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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

17444 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 718 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Oct. 10).

From This Moment On ...

October

Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law (piano), Paul Grainger (double bass), Bailey Rudd (drums).

Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Cath Stephens’ improvisation workshop @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 4:30-6:00pm. Collaborative group focusing on vocal improvisations.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 17: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Olivia Cuttill Quintet @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 17: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Phoenix Theatre, Blyth. 7:30pm.
Thu 17: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 17: Niffi Osiyemi Trio @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. Guests Jeremy McMurray (keys); Richie Emmerson (tenor sax); Mark Toomey (alto sax); Adrian Beadnell (bass). 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert’s, Crook. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Chet Set @ Seventeen Nineteen, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. Pete Tanton & co.
Fri 18: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. Doors 7:30pm (upstairs). A Hoodoo Blues dance & social event. £10.00. class & social (£10.00., £7.50., £5.00. social only). Michael Woods (country blues guitar) on stage 9:00pm.
Fri 18: East Coast Swing Band @ Hexham Abbey. 7:30pm. £9.00.
Fri 18: Ben Crosland Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 18: Durham University Jazz Society’s ‘High Standards’ @ Music Dept. Music Room, Divinity House, Palace Green, Durham University DH1 3RS. 8:009-30pm. Tel: 0191 334 1419. £7.00., £5.00.
Fri 18: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sat 19: Sat 19: Paula Jackman’s Jazz Masters @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club.
Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 19: Howlin’ Mat @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Country blues guitar & vocals. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 20: Kamasi Washington @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. POSTPONED! New date Saturday 5 April 2025.
Sun 20: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Barrels Ale House, Berwick-upon-Tweed. 7:00pm. Free.
Sun 20: Magpies of Swing @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 21: Gideon Tazelaar Quartet @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00.
Mon 21: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 21: Gideon Tazelaar Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm.

Tue 22: Bywater Call @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). Americana/blues/soul excellence.

Reviewers wanted

Whilst BSH attempts to cover as many gigs, festivals and albums as possible, to make the site even more comprehensive we need more 'boots on the ground' to cover the albums seeking review - a large percentage of which never get heard - report on gigs or just to air your views on anything jazz related. Interested? then please get in touch. Contact details are on the blog. Look forward to hearing from you. Lance

Friday, October 30, 2020

Album review: Joshua Jaswon Octet - Silent Sea

Anna Serierse (vocals); Joshua Jaswon (alto/soprano sax); Marc Doffey (tenor/soprano sax); Miguel Gorodi (trumpet/flugel); Jan Landowski (trombone); Johannes Mann (elec. guitar); Sidney Werner (bass); Aaron Castrillo (drums).

I viewed the notes with a degree of skepticism. "Each composition is based on the text of a contemporary British poem by writers Jackie Kay, Maura Dooley and Rachael Boast and deals with the issues surrounding climate change and Brexit."

Kay, who is Scotland's Makar (Poet Laureate) said that the jazz music fitted her poem (Extinction) like a hand to a glove, and that the rhythms and tempos capture the heightened sense of time running out, of seizing the moment.

So, I seized the moment before time ran out and I'm rather pleased I did.

Unlike so many instrumental theme projects the spine-tingling vocals of Serierse give the music meaning and understanding. At times I was emotionally moved by what we're doing to our people, our country, our planet.

The solos, whilst quite capable of standing on their own merit become all the more powerful when related to the words that bookend them.

Jaswon, who graduated from Guildhall with a first class honours degree in Jazz Performance became so disenchanted with the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum vote that he upped sticks and left London for Berlin where he set about establishing himself in Europe's creative hub. That he succeeded is apparent in this album where, surrounded by seven of Europe's finest, he composed and arranged this beautiful, provocative, album.

Not something to listen to as you drive down the M6 or the Autobahn polluting all and sundry but rather something to listen to as you reflect that Covid-19 isn't the only hitman out there.

Lance

Available from today (Oct. 30) on Ubuntu Music UBU0065.

Listen.

1 comment :

Russell said...

Jackie Kay is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Her novel Trumpet is recommended reading.

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