Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Branford Marsalis: "As ignorance often forces us to do, you make a generalisation about a musician based on one specific record or one moment in time." - (Jazzwise June 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

15491 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 512 of them this year alone and, so far, 133 this month (May 31).

From This Moment On ...

June

Sat 03: Newcastle Record Fair @ Northumbria University, Newcastle NE8 8SB. 10:00am-3:00pm. Admission: £2.00.
Sat 03: Pedigree Jazz Band @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 03: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Sue Ferris. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 03: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 03: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 03: Papa G's Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 04: Smokin' Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm.
Sun 04: Central Bar Quintet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. £5.00. The Central Bar Quintet plays Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus. Featuring Lewis Watson.
Sun 04: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 04: Struggle Buggy + Michael Littlefield @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Acoustic blues.
Sun 04: Swinging at the Cotton Club: Harry Strutters' Hot Rhythm Orchestra @ The Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Sun 04: Richard Jones Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 04: Jam No. 18 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 05: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 06: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 06: Jam session @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 7:30pm. House trio: Stu Collingwood (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Sid White (drums).

Wed 07: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 07: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 07: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 07: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 08: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free. CANCELLED! BACK ON JUNE 15.
Thu 08: Easington Colliery Brass Band @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00.
Thu 08: Faye MacCalman + Blue Dust Archive @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 08: Dilutey Juice + Ceramic @ The Ampitheatre, Sea Road, South Shields. 7:00pm. Free. A South Tyneside Festival event.
Thu 08: Lara Jones w. Vigilance State @ Lubber Fiend, Blandford Square, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 08: Michael Littlefield @ the Harbour View, Roker, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Country blues.
Thu 08: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Fri 09: Emma Rawicz @ Sage Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Double album review: Dexter Gordon - The Squirrel

Dexter Gordon (tenor sax); Kenny Drew (piano); Bo Stief (bass); Art Taylor (drums)

The albums they come and then they go. Some arrive, you listen and, very occasionally, listen again on the car stereo. But there are others that you play frequently and highly recommend.

However, the moment when you feel jazz blogging is all worthwhile is that rare occasion when you are placed into the position of the art critic asked to review the Mona Lisa.

It doesn't happen often, but, today I found myself in that position twice! I'll write about the second album later, after I've tired of the first which could be never!

I've got, and almost worn out, Dexter's Blue Note albums. I never remotely imagined I could hear him play better. It's like saying that a soccer player only scored a hat-trick or a cricketer only scored a century. Well this is is a double hat-trick and a triple century combined! I love Coltrane, Rollins, Getz et al but this is something else. Even my greatest hero, Wardell Gray, had he lived would have struggled to reach this level.

A double album vinyl beautifully laid out with comprehensible notes written on the inner sleeves make this a work of art in itself and that's before the first of the four extended tracks sent me reeling the way only the very best can hit you and as it must surely have knocked out the Danish fans at Copenhagen's Jazzhuis Montmartre back in 1967.

The four tracks range from 12 mins to 20 mins with Dexter the predominate figure although Drew, Taylor and Stief also chip in - Taylor driving it along without overpowering. No one quite built on the legacy of Lester and Bird like Dexter Gordon did - this is the Holy Grail of saxophone playing.

Listening enraptured, I wondered why I couldn't have been sitting in the front row at the legendary Copenhagen club. A check with an old diary revealed I was doing a wedding gig at the Springfield Hotel in Gateshead that day. Talk about chalk and cheese although, in this case, it was Cheese Cake which Dexter allowed us to gorge for 20 minutes and 43 seconds. Never has it tasted more delicious.

The young (and the old) pretenders may wax eloquent about the newer guys but, without Dex, there wouldn't have been any newer guys. The proof is in these two 180g pieces of vinyl issued by good old Parlophone to coincide with the latest Record Store Day - October 24.

Lance

The Squirrel; Cheese Cake; You've Changed; Sonnymoon for Two.

1 comment :

Mike Farmer said...

Great Review. I've had many Dexter Gordon records over the years and have come to the conclusion that no other tenor player is in his league. I was was at the Montmartre Club in Copenhagen once sitting at the front and got the full force of his huge sound. Kenny Drew on piano NHOP bass and Alex Rial drums. What a night1

Blog Archive