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Bebop Spoken There

Sullivan Fortner: ''I always judge it by the bass player: If the bass player is happy, it's going to be a good night". (DownBeat, February 2025).

The Things They Say!

This is a good opportunity to say thanks to BSH for their support of the jazz scene in the North East (and beyond) - it's no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for them many, many fine musicians, bands and projects across a huge cross section of jazz wouldn't be getting reviewed at all, because we're in the "desolate"(!) North. (M & SSBB on F/book 23/12/24)

Postage

17805 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 126 of them this year alone and, so far, 51 this month (Feb.16).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Sun 23: Musicians Unlimited @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 23: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: Mark Williams Trio @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 23: Ruth Lambert Trio @ The Juke Shed, Union Quay, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 23: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 23: Mississippi MacDonald @ Georgian Theatre, Stockton. 3:00pm. Blues.
Sun 23: Mu Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. CANCELLED!
Sun 23: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 24: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 24: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30pm. Free.

Tue 25: ?

Wed 26: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 26: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 26: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 27: Jamie McCredie @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Fri 28: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. THIS WEEK ONLY JAMES BIRKETT (guitar)!
Fri 28: Luis Verde Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT!
Fri 28: Spilt Milk @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Fri 28: Castillo Nuevo Orquesta @ Pilgrim, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £8.00.
Fri 28: Knats @ Lubber Fiend, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £11.50. (inc bf.). Album launch gig. Support act TBC.
Fri 28: Black is the Color of My Voice @ The Gala, Durham. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by the life of Nina Simone, performed by Florence Odumosu.
Fri 28: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival: Musicians Unlimited @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 8:00pm. £10.00. (Weekend ticket £20.00., available on the door). Day 1/3. Musicians Unlimited in concert.
Fri 28: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

MARCH 2025

Sat 01: Great North Big Band Jazz Festival @ Park View Community Centre, Chester-le-Street. 11:00am. £15.00. Day 2/3.
Sat 01: TJ Johnson Band @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. £10.00.
Sat 01: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £25.00. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Get your funk on! Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 01: Shunyata Improvisation Group @ The Watch House, Cullercoats. 2:00-3:30pm. Free.
Sat 01: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Billy Bootleggers. Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free.
Sat 01: Struggle Buggy @ The Peacock, Sunderland. 6:00pm. Blues band.
Sat 01: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 01: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 01: Jack & Jay’s Vintage Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

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, March 19, 2021

Album review: Steve Gadd Band - Live At Blue Note Tokyo

Steve Gadd (drums); Walt Fowler (trumpet/flugelhorn); Kevin Hayes (keys/vocals); Jimmy Johnson (bass); David Spinoza (guitar).

On a day when the morning cloud has diluted the morning sun, such that there is a barely homeopathic trace of warmth or heat coming through I sit down in the hope of hearing something to lift the spirits. The Steve Gadd Band Live At Blue Note,Tokyo was recorded towards the end of the olden days on December 18, 2019. Maybe this would be a reminder of happier times.

I don’t really know much about Steve Gadd as a bandleader. I’ve heard of his extensive session work but I’d always associated him with yacht rock, soft jazz and those Eric Clapton albums from the period when his suits (Anthony Price, Versace, Armani) were more interesting than his music. Music that was niiiice but had no edge, that you would admire for the craft, but not the art. Such is the way of the music snob.

Reading about Gadd, it’s clear that he has played with everyone except the guy from the chip shop who thinks he’s Elvis and next door’s cat. The list of albums he has contributed to fills 20 pages of close typing; in 1975 he was on 24 releases and thirty years later his credits had reduced to, a still hugely impressive, 21. I wonder if, during all the hours of packing and unpacking his kit he ever considered a life as a session flautist.

And so to Live At Blue Note. On first listen it comes in like a sheep and goes out like a wolf. Opener, Where’s Earth?, with Walt Fowler’s trumpet to the fore sounds like very late period Miles doing Human Nature or Time After Time. Doesn’t She Know By Now is an equally laid back groove with everyone in the band taking relaxed solos until it all starts to spark at about the four minute mark when they begin to sound like a band playing together not just five blokes in the same room at the same time. 

Hidden Drive is more dinner jazz with some cocktail bar tinkling from Kevin Hays and guitar noodling by David Spinozza which briefly turns into something more passionate but this is dissipated when the rest of the band drops out. Contrast that with Rat Race which just sounds like it was recorded louder and is all-in from the start.

Perhaps the pace doesn’t help either. Most of the tunes are slow to medium paced shuffles, so the Latin funk of One Point Five stands out as a sign of life, building as it does into a Gadd solo.

There is a lot of great musicianship on display here, and I especially like Jimmy Johnson’s rolling bass funk lines, but it lacks that spark to really start it burning. There are brief flashes when it feels like it’s going to take off but these are, too frequently, closed off with a wrap up at the end of the song. Maybe they should have let some of the tunes extend into jams and allowed more development and more challenge, (I could definitely have lived with another ten minutes of Way Back Home as it rolled it’s way from Johnson’s bass explorations into a lively honky-tonk piano with a heavy duty left hand).

Maybe you had to be there.

Available April 2 via usual suspects.

David Sayers

Where’s Earth?; Doesn’t She Know By Now; Timpanogos; Hidden Drive; Walk With Me; One Point Five; Way Back Home; Rat Race; Watching the River Flow.

STOP PRESS: Steve Gadd is taking part in an hour long Zoom call in support of the Mark Jon Bolderson Foundation. Mark was a Hexham based drummer and percussion tutor at Durham University who died in 2017.   Further details of the Foundation and the Steve Gadd Zoom call are HERE

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