Total Pageviews

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

17444 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 718 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Oct. 10).

From This Moment On ...

October

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: Lindsay Hannon + Eleanor Adams @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig. Note, this is a change to the previously advertised gig.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 13: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A DUJS event. All welcome.

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).

Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Cath Stephens’ improvisation workshop @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 4:30-6:00pm. Collaborative group focusing on vocal improvisations.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 17: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Olivia Cuttill Quintet @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 17: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Phoenix Theatre, Blyth. 7:30pm.
Thu 17: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 17: Niffi Osiyemi Trio @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. Guests Jeremy McMurray (keys); Richie Emmerson (tenor sax); Mark Toomey (alto sax); Adrian Beadnell (bass). 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert’s, Crook. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Chet Set @ Seventeen Nineteen, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. Pete Tanton & co.
Fri 18: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. Doors 7:30pm (upstairs). A Hoodoo Blues dance & social event. £10.00. class & social (£10.00., £7.50., £5.00. social only). Michael Woods (country blues guitar) on stage 9:00pm.
Fri 18: East Coast Swing Band @ Hexham Abbey. 7:30pm. £9.00.
Fri 18: Ben Crosland Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 18: Durham University Jazz Society’s ‘High Standards’ @ Music Dept. Music Room, Divinity House, Palace Green, Durham University DH1 3RS. 8:009-30pm. Tel: 0191 334 1419. £7.00., £5.00.
Fri 18: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sat 19: Sat 19: Paula Jackman’s Jazz Masters @ St Augustine’s Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club.
Jeff Hewer Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 19: Howlin’ Mat @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Country blues guitar & vocals. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

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, March 10, 2022

Album review: Walter Smith III & Matthew Stevens – In Common III

Walter Smith III (tenor sax); Matthew Stevens (guitar); Dave Holland (bass) Kris Davis (piano); Terry Lynne Carrington (drums)

I remember seeing Walter Smith III in a group he led in the Northern Rock Hall at Sage Gateshead; Michael Janisch, bassist and Whirlwind label founder, was also in the group. They scorched the varnish off the walls, but Smith made the novice’s mistake of not bring any CDs with him so I bought Banned in London by the pianist Aruan Ortiz instead and that turned out to be a real gem.

But I digress. In Common III is the third in a series that has seen Smith and Stevens meet up with a different rhythm section for each album. This time round a couple of jazz legends in Holland and Carrington have joined in along with Kris Davis who I hadn’t heard of before but who is, on this performance, no slouch whatsoever.

This isn’t a leaders plus rhythm section set up; Davis, Holland and Carrington are part of the group and were, clearly, expected to bring their own ideas and personalities to the session. Their contributions are significant and the album would have been a different, less interesting, beast without them.    

There are 15 tracks on the album, varying in length between 1:40 and 5:30 so you get a lot of what are really sketches. Some are fully fledged tunes whilst others are pieces of electronica that pulse, throb and yowl distractingly but, on occasion serve as an introduction to the next number. I can’t find the composer’s credits so I’m not sure of who is responsible for what.

We get a short intro to the album with Shine, a duet of just Smith and Stephens before track 2, Loping, does what it says on the tin. Carrington’s drumming and extended cymbal splashes creates the space for the others. By way of contrast, Oliver is altogether more knotty and complex with free pianism, electric moans, stabbing sax and wedges of discordant guitar. Hornets gives Davis the space to dance along the line between free playing and bebop and she shows all her strengths in a series of runs, either solo or in duet with Stephens. Again, you notice that it’s what Carrington and Holland aren’t playing, it’s the space, (man)! The brevity of Hornets is one of the album’s major frustrations. Maybe live it is allowed to realise its potential.

Orange Crush has long mournful notes from Smith over frantic piano exercises from Davis. There’s an industrial undertone to her playing, she’s like Charlie Chaplin on the factory floor in Modern Times. After, which follows, is more pastoral, languid and hopeful. It’s spacious and romantic and could be the last dance of the evening.

Lite is more electronica but For Some Time is more human. It’s dominated by the dance between hand drums and piano with the others chipping in round the side. Holland holds it all together.

Variable is another piece of nominative determinism. Variable it is! It’s free with Davis to the fore. Smith has said that “it was written to be played in many tempos, meters and approaches but was not discussed prior to recording it”.

The last two tracks, Familiar and Miserere are in my comfort zone. The former is a melodic piece of bop, with wonderful, wooden drumming from Carrington and the closer is delicate, resigned, if not exhausted. They should play this last in any concert and the last closing note would release all the tension in the audience to, I imagine, thunderous applause.

It’s a teasing, frustrating album in many ways but it has clear strengths and it’s riveting in parts. Even the electronic pieces serve as contrasts to the others and the freer and more mainstream pieces need them as part of the whole. You’d miss them if they weren’t there.  Dave Sayer

Available March 11 on Whirlwind Recordings.

No comments :

Blog Archive