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Bebop Spoken There

Art Blakey: "You [Bobby Watson] don't want to play too long, because you don't know they're clapping because they're glad you finished!" - (JazzTimes, Nov. 2019)..

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

15848 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 855 of them this year alone and, so far, 53 this month (Sept. 18).

From This Moment On ...

September

Thu 21: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: La Malbec Orchestra @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Thu 21: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.
Thu 21: Linsday Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 21: Ray Stubbs R & B All Stars @ The Schooner, Gateshead. 8:30pm. Free.
Thu 21: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 22: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 22: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 22: Brief Encounter @ Bardon Mill Village Hall, Northumberland. 7:00pm. Tickets: £10.00. adv from 07885 303166; £12.00. on the door. Chris & Veronica Perrin improvising to a screening of the 1929 'Jazz Age' silent film Piccadilly (Dir. Ewald André Dupont).
Fri 22: Paul Edis & Graeme Wilson + Three Tsuru Origami @ Jesmond United Reformed Church, Newcastle. 7:30pm. A Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music event.
Fri 22: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 22: Abbie Finn's Finntet @ Traveller's Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 23: Tyne Valley Big Band @ Tanfield Railway, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. Free. A '1940s Weekend' event.
Sat 23: Jason Isaacs @ Stack, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 23: Andrew Porritt & Keith Barrett @ Cullercoats Watch House, Front St., Cullercoats NE30 4QB. 7:00pm.
Sat 23: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Country blues.

Sun 24: Musicians Unlimited @ Park Inn, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 24: More Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.

Mon 25: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Mon 25: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 7:00pm.

Tue 26: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.

Wed 27: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 27: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 27: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Monday, April 26, 2021

Ten Irish Jazz Musicians from the 1960s and 70s

Like Newcastle in the 1960s and 70s Dublin was full of venues with live music and in particular you could find clubs and bars offering live jazz most nights. As I was a frequent visitor to many of these places my BSH List of 10  is Irish jazz musicians I heard playing live during this period.

Number 1 - Rock Fox (aka Chas Meredith) - trumpet and saxophone

I first heard live jazz as a teenager in our local village hall in Foxrock outside Dublin. It was a mainstream seven-piece group called the Butler Fox Jazz Band and the sound of all the musicians playing together at full volume made an indelible impression on the 50 or so youngsters crammed into the tiny room. One of the leaders, Rock Fox, was an amateur jazz historian who made wonderfully long-winded introductions to each track, particularly those by his favourite composer Duke Ellington, in a rich, mellifluous accent that greatly increased the entertainment value of the session. 

We also liked him because he actually lived locally and because he was a practising solicitor called Chas Meredith. when he started playing professionally he needed a stage name at short notice and took inspiration from our village. No wonder I was drawn to the music as, thanks to Chas Meredith, jazz was embedded in our village’s name from the late 1950s.

As well as his erudite intros, Rock Fox was a very good trumpet and saxophone player and excellent arranger and he and the band were regularly called upon to back visiting British and American jazz stars during visits to Ireland. He famously accommodated Gerry Mulligan in his house for a number of weeks in the early 1970s and took him on an elegantly manic series of gigs around the country.

I saw the band a lot during those early years and caught up with it a few times later on trips back home. Rock Fox was still going strong and playing with different bands at least 40 years after I first heard him and for a long time he had an influential and long running jazz programme on Irish national radio. He is generally recognised as one of the important figures in the development of jazz in Ireland.

About five years ago I had the genuine pleasure of interviewing Rock Fox for a musical project I was working on and after two hours of fascinating but unfinished memories we decided to stop and arrange another time. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards and I was never able to complete the interview. This was a real sadness as we had only reached 1952 so I never did get to talk to him in detail about those early sessions that were so important to me.

JC

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