Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Art Blakey: "You [Bobby Watson] don't want to play too long, because you don't know they're clapping because they're glad you finished!" - (JazzTimes, Nov. 2019)..

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

15848 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 855 of them this year alone and, so far, 53 this month (Sept. 18).

From This Moment On ...

September

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: La Malbec Orchestra @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 21: Linsday Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Ray Stubbs R & B All Stars @ The Schooner, Gateshead. 8:30pm. Free.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: Brief Encounter @ Bardon Mill Village Hall, Northumberland. 7:00pm. Tickets: £10.00. adv from 07885 303166; £12.00. on the door. Chris & Veronica Perrin improvising to a screening of the 1929 'Jazz Age' silent film Piccadilly (Dir. Ewald André Dupont).
Fri 22: Paul Edis & Graeme Wilson + Three Tsuru Origami @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 22: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 22: Abbie Finn's Finntet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 23: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Tanfield Railway, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. Free. A '1940s Weekend' event.
Sat 23: Jason Isaacs @ Stack, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 23: Andrew Porritt & Keith Barrett @ Cullercoats Watch House, Front St., Cullercoats NE30 4QB. 7:00pm.
Sat 23: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Country blues.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 7:00pm.

Tue 26: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.

Wed 27: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 27: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 27: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Saturday, September 26, 2020

Album review: Massimo Biolcati - Incontre

Massimo Biolcati (bass); Dayna Stephens (tenor/baritone saxes); Sam Yahel (piano/organ); Jongkuk Kim (drums). 


Having spent a lifetime listening to jazz and currently trying to keep up with who's hot and who's getting warmer by the minute I still find new names dropping through the letterbox almost daily. Particularly from Trumpland. Going by what I read in the papers I'm surprised the musicians themselves don't deliver in person.

Biolcati would seem to be a well-travelled musician. Although currently based in NYC his earlier musical adventures were in Sweden and Italy before he embarked on a 5 year stint at Berklee followed by acceptance at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at the University of Southern California where he studied with, among others, Ron Carter, Dave Holland and Christian McBride.

For Incontre he recruited a strong team of players yet to make a name on this side of the pond. Stephens, an associate from his Berklee days is particularly impressive. His sound on baritone is rich and full-toned - the way a baritone should sound. Biolcati is everything you would expect from a player with his background. You study with Carter, Holland and McBride, you pick up a thing or two. Yahel and Kim are no featherweights either. The former moving seamlessly from piano to B3, the latter creative and driving. Pushing the beat without overtaking it.

An album that I find impossible to fault and yet, such is the globalisation of jazz today that I can think of several UK bands to match it and not all of them are in London which can't be a bad thing. All we've got to do now is find somewhere for them to play either here or over there.

Lance.

Try/buy.

Hello I Lied*; Boo Boo's Birthday (Monk); Smile (Charlie Chaplin); Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Orzabal, Stanley, Hughes); Duke Ellington's Sound of Love (Mingus); Incontre*;How's Never (Holland); Fellini*; Birthday Song, Almost*.

* Biolcati original.

No comments :

Blog Archive