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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

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.

Thu 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 28: Alice Grace Quartet @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 28: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm. All welcome.
Thu 28: Faye MacCalman + Snape/Sankey @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 28: Zoe Rahman @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Thu 28: '58 Jazz Collective @ Hops & Cheese, Hartlepool. 7:30pm.
Thu 28: Speakeasy @ Queen's Hall, Hexham. 7:30pm. £15.00. A Southpaw Dance Company presentation. Dance, audio-visuals, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, swing dancers etc.
Thu 28: Mick Cantwell Band @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Ace blues band.
Thu 28: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 29: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 29: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 29: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.

Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Album review: Juliet Kurtzman & Pete Malinverni - Candlelight: Love in the Time of Cholera

Juliet Kurtzman (violin); Pete Malinverni (piano).

Let's face it, an album that is sub-titled Love in the Time of Cholera doesn't quite grab you in quite the same way as, say, an album called Lady in Satin, A Kind of Blue, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning or Songs For the Late Hours,  does.

Admittedly, cholera, like measles and gastro-enteritis may no longer, in the current climate, be headlines in The Lancet but, nonetheless, such a title isn't going to inspire you to run down to your friendly neighbourhood record store (Central Arcade, Newcastle) and say to the assistant "Have you got Cholera?" 

The main title, Candlelight, is more descriptive and, along with Candlelight, has four other numbers composed by Bix revealing just how harmonically advanced he was in comparision with his contemporaries. I've often wondered if Duke drew from  Bix's piano compositions - both have been separately linked to Debussy - worthy of further investigation.  

Here the music, whilst in many ways compelling, is never totally jazz. Kurtzman's tone on violin is full and luscious almost viola-like in its sonority - evidence of her symphonic background. However, although it doesn't have the swing, the lilt of Grappelli or, closer to home, Emma Fisk, it's still a good sound.

Malinverni provides the jazz content and it's a collaboration of opposites that succeeds. He also supplies a couple of his own compositions.

A reworking of Coleman Hawkins' reworking of Body and Soul works well - that sentence involved a lot of work - and it is a worthy tribute to the original. Scott Joplin's Solace has a delightful turn of the century tearoom feel to it but it's the Bixian numbers that clinch it for me.

Lance

Contact/listen.

Pulcinella; Candlelight; Oblivion; Davenport Blues; Por Una Cabeza; In the Dark; Solace; Body and Soul; Doce de Coco; In a Mist; Love in the Time of Cholera; Flashes.

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