Andrew McCormack @ Maltings, Berwick. 8:00pm. £20.00.

April
Sat 01: The Big Easy @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - In a Minor Key. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington Covered Market, Darlington DL1 5PN. 6:00pm. New venue, live jazz!
Sat 01: Boys of Brass @ Stack, Seaburn. 7:00-9:00pm.
Sat 01: Hot Club du Nord @ Pleased to Meet You, Bridge St., Morpeth. 8:00pm. £79.00. A charity fundraising event.
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00. RESCHEDULED to next week (Sat 08).

Sun 02: Smokin' Spitfires @ The Cluny. 12:45pm.
Sun 02: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.

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

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Observations on a book: Pete Hamill - Why Sinatra Matters.

There are books, and then there are books and then there are more books.

Some books you read, enjoy, then  put on the shelf where they gather dust until, eventually, they go into the charity bag.

Other books you wonder why you bought them in the first place, maybe an unexpected, unwanted gift. Whatever. However, there is also that magical moment when, you stumble across a book that may have begun life in one of the former categories but, like the moment when you discover the girl whose pigtails you once pulled at school no longer has braces on her teeth and is now wearing a bra, things change.

This is that book. there have been countless books on Sinatra, I have a shelf full of them, most of which are gathering dust.

Not this one. Written just after Sinatra's death in 1998 it's about the great man and yet it isn't. The highs and lows, the loves and the Mob are in there, neither glorified or brushed over, more as a dusky background to an amazing life.

The book opens in 1970, or thereabouts. The author is sitting in the backroom of a late night bar, with Frank, sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, Jilly Rizzo and a few of the few who ever got close to the greatest singer of his era. Outside it's raining and such is the power of the author's descriptive powers that you are there with him in a rundown bar on Third Street in Manhattan. You can taste the Jack Daniel's, smell the rain.

So yes, the book is about Sinatra but, unlike any other biography (if this is indeed a biography) you've ever read. Hamill  attempts neither deification nor vilification but places the man, his life, his music in relation to the times.

Today, when the Black Lives Matter movement is so justifiably in the forefront, the author also points out that the early Italian immigrants were also being lynched and quotes the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti cause célèbre. Sinatra, when asked why he contributed to the NAACP said it was because he knew what it was to be a member of  a minority group.

Hamill quotes from an interview he did with Dizzy Gillespie: "The professional is the guy that can do it twice."

"Wow, is that true" said Frank.

The author goes on to say "The world of my grandchildren will not listen to Sinatra in the way that four generations of Americans have listened to him. But high art always survives. Long after his death, Charlie Parker still plays his version of the urban blues. Billie Holiday still whispers her anguish. Mozart still erupts in joy".

By coincidence, I talked with a cousin whom I'd never had contact with for some years. During the course of our telephone conversation she told me that her 22 year old grandson had just discovered Sinatra ...
Lance.

Pete Hamill: Why Sinatra Matters. Published 1998 by Little Brown & Co. Ltd. ISBN. 0-3316-34796-5

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