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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

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.
The 10: Classic Swing @ Carlisle Rugby Club, Warwick Rd., Carlisle. 8:30pm. £9.
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: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 11: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
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). CANCELLED!
Fri 11: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Market Place, Corbridge NE45 5AW. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 11: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 11: Mo Scott Band @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

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: 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.

Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 14: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by Nina Simone, performed by Nicholle Cherrie.

Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law (piano), Paul Grainger (double bass), Bailey Rudd (drums).

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

Tuesday, October 05, 2021

Book review: The History of Jazz (3rd Edition) – Ted Gioia (Oxford University Press)

This newly revised edition of Ted Gioia’s book is the best history of jazz that I have read. Over 520 pages he covers the evolution of the music as it arose out of the swamps of Louisiana, met with various influences on the way, grew across the US, adapted to technological developments, exploded out of its linear narrative in the 1950s and 60s as it explored many different roads and became the many headed beast we know and love today.

We start in 1819 with slaves in Congo Square, New Orleans playing string and percussion instruments from their homelands. This music is Americanised (or American music was Africanised), meets with church music and French and Spanish influences, unique in the USA to New Orleans, and, by the time of the Civil War, becomes something that might be recognised as jazz. 

We follow the journey to Chicago and thence to New York. By this time there are early jazz recordings and writings to draw upon. Up to this point, it’s a simple story and it appears as one where a new development comes on the shoulders of previous activities. I suspect that a lot more was going on outside of these three centres but the lack of a historical record makes it impossible to cover every nook and cranny. He manages to follow most of the new routes in jazz with the explosion of free jazz, fusion, socially conscious music, chamber jazz, Latin jazz and so on. In later chapters he is still more enthused by the music expanding and growing than he is with the Wynton Marsalis led retrenchment of the 80s. He closes with a statement of faith in that he believes that jazz musicians will continue to adapt and to incorporate whatever the wider world throws at them.

Gioia tells his story through a mixture of overviews showing how the music developed, the social and technological impacts on it and short critical biographies of the main players in any one era, the length of the entry dictated by their importance in the development of jazz. Thus, most are a couple of pages long whilst Ellington and Miles Davis are given several pages across several chapters. There is some discussion about musical notation and techniques but not enough to lose the non-musician like me.

Of course, one of the purposes of a book like this is to either introduce you to new performers or to encourage you to dig out recordings that haven’t been played for a while. Thus, I took a break to listen to a couple of hours of Bud Powell, before returning to the story, having already spent time in the company of Louis Armstrong and Art Tatum.

It is a very US-centric view of jazz, though this edition includes more information from around the rest of the world in recent years. There is only a passing mention of the great jazz made in the UK in the 60s and 70s, summarised into only a list of names, but more recent developments that show modern artists mixing Afro-Caribbean influences and hip-hop is covered in slightly more depth. There is also recognition of European jazz as well.

I finished it a couple of days before the recent Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music in Newcastle and came away from that thinking that some of the musicians I heard  (John Pope, Fergus McCreadie) are punching holes in the tradition and taking the music to new places whilst many American musicians are still bound to older ways. Maybe these next steps will turn up in the next edition.

I heartily recommend this book and suggest you all write to Santa so he can bulk buy before he starts his round and drop a copy down the chimney to good jazz fans everywhere. Dave Sayer

The History of Jazz (3rd Edition) – Ted Gioia (Oxford University Press - ISBN: 9780190087210)

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