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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

17346 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 630 of them this year alone and, so far, 35 this month (Sept. 11).

From This Moment On ...

September

Sun 15: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 15: Jude Murphy, Steve Chambers & Sid White @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 15: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Barrels Ale House, Berwick-upon-Tweed. 7:00pm. Free.
Sun 15: Panharmonia @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 16: Swing Manouche @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00.
Mon 16: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 16: John Hallam with the James Birkett Trio @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00. A Blaydon Jazz Club 40th anniversary concert!

Tue 17: Vieux Carré Hot 4 @ The Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval. 12:30pm. £13.00. Tel: 0191 237 3697. ‘Indian Summer Afternoon Tea’.
Tue 17: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Joe Steels (guitar); Paul Grainger (double bass); Abbie Finn (drums).

Wed 18: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 18: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 18: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 18: Hot Club of Heaton @ Elder Beer, Heaton, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘third Wednesday in the month’ session.

Thu 19: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 19: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 19: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. THC with guests Kevin Eland, Dan Johnson, Jeremy McMurray, Ron Smith.

Fri 20: Lindsay Hannon’s Tom Waits for No Man @ Gala Theatre, Durham. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 20: Rob Hall & Chick Lyall @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. Free (donations). SOLD OUT!
Fri 20: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 20: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 20: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 20: Leeway @ 1719, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. The Old Black Cat Jazz Club. CANCELLED!
Fri 20: Gaz Hughes Trio @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 21: Baghdaddies @ Two by Two, Albion Row, Byker, Newcastle NE6 1RQ. 6:00pm.
Sat 21: Jude Murphy & Alan Law @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Thursday, December 23, 2021

More tenor players

The review of the cut price Avid label's 2 CD release of four albums by Wardell Gray prompted me to dig out the other 16 vinyl albums I have  of the great man. I love them all - Wardell was perhaps the most underrated of the lot.

Nevertheless, as I listened to him playing Blue Lou along with Erroll Garner it occured to me that not only was this the most relaxed tenor playing I'd ever heard but that it also made me realise that, wonderful as Hawkins, Lester, Rollins and Trane are/were there were others that I listened to more - sometimes as much for their lifestyles as for their music although the latter quality had, of course, to cut it too. Here are some reminiscences...

Wardell Gray: The first time I met Charlie Carmichael he played me a record of  Wardell playing A Sinner Kissed an Angel. This was it - more than Lester less than Bird - maybe one really was a sinner and the other an angel. I don't think either Charlie or myself slotted into the latter category!

Dexter Gordon: When Wardell and Dexter were slugging it out in the joints on Central Avenue the groundwork was set down for whenever tenor saxists should meet and trade blows. I know Flip and Illinois had done it earlier with JATP but this was better. Later, Dexter's Blue Note albums became classics.

Brew Moore: Loved Lester almost as much as he loved booze. The combination of the two served to produce some great tenor playing on several albums that only ceased when his addiction to the latter overcome his dedication to the former and he broke his neck falling downstairs.

Allen Eager: Had it all. A great bop tenor player. Cooler than Getz he could hold his own on 52nd St. alongside the greats. He also manged to work as a ski instructor as well as doing a bit of motor racing. He could, I'm told, also pull the birds. I heard him at a club in Covent Garden. He wasn't at his best that night.

Teddy Edwards: A memorable night hearing him at a venue in Darlington. It was everything I expected from a man who'd been in at the birth of bebop. It was with a local rhythm section - Paul Smith was on drums, I can't recall the others but it was one of those nights that stayed ...

Guy Lafitte: It was at the Breda Jazz Festival where I first heard the French tenor sax player. Breda was predominately a trad festival with Tyneside bands such as the River City Jazzmen and the Saratoga Jazzmen frequently featured so that when I heard Lafitte with Bob Wilber and Warren Vaché it was like a breath of fresh air and I subsequently attempted to corner the market of his albums!

Tommy Whittle: Closer to home, Whittle was, for many years, my favourite British tenor player. I heard him several times at the Hopbine, a pub in North London that served two purposes. It enabled me to untangle the map of the London underground and, in doing so, introduced me to some of the finest tenor playing I'd ever heard. Even after 50 - maybe more - years later I still recall the opening number, Cole Porter's I Love You. Esquire vinyl, Spotlite CDs are still treasured as are the memories of hearing him at Blaydon and Live Theatre.

Gary Cox: A surprise choice but, those of us who remember Gary playing with the EmÇee 5 I'm sure will go along with me in thinking that Gary is another of the most underrated tenor players. My favourite story about Gary, who was playing with Don Smith at the Oxford Galleries in Newcastle at the time, was when he was asked by Ronnie McLean to play with his band at the New Orleans Club. "What's it pay?" asked Gary. "We split the door money" replied Ronnie. Gary went home with one and ninepence. He didn't do the next session!

Betty Smith: She was with Freddie Randall's Dixieland outfit at Seaburn Hall. I'd never heard of a woman playing saxophone until then (I was maybe 15 or 16) but she blew like Bud Freeman and I fell hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with her! Later she played on tv variety shows and Ian Forbes played drums in her band but that moment at Seaburn Hall is the moment that sticks.

Unknown: It was the early 1960s. The late Jim McDowell and myself went for a pint in the Forge and Hammer - a Jarrow pub now long gone. We'd anticipated a quiet pint and maybe a chat about an album by Erroll Garner or Stan Getz. Garner and Getz were soon forgotten! The crew from The Queen of Bermuda were in and there was a guy on tenor blowing some wild blues choruses. Another guy was singing and the ancient piano in the corner suddenly sounded like a Steinway albeit a Steinway that needed some attention both before and after - particularly after! I don't know who the tenor player was but he could have cut it anywhere!

Lance

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