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Bebop Spoken There

Billy Boy Arnold: “As long as you don't think old you're good.” - DownBeat, December, 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!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Postage

16051 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 1058 of them this year alone and, so far, 12 this month (Dec. 6).

From This Moment On ...

December

Thu 07: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free CANCELLED!
Thu 07: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ Spanish City, Whitley Bay, Newcastle. 12 noon - 4:00pm. £26.00 (inc 3-course meal in in St Mary's Lighthouse Suite). SOLD OUT!
Thu 07: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm. All welcome.
Thu 07: Thursday Night Prayer Meeting @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.Donations. Feat. Mark Sanders. CANCELLED!
Thu 07: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00. Downstairs. CANCELLED!
Thu 07: Tees Hot Club: Just Friends @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. Guest band night w. Richie Emmerson, Ian Bosworth, Dave Archbold, Ron Smith, Mark Hawkins. 9:00pm.

Fri 08: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 08: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 08: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 08: Giles Strong Quartet @ The Old Library, Auckland Castle. 1:00pm. £7.00.
Fri 08: Hayley's Little Big Band @ Woodland Village Hall, Bishop Auckland. 7:00pm. £12.00.
Fri 08: Sleep Suppressor + Redwell @ Head of Steam, Neville St., Newcastle. 8:00pm. £10.00. (£8.00. adv); £5.00. student.
Fri 08: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert's Church, Shadforth, Co. Durham.
Fri 08: Têtes de Pois + Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.00., £8.00.

Sat 09: Prudhoe Community Band @ Central Station, Newcastle. 10:00am - 12 noon. Charity fundraiser.
Sat 09: Durham Alumni Big Band @ Number One Bar, Skinnergate, Darlington. 1:00pm.
Sat 09: Castillo Nuevo Trio @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30pm. Free.
Sat 09: Hayley's Little Big Band @ Middleton & Todridge Village Hall, Morpeth. 7:30pm. £12.00., £6.00.
Sat 09: Paul Skerritt @ Slaley Hall, Hexham NE47 0BX. 7:30pm. From £42.00.

Sun 10: Musicians Unlimited’s Xmas Party with Zoë Gilby Quartet @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. MU 1:00-3:00pm; Zoë Gilby Quartet 4:00-6:00pm. Tickets: £7.50.
Sun 10: Alan Law, Paul Grainger & Abbie Finn @ Darlington Market, Market Square, Darlington. 1:00pm. Free. A ‘Christmas Market’ outdoor gig. Wrap up warm!
Sun 10: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00-4:00pm. Free.
Sun 10: Funk Soul Sista @ Stack, Seaburn. 5:00-7:00pm. Free.
Sun 10: Beth Clarke @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 10: Hayley's Little Big Band @ Whittingham Memorial Institute, Alnwick. 7:30pm. £12.00., £10.00.
Sun 10: Tele-Port @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Line-up inc. Zhenya Strigalev.

Mon 11: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 11: Interim Final Recitals @ Newcastle University. Details TBC.

Tue 12: Stu Collingwood Organ Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:00pm. £10.00.

Wed 13: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 13: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 13: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 13: Bold Big Band @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Wed 13: Giles Strong Quartet @ Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

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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