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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.

Friday, February 19, 2021

Album review: Enrico Pieranunzi & Bert Joris - Afterglow

Enrico Pieranunzi  (piano),  Bert Joris (trumpet, flugelhorn) 

Veteran Italian pianist Pieranunzi has recorded prolifically, in many settings since the mid-1970s, and he teams up here with the experienced Belgian Bert Joris on trumpet and flugel for an intimate and relaxed session of originals. Despite their considerable output, I have to say neither player had made much impression on me until hearing this new album. I guess that although jazz audiences on the mainland are famously large, much continental jazz goes under the radar in the UK, swamped by homegrown and transatlantic produce, and not helped by the infrequency of touring here. On the evidence of this Italian-Belgian product, we need to salvage some European jazz alongside the threatened loss of Chianti and Trappist beer!  

Trumpet and piano is a somewhat unusual but highly effective pairing, to my ears at least. A very classy recent example is Avisahai Cohen and Yonathan Avishai’s 2019 Playing the Room (link). The format lends itself to the relaxed ballad, and this mood is visited here, but with livelier and freer interludes.   Pieranunzi’s style is rooted in straight ahead bop, and he is often compared to Bill Evans, but with a more cinematic tendency, allied to some classical echoes.  I have to say the opening mood here of Siren’s Lounge reminded me of a privileged evening in the company of Messrs. Edis and Hardy in the Beaumont Hotel in Hexham back in pre-Covid days!  Pieranunzi has form in this idiom, having recorded with Chet Baker back in 1979, but while Joris never assaults the ear-drums, he has a much more dynamic range and technique than Baker, with purposeful lyrical intent, á  la Enrico Rava.  

The eleven jointly composed tracks are all quite short, three to six minutes long, and span the relaxed and lyrical, awash with languid space, through to the more urgent and intense, although never frantic.   

The title track, Afterglow, is the standout, not to be confused with Ed Sheeran’s rather different 2020 hit (or God forbid Genesis’ 1976 bombastic banger!). This one is a delicate ballad, opening with wistful piano joined by perfectly intersecting trumpet before passing the wholesome theme back and forth, carefully treading the fine line between sentimental and cheesy.  

Millie takes a more playful and quirky turnbefore the delightful Cradle Song for Mattia blends joy at the birth of a nephew with grace and poignancy recalling Avishai Cohen’s similar folk lullaby Shir Eres. The harder edged and hipper Five Plus Five embraces dissonant piano voicings, and in fact the second half of the album heads into freer and more exploratory spaces. This range, and the sheer grandeur of the flugel on How Could We Forget, dispels any notion that this is merely high class lounge jazz.  

At first listening, the limited tonal palette and homespun nonchalance disguise the depth and subtlety of both playing and composition,  so I would recommend a few listens at twilight to fully appreciate the Afterglow: A frolic of crimson is the spreading glory of the sky, heaven’s jocund maid flaunting a trailed red robe’ (T.E. Hulme) 

Chris K 


Challenge Records UPC0608917346022 Released January 2021 Recorded Sept. 2018. 

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