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Bebop Spoken There

James Brandon Lewis: "Sometimes I'm not thinking about anything other than blowing the paint off the walls, and other times I'm narrating a story about my life." - (DownBeat June 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!"

Postage

15516 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 536 of them this year alone and, so far, 25 this month (June 7).

From This Moment On ...

Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Fri 09: Emma Rawicz @ Sage Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Sat 10: Miners' Picnic @ Woodhorn, Ashington. Music inc. Northern Monkey Brass Band (3:00-3:50pm); New York Brass Band (4:00-4:55pm).
Sat 10: Jeffrey Hewer @ The Vault, Darlington Covered Market, Darlington. 6:00-8:00pm. Free.
Sat 10: Front Porch Three @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Americana, blues, jazz etc.
Sat 10: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 11: WORKSHOP: Tim Richards' Jazz Piano Workshop @ JG Windows, Newcastle. Time TBC. Further details tel. 0191 232 1356.
Sun 11: Jeremy McMurray's Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Ropner Park, Stockton TS18 4EF. 2:00-4:00pm. Free.
Sun 11: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:30pm. Free.
Sun 11: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 11: Groovetrain @ Innisfree Sports & Social Club, Longbenton NE12 8TY. Doors 6:30pm. £15.00 (£7.00. under 16).
Sun 11: Jeffrey Hewer Collective @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 11: Jam No. 19 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 12: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 13: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 13: Infusion Trio @ Forum Music Centre, Darlington. 7:30pm.
Tue 13: Alice Grace & Pawel Jedrzejewski @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 8:00pm. £12.00 (£10.00. adv.).

Wed 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 14: NUJO Final Jazz Jam @ Bar Loco, Newcastle. 6:30pm. Free. Newcastle University Jazz Orchestra's final jam session of the academic year. All welcome.
Wed 14: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 14: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 14: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 15: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 15: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library. 2:30-4:30pm. £2.00. All welcome.
Thu 15: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Thu 15: Alexander Ord Trio @ Tynedale Beer & Cider Festival, Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. Evening, time TBC.
Thu 15: Têtes de Pois + Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. Time TBC.
Thu 15: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.

Wednesday, November 03, 2021

Book/CD review: Brian Morton - The Making of Chet Baker Sings

Chet Baker (trumpet, vocal); Russ Freeman (piano); Jimmy Bond, Carson Smith, Joe Mondragon (bass); Peter Littman, Lawrence Marable, Bob Neel, Shelly Manne (drums)

Back in the mid-fifties I recall a Melody Maker headline that read "Chet Baker to appear in London - But only to sing!" This was, at the time, akin to saying that Fred Astaire would be appearing but wouldn't be dancing.

This was, of course, due to the ongoing situation where foreign musicians weren't allowed to play for fear of them taking work away from British musicians. It didn't apply to singers as they would have local musicians accompanying them.

As time went by Chet's singing became more and more accepted although the late Sinclair Traill in the April 1959 issue of Jazz Journal reviewing Chet Baker Sings wrote: "It is the sad music of despair - a sound I can do without". A ludicrous statement that was typical of the jazz critics of that era.

Fortunately, the years and this album have proved the pundits wrong. Chet Baker Sings now stands alongside Sinatra's Wee Small Hours and the Ella Song Books as being among the all time vocal classics.

The fact that someone has found it worthy enough to write an 80 page hard-backed book about the album is proof, if proof were needed, of its importance. A Kind of Blue, Jazz at Massey Hall and A Love Supreme are among the few jazz albums given that degree of acceptance. Morton does it justice without going too deeply into the actual goings on in the studio. Instead he gives us the background to the session without the sensationalism that most of Baker's biographers do.

As regards the actual music, this is as cool as it gets and yet packed with underlying emotion. The voice rests comfortably between Sinatra's romanticism and Tormé's vocal agility over twenty GASbook classics - six more than on the 12" album and twelve more than on the original 10" album released in 1954.

Despite the title, the trumpet isn't absent. On The Thrill is Gone he blows a fine obligato behind the vocal whilst his intro to There Will Never be Another You wouldn't have sounded out of place at Condon's or Jimmy Ryan's giving substance to the suggestion that Chet was a natural evolution from Bix. Fine piano from Russ Freeman too.

Highly recommended for both the music, Brian Morton's descriptive writing and the black and white photos, many previously unseen, by various photographers including William Claxton - Lance

That Old Feeling; It's Always You; Like Someone in Love; My Ideal; I've Never Been in Love Before; My Buddy; But Not For Me; Time After Time; I Get Along Without You Very Well; My Funny Valentine; There Will Never be Another You; The Thrill is Gone; I Fall in Love Too Easily; Look For the Silver Lining; Daybreak;; Just Friends; I Remember You; Let's Get Lost; Long Ago and Far Away; You Don't Know What Love is.

Brian Morton: The Making of Chet Baker Sings. Jazz Images 2021.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the review. It's probably common currency among your readers. But just in case not it's worth reiterating that Brian Morton is one of the world's best jazz writers. No one really gives a damn really about jazz writers which is abysmal of course but the reality so more should actually praise writers of his calibre given the pervasive whistling in the dark otherwise. Because what he writes belongs more in the realms of literature even if he only pens a small review, even a caption (as he sometimes writes for the Italian Cam Jazz label). Only Geoff Dyer (in the pages of But Beautiful) is in the same league in terms of style, intellectual rigour and substance.

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