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Bebop Spoken There

Phillip Lutz: ''That [sight-reading], in turn, led to session work that was well-paying but unsatisfying and, after 18 months, he [John McLaughlin] unceremoniously quit. But he fortuitously hooked up with a couple of fellow northerners, organist Mike Carr and drummer Jackie Denton. They provided entrée to London's premier jazz club, Ronnie Scott's, periodically playing opening sets''. (DownBeat, December 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

17586 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 860 of them this year alone and, so far, 5 this month (Dec. 2).

From This Moment On ...

December

Wed 04: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 04: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 2:30-4:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Wed 04: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 8:00pm. Concert. Free. .
Wed 04: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 04: Kat Eaton @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 8:15pm. Soulful vocals, excellent band.

Thu 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 05: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘George - named musicians, vocalists & composers (Chisholm, Duke, Lewis, Shearing, Benson, Melly, Gershwin et al)’.
Thu 05: Jools Holland’s R & B Orchestra @ Newcastle City Hall. 7:30pm.
Thu 05: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. Free.
Thu 05: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. Guest band special with the Middlesbrough Jazz and Blues Orchestra 8pm. Free.

Fri 06: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 06: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 06: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 06: Sue Ferris Quintet @ The Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.

Sat 07: New Century Ragtime Orchestra @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm. Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club.
Sat 07: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. £25.00. Tutor: Steve Glendinning. Enrol at: learning@jazz.coop.
Sat 07: Hot Club du Nord @ St. Cuthbert’s Church, Shadforth DH6 1LB. Tel: 01429 823400. 7:30pm. £15.00. (inc. refreshments).
Sat 07: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 07: Bellavana @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 7:45-9:45pm. Free.
Sat 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 07: Bluebell Swing @ Repas7 by Night, West St., Berwick. 8:00pm.

Sun 08: The New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free. A ‘second Sunday in the month’ residency.
Sun 08: Learning & Participation Showcase @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Free. Multi-genre event followed by a jam session. All welcome.
Sun 08: Zoë Gilby Quintet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 08: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 08: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 08: Jason Isaacs @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 5:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Sun 08: Paul Skerritt @ The Black Candle, South Shields. 6:30pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 08: Redwell @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 08: Durham University Big Band + Durham University Jazz Orchestra: Jazzy Christmas @ Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theatre, North Bailey, Durham DH1 3ET. 7:30-9:30pm. £7.00., £6.00. concs., £5.00. Durham Student Music member. Durham University Jazz Ensembles’ annual charity event.
Sun 08: Jools Holland’s R & B Orchestra @ The Globe, Stockton. 7:30pm.
Sun 08: Mick Beck, Dominic Lash, Paul Hession @ the Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm (doors 7:30pm) JNE. £10.

Mon 09: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 09: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 09: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30-8:30pm. Free.
Mon 09: James Birkett Trio @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

Tue 10: ???

Wed 11: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 11: Cath Stephens’ improvisation workshop @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 4:30-6:00pm. Collaborative group focusing on vocal improvisations.
Wed 11: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 11: The Tannery Jam Session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. Second Wednesday in the month.
Wed 11: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

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

Friday, April 22, 2022

Album review: Trish Clowes - A View With A Room

Trish Clowes  (soprano/tenor sax}; Chris Montague (guitar); Ross Stanley (piano/Rhodes/B3); James Maddren (drums).

The more perceptive amongst you will have worked out from the title that this is a pandemic lockdown album and I am advised that 7 of the 8 tracks were composed for online livestreams during various lockdowns. 

Trish Clowes is one of an ever expanding bunch of still fairly young composers and performers who are doing things in the UK that keeps jazz interesting and evolving. I feel that much of this music has left behind most of what is coming from the American colonies that doesn’t sound too far removed from the sounds of the 1960s. Within the financial constraints of the British jazz scene she has been a regular recorder and her tours have usually included a date in the north east. I fondly recall a date in the Northern Rock Hall at the Sage when she was touring one of her albums, probably In The Night-Time She Is There or Pocket Compass.

For this album she is joined again by fellow members of her ‘My Iris’ Quartet who have featured on her recent albums. Time was when a jazz group without a bass player was an unusual beast; not so much now. With this group there is either the space for the soloists to work into or there are drones on the guitar or long held notes on the organ to provide a wash for the others to work their artistry in front of.

The opening title reminds us of the constraints of lockdown in its stiff marching snare drum and matching piano opening whilst successive solos on sax, piano and guitar suggest freedom beyond the curtains. Clowes then comes back in with a brasher, bolder more expansive solo; the escape at the end of lockdown.

At times she has a warm round tone which harks back to the early players such as Ben Webster but she can also add a harshness to her tone and it’s that contrast that works so well to provide different ideas across her two solos on A View With a Room.

Next up, The Ness is a seascape inspired by images of a film shot along the Fife coast and the group have captured both the peace and the fury of the seashore before gentle waves close it out.

Amber is for Amber Bauer, CEO of Donate4Refugees and its angularity is suggestive of someone who probably needs more than a regiment’s quota of elbows to get anything done in a world where the Home Office in its current form operates. Ross Stanley’s left hand on the piano provides the elbows and his and Clowes’ solos provide further spikiness. I may be doing Ms Bauer a grave injustice here in ascribing certain personal attributes to her, but I suspect I’m not.

Morning Song is a pastoral ballad that eases us through soft, early sunrise into the day. Clowes gives us a full, warm tenor tone and Stanley a trickling, ruminative solo before Montague’s guitar builds on the atmosphere to take us home.

No Idea lets the guitarist loose in the space that the sparer rhythm section creates before he drops out and Stanley joins in to push Clowes into some of her strongest blowing on the record. Ayana, by way of contrast is quieter, exploratory. This time it is the sax providing the insistent rhythmic motif on which the guitar and piano overlay long runs of notes, together and separately before the piano drops back and the sax comes forward. Structurally, it’s very clever the way that the instruments move back and forth in the mix whilst maintain the mood and the pulse of the piece.

Time has a lovely pastoral feel to it, suggestive of time standing still, as it did for so many of us in the last two years. Languid, in waltz time. The closer, Almost, starts with as a series of disconnected fragments that stealthily stitch themselves together as the themes develop. Is this another exploration of what opening up means as people come together after the lockdowns?

In summary, I really like this album and would give it lots of stars if we did that sort of thing on BSH.

Trish has a website HERE and you will see her tour dates on there, including a visit to The Globe in Newcastle on the 15th of May, and you can get tickets through The Globe website AT THIS PAGE - Dave Sayer

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