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Bebop Spoken There

Spasmo Brown: “Jazz is an ice cream sandwich! It's the Fourth of July! It's a girl with a waterbed!”. (Syncopated Times, July, 2024).

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...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

17421 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 695 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Mon 07: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 07: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30-8:30pm. Free.

Tue 08: ???

Wed 09: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. Wed 09: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 5:00-7:00pm. Free.
Wed 09: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 09: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 09: The Tannery Jam Session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. A ‘second Wednesday in the month’ jam session.
Wed 09: Shunya, Dudù Kouate & Seb Rochford @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:30pm (7:30pm doors). £21.00.

Thu 10: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 10: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘Collaborations - it happened all the time’.
Thu 10: Indigo Jazz Voices w. the Little Big Band @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.
Thu 10: Side Cafe Orkestar @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 10: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. With guests Donna Hewitt (sax); Bill Watson (trumpet); Graham Thompson (keys); Ron Smith (bass). Free.

Fri 11: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Old Library, Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 11: The Jazz Quartet + Stratosphonic @ Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. 7:00pm. £15.00. A Rotary Club of Hexham event. The Jazz Quartet (Jude Murphy & co), Stratosphonic (blues/rock).
Fri 11: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Market Place, Corbridge NE45 5AW. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 11: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Sat 12: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Michael Woods @ Victoria Tunnel, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv.). Country blues guitar & vocals.
Sat 12: Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £13.28, £11.16, £9.04. A two-track recording launch gig.
Sat 12: Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Stuart Turner @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Rockabilly, rhythm & blues etc. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 12: Lapwing Jazz Trio @ The Ship Inn, Low Newton. 8:00pm. Free. New trio: Paula Whitty, Richard Herdman, Jude Murphy.

Sun 13: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Emma Wilson @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sun 13: Catfish Keith @ The Cluny. 7:00pm. Country blues.
Sun 13: Cath Stephens & Paul Grainger @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Stephens & Grainger, one third of a triple bill.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

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

Thursday, July 08, 2021

Album review: Daniel Herskedal - Harbour

Daniel Herskedal (tuba, bass trumpet; Eyolf Dale (piano, celesta); Helge Andreas Norbakken (drums, marimba)

Freshly caught from an island off the coast of Norway, the latest programmatic imagined-landscape fantasia from the tuba wizard and his talented compatriots, with publicity photos looking like a flier for a new, moody Scandi crime drama.  This is the core of the band who graced Sage 2 in 2019 and have been rightly lauded for their trilogy of albums Slow Eastbound Train, The Roc and Voyage.

Harbour is an extension of this musical line with Edition Records, rather than Herskedal’s austere 2020 solo lockdown offering “Call for Winter’, which won the Spellemann Award (Norwegian Grammy). Here we have a continuous cinematic vision, blending folk, jazz, classical and Arabic strains – an uninterrupted line from Persian Gulf to Norwegian fjord – by sea of course.  

This version of the band omits the lush viola playing of Bergmund Waal Skaslien, and initially I feared this would be a noticeable loss. While Skaslien is hardly a soloist in the mould of Mahavishnu’s Jerry Goodman, or the remarkable more contemporary Adam Baldych, he augmented the band’s sound perfectly with swooning legato lines. Interestingly, I hardly missed him here, as Herskedal effortlessly takes on both lead and bass lines to compensate, and Eyolf Dale steps up a gear with achingly wholesome melodic lines echoing and inter-weaving with the tuba.

Herskedal’s tuba mastery and extended techniques (singing, puffing, swooping) seem to have reached an even higher plane - literally sometimes, at pitches some trumpeters would be pleased with! But he never strays beyond artistry into showing off, and the composition, sound and orchestration are so well executed that you forget the unusual instrumentation.  Supporting and enhancing the virtuoso tuba and piano is the restless and atmospheric force of nature emanating from percussion maestro Norbakken, who starred on the recent excellent LAN Atlantico (link).

Standout tracks include The Lighthouse on the Horizon, scion of The Lighthouse on the 2019 Voyage, with gorgeous call and response between piano and tuba.  Hunters Point Drydocks is a delightful syncopated romp in fivewith light as a feather tuba bass figures.  Dancing dhow deckhands is an Arabic romp, an intricate and multi-dimensional adventure in the eastern soundscapes beloved of Yazz Ahmed.

Herskedal has pulled off the difficult trick of further developing and extending his line of conceptually similar albums with another significant work sitting on the Nordic classical-folk shoreline of jazz.  Very highly recommended – a marine treasure chest of subtle melody, emotion and rhythmic intrigue, which yields fresh delights at every listening.

Chris K

 Release date: 02.07.21 CD, LP, Digital at Edition and Bandcamp.

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