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Bebop Spoken There

Wendell Brunious: "Because the blues is not 1,4 and 5 or 1,4,5,2,1. You could wake up with a flat tyre or a headache this morning, that's the blues, man" - (DownBeat, Oct. 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

15878 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 885 of them this year alone and, so far, 83 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Mon 02: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 02: FILM: Wattstax; 50th Anniversary @ Forum Cinema, Hexham. 8:00pm.

Tue 03: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 03: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. House trio: Michael Young (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Sid White (drums). CANCELLED!

Wed 04: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 04: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 04: Paul Skerritt @ Vespa Italian Bar & Steakhouse, Primrose Hill, Jarrow. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 483 3355.
Wed 04: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 05: Sound the Trumpets @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 05: Hot Club du Nord @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00. POSTPONED!
Thu 05: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Thu 05: Tommy Bentz Trio + Mark Croft Duo + George Shovlin & George Lamb @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Harbour View Speakeasy's USA blues double bill + Shovlin & Lamb!
Thu 05: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 05: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 06: Alcyona Mick @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 06: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 06: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 2:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Balo @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Fri 06: Lexer/Mayes/Noble + Semay Wu + Miman @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 06: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Vault, Hexham. 7:30pm. £20.00. Book in advance. Moreno with Alan Law, Paul Grainger & John Bradford.
Fri 06: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. 'Celebrating Oscar'.
Fri 06: Nu Brass Sounds: Big Brass Bash @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Fri 06: TBC @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Blind Pig Blues Club. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sat 07: WORKSHOP: Philosophy of Arts & Entertainment @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 10:15am. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Hot Club du Nord @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 07: Bugge & Niccols + Moore & Fairhall @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Steve Glendinning - All the Things You Are. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 07: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 07: Rie Nakajima @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 6:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Paul Skerritt @ 3Sixty Champagne Lounge, Hadrian’s Tower, Newcastle. From 7:00pm. To book a table - 0191 933 8591.
Sat 07: Samuel Blaser Trio + Toxvaerd & Zeeberg + Muramatsu & Welch @ Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sat 07: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sat 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.

Sun 08: Zoë Gilby Quintet + Ubunye @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Line-up inc. Tony Kofi. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Sun 08: Tommy Bentz Band @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. USA blues band.

Sunday, September 13, 2020

Smokin' Spitfires @ Route 72 Cafe, Newcastle - Sept. 12

Neil Hunter (vocals); Alan Thompson (tenor sax); Terry O'Hern (trombone); Mike Hepple (organ, vocals); Bob Garrington (guitar); Ian Rigby (bass guitar, vocals); Gary Cain (drums)

Sustrans develops and maintains the National Cycle Network. Routes criss cross the country. Route 72 runs from Kendal, winding its way via the west coast of England over to Northumberland and down onto Tyneside, a journey of some one hundred and seventy something miles. Cyclists, some clad in lycra, stop off at intervals to refuel with water, tea, coffee, cake. Some refuel with a pint or three.

On the banks of the Tyne lies Newburn Indusrtrial Estate, a semi-rural, sprawling mass of business premises (a bakery, steel stock holders, businesses large and small, some of which you've never heard of) between Lemington and Throckley. On a Saturday afternoon it's largely a sleepy, shuttered location. If you're lucky you could see a kingfisher, perhaps a goldcrest and (guaranteed!) any number of lycra-clad Le Tour wannabes. And if you're really lucky you could here One, two...two, two

The Smokin' Spitfires were in earshot, preparing to deliver an afternoon of Atlantic/Stax classics to an outdoor, socially distanced audience at Route 72 Cafe. The band that emerged, Phoenix-like, from the smouldering embers of the East Side Torpedoes, hadn't been out of the hangar in six months*. Neil Hunter's facial hair is something to be hold. Cutting a figure somewhere between a Father Christmas teddy boy and a Doc Marten boot boy, the frontman's vocal power is second to none. The Spitfires play soul, they play it loud, committed, virtuosic, but, ever ready to take the p*** out of one another. 

Soul Man (Sam and Dave). If you're hearing the band for the first time (some were, in a sold out crowd) you're thinking: Wow! I hope they play some more of this stuff! And they did just that, tune after tune - 634-5789My GirlTake Me to the RiverHallelujah, I Love Her SoPrivate NumberIt's AlrightGet Ready. Every number belted out by Hunter supported by a 'tight as' rhythm section (Bob Garrington, guitar, Mike Hepple, organ, Ian Rigby, bass and Gary Cain, drums) and two of the band's three regular horn players (Alan Thompson, tenor sax, Terry O'Hern, trombone)**

One element of a great gig is hearing a band that knows what it's doing and the Spitfires is such a band. Today's seven piece line-up nailed it time and again. Hepple and Rigby supplied the Yeah, Yeah backing vocals with the horns taking it higher and higher (Jackie Wilson-style). The Temptations, Floyd and Cropper classics, Otis Redding, Cropper and Redding (Mr Pitiful), Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Arthur Conley's Sweet Soul Music. Two pulsating sets, no let-up, a canny way to while away a sunny Saturday afternoon.   
   
The Smokin' Spitfires' first Sunday in the month residency at the Cluny was suspended after the band's gig in the first week of March.

** Steve McGarvie was indisposed.  


Russell

1 comment :

Lance said...

Back in my lycra clad days I recall cycling near Newburn. The Keelman's Way was the site of a former railway track. At one end was George Stephenson's cottage (he of Locomotion fame - Little Eva came later) at the other end was a pub that was also home to the Big Lamp Brewery. I'd called in one day and ear-wigged on a conversation.

"Could you get a shag in Newburn?" I almost told him he most certainly could then I noticed the binoculars and realised they twitchers and the shag they were looking for wasn't the kind of bird I was thinking of!

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