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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

Sat 05: Maggie Nicols & Tim Dalling: Musical Boxing Training @ The Tute, Ridley Terrace, Cambois NE24 1QS. 2:30pm. Free. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com. ‘A workshop for musical improvisers’. An event in a boxing ring!
Sat 05: Lewis Watson Quartet @ Wylam Village Institute, Church Road, Wylam NE41 8AP. Doors 7:00pm. Tickets £15.00. + £1.50. bf, available from: www.gigantic.com.
Sat 05: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 05: Bright Street Big Band @ Washington Arts Centre. From 7:00pm. £12.00. Bright Street Big Band on stage at 7:30pm, preceded at 7:00pm by a swing dance taster session.
Sat 05: J.A.M. String Collective + Tara Cunningham + The Flame @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 7:20pm. £10.00. + bf. NFOJIM in assoc. w. JNE & Lit & Phil.
Sat 05: Heavy Drunk @ Anarchy Brewery, Newcastle. 7:30pm. £15.00. + £1.50. bf. ‘Mississippi Delta Blues Experience’ feat. Heavy Drunk, Watermelon Slim & Leonardo Giuliani.
Sat 05: Maggie Nicols & Tim Dalling: Musical Boxing Night @ The Tute, Ridley Terrace, Cambois NE24 1QS. 7:30pm. Free. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com. Nicols, Dalling ao. An event in a boxing ring!
Sat 05: Milne-Glendinning Band @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free.
Sat 05: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 05: Ian Millar & Dominic Spencer @ Swarland Village Hall NE65 9JG. 8:00pm. £12.00.

Sun 06: Smokin’ Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm (12:30pm doors). £7.50.
Sun 06: Luis Verde Quartet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £10.00.
Sun 06: Sax Choir @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 06: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 06: Catriona Bourne Quartet + Heather Ferrier + Emma Johson’s Gravy Boat @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. £10.00. + bf. NFOJIM in assoc. w. JNE & The Globe.

Mon 07: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 07: Michael Young Trio @ The Engine Room, Sunderland. 6:30-8:30pm. Free.

Tue 08: ???

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.
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: 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).
Fri 11: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Market Place, Corbridge NE45 5AW. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 11: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Sunday, May 08, 2022

Cheltenham Jazz Festival: Saving Grace featuring Robert Plant @ Henry Weston Big Top - May 1

Robert Plant (vocals, percussion); Suzi Dian (vocals, accordion, guitar); Matt Worley (various string instruments, vocals); Tony Kelsey (various string instruments, vocals); Oli Jefferson (drums, percussion, vocals).

Every year Cheltenham stretches the boundaries of jazz beyond the recognition of almost everyone, sometimes giving a bog-standard chart act the Great American Songbook to take a stab at, or some other deception. Most festivals do this, but Cheltenham really stretches it, but it gets the crowds in and enables it to get all-sorts of jazz on.

 

I’ve struggled to make any real connection between Robert Plant and jazz, except I think he contributed to some ‘serious’ music, and – as one of the biggest stars on the planet – I doubt anybody was going to persuade him to do a bunch of Frank Sinatra songs.

Britain’s first great rock band Cream were the amalgamation of a blues wannabe and two established jazz musicians, one of them – years later - claiming they weren’t a rock band but a jazz band. The first and greatest ever American rock bands – Hendrix, Zappa, Beefheart, Santana – were all more or less equal parts blues and jazz, as were the early British progressive rock bands: Soft Machine, Jethro Tull and King Crimson.

By the time we get to Led Zeppelin in 1969, we’re really down to the blues, with an evolving folk influence from around 1971.

 

Strictly speaking, I was too young for Led Zeppelin, but luckily – or unluckily depending on your point of view – my brother and his mates weren’t, or at least they knew people who weren’t. Led Zeppelin marked a change from the music of my parents and older siblings to the music of my nearest siblings.

 

This was not a gig for taking notes, wedged into a child’s seat amongst thousands more sardines. It’s worth noting – in this Queen obsessed country – that Robert Plant was the singer in – depending on how you count - the second most successful group ever (behind the Beatles) and the sixth most successful act ever (add Elvis, Michael Jackson, Elton and Madonna).

 

That was over four decades ago and in recent years he’s found considerable success singing alongside American bluegrass/ folk singer Alison Krause, the only albums I’ve heard by him since Led Zeppelin. I’d assumed Portuguese singer Suzi Dian would simply take the place of Krause but didn’t particularly recognise any of the songs from their two albums. She arrived playing accordion and would later play guitar briefly; it was hardly necessary or audible. Plant is used to playing with three musicians who could create an enormous amount of sound; Rick Wakeman once said that Led Zeppelin sounded like there was ten of them. This band were the same playing amplified acoustic instruments.

 

The nearest I can think of is When the Levee Breaks which closes the album Led Zeppelin Four Symbols.

 

After the first song, Matt Worley’s tech swapped his guitar for a banjo and I thought this is the connection to jazz. Plant would later say he used to go to a record shop ran by a John Coltrane expert and – later still – that he’d known many people who smoked folk or jazz cigarettes. He was charismatic, funny and often seemed forgetful but assured us he knew exactly what he was doing, occasionally swearing but without it sounding forced and pathetic.

I listen to lots of white, male singers who I forgive, but he’s one of maybe half a dozen who I actually like. He didn’t scream at all and his voice was deeper than in the seventies, but was still sounding good and held his own against the fabulous Dian. Mostly it was duets but she took the lead on a couple, including one from the last ten years. However, the songs were mostly historic, some even older than the Yardbirds he claimed. One via late twenties country blues titan Blind Willie Johnson, another from Ireland via Kentucky, a cover of a song by California hippies Moby and another from vintage blues artist Memphis Minnie via Donovan.

The music was a mix of southern church music (avoiding the oxymoron white gospel), early blues, country, bluegrass and rock and he observed he’d found himself in a folk group, referencing the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention and finishing the set with one by one of the Fairport’s favourite alumni Richard Thompson, Dian singing the choruses of Aretha’s Chain of Fools and Bobby Moore’s Searching for my Love, which features on the latest Plant/Krause album.

 

Finishing time had passed but I imagine, if you’re Robert Plant, such things don’t trouble you, and the audience weren’t going anywhere until we’d had at least a yell from the Led Zeppelin songbook. The encore came and went and we got the five of them huddled at the front of the stage singing something à cappella which I’m guessing was called Goodbye. Still nobody was going anywhere until he begged them to turn the house (big top) lights on.

 

Everybody seemed to forgive him.  Steve T

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