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Farewell Blues

A quiet month so far...

Bebop Spoken There

Joe Daley: "We [Daley & Sam Rivers] did an entire tour, and nothing was discussed other than what time was dinner" - (JazzTimes Sept. 2022)

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

14644 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 14 years ago. 922 of them this year alone and, so far, 21 this month (Oct.6).

From This Moment On ...

October

Fri 07: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 07: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 07: Hannabiell & the Midnight Blue Collective + Knats @ Dance City, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £15.00. (£12.50. student).
Fri 07: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. 'Celebrating Oscar'.
Fri 07: Mick Cantwell Quartet @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free (donations). Blind Pig Blues Club.
Fri 07: Anth Purdy @ Waterford Arms, Seaton Sluice. 8:00pm.
Fri 07: Rob Heron & the Tea Pad Orchestra @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 8:30pm.

Sat 8 Oct, Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Buck Inn, Thornton Watlass, Ripon HG4 4AH. 12.20pm. NOTE SATURDAY GIG AS OPPOSED TO REGULAR SUNDAY GIG. COACH FROM WHITLEY BAY NOW SOLD OUT!
Sat 08: Paul Skerritt w Danny Miller Big Band @ Westovian Theatre, South Shields. 7:30pm.
Sat 08: Milne-Glendinning Band @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sat 08: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. Maureen Hall's monthly residency one week later than usual.

Sun 09: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ Spanish City, Whitley Bay. 12 noon.
Sun 09: Tees Valley Jazzmen @ Hammer & Pincers, Preston le Skerne. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Sun 09: Chip Wickham @ The Cluny, Newcastle.
Sun 09: Blue Jazz Quartet w Rivkala @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 10: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 10: Central Bar Quintet plays Blue Train @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 7:30pm. Concert performance + jam session. £5.00 (free admission to sitters-in).

Tue 11: Dean Stockdale Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:30pm.

Wed 12: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 12: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 12: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 12: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 13: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, North Tyneside. 1:00pm.
Thu 13: Hypothetical: Works Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement @ King's Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 13: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 3:00-5:00pm. £1.00. All welcome.
Thu 13: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.
Thu 13: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm. The Mark Toomey Quartet with Mark Toomey (alto sax) Jeremy McMurray (piano) Peter Ayton (bass) Paul Smith (drums).

Saturday, January 30, 2021

The Johnny O'Neal Trio live streaming from Smalls, NYC - Jan. 29

Johnny O'Neal (piano, vocals); Mark Lewandowski (double bass); Charles Goold (drums)

Smalls Jazz Club live streaming gigs isn't news, this smallest of Greenwich Village venues has been doing just that since September 2007. Over the last thirteen years every performance has been documented. In association with partner venue Mezzrow's (which opened its doors in 2014), no fewer than 17,000 streamed gigs have been deposited in the archives. 

We're at 183 W 10th St., Johnny O'Neal is holding court. Gigging at Smalls is one of the ex-Jazz Messengers' regular engagements. This evening our pianist is working with buddies Mark Lewandowski, bass, and drummer Charles Goold. O'Neal seated at a Yamaha, bass and drums occupying the remaining floor space, a portrait of Louis Armstrong part of the backdrop. Straight in with a swinging take on Witchcraft. Excellent.       

Two thirds of the trio have played gigs on Tyneside, albeit some thirty five years apart. In the early eighties a then young O'Neal arrived in town with Art Blakey to perform at the Newcastle Jazz Festival. Three or four years ago Mark Lewandowski (a lad from Nottingham, by way of the London jazz scene, now making a name for himself in the Big Apple) turned up at Newcastle Jazz Co-op's HQ working with Liam Noble as part of a nationwide tour playing the music of Fats Waller. Charles Goold has yet to make it to the BSH heartland, seemingly the native New Yorker is plenty busy at the moment! 

Oscar Pettiford's Tricotism, the trio swinging, thoughts turned to when we will be able to make the trip across the pond to hear these guys up close, for real. A surprise...O'Neal wanted to sing a number (Blakey wouldn't have countenanced the idea!). A Hundred Years from Today. Great tune, but let's be honest, O'Neal ain't no Sinatra! That said, let's give the guy a break, the vocal mic wasn't the best, that's for sure. Yes, we need to hear the man in a club setting. One day, one day...

More vocals! With Every Breath I Take, as much spoken word as sung, the kinda vocal a non-singer can do well, blues inflection, and all that. I've Got the World on a String, clearly O'Neal was enjoying himself. And to close a marvellous hour - it was marvellous, vocals included! - it was back to what Johnny O'Neal does best, playing piano. And what a way to go out...Oscar Peterson's finger-busting Mississauga Rattler. 

Hello, is that British Airways? Can you do me a cheap flight to JFK? I've just got to get to Smalls to hear Johnny O'Neal!  
Russell
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