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Bebop Spoken There

Steve Coleman: ''If you don't keep learning, your mind slows down. Use it or lose it''. (DownBeat, January 2025).

The Things They Say!

This is a good opportunity to say thanks to BSH for their support of the jazz scene in the North East (and beyond) - it's no exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for them many, many fine musicians, bands and projects across a huge cross section of jazz wouldn't be getting reviewed at all, because we're in the "desolate"(!) North. (M & SSBB on F/book 23/12/24)

Postage

17719 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 39 of them this year alone and, so far, 39 this month (Jan. 15).

From This Moment On ...

January 2025

Sun 19: Glenn Miller Orchestra UK @ Glasshouse, Gateshead. 3:00pm. ‘Glenn Miller & the Rat Pack Era’.
Sun 19: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 19: Spilt Milk @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 5:15-7:00pm. Free. Nolan Brothers (vocal harmonies).
Sun 19: Tenement Jazz Band @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 19: Nick Ross Orchestra @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 7:30pm.
Sun 19: Freight Train (Tobin/Noble/Clarvis) @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 19: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 20: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 21: ???

Wed 22: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 22: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 22: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 22: Pasadena Roof Orchestra @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.

Thu 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free. Fortnightly.
Thu 23: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Obituaries 2024.
Thu 23: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:30-6:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Thu 23: Pedal Point Trio @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Fri 24: Zoë Gilby Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm.
Fri 24: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 24: Creakin’ Bones & the Sunday Dinners @ Lindisfarne Social Club, Wallsend. 9:00pm. Admission: TBC. Jazz, blues , jump jive, rock ‘n’ roll.

Sat 25: Boys of Brass @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 25: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 25: Jack & Jay’s Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. 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

Friday, August 12, 2022

Revisiting The Stardust Road

I picked up this book a long time ago from that second-hand bookstall (Robinson's) that survived for many years in Newcastle's Grainger Market. It was perhaps the best used bookshop Newcastle had had up until then and it only closed after the invasion of the charity shops.

The Stardust Road charts Hoagland Carmichael's journey along the way to composing some of the greatest standards ever written. But that, whilst important, is only part of the story.

Running parallel with this are his ups and downs, his memories of the so-called Jazz Age that are, arguably, more authentic than anything F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote. Hoagy was there, playing in bands, discovering and trying to uncover the mystique of jazz.

There was no Berklee or Julliard, not even a workshop at the yet to be invented Jazz Coop - you learned by listening to Louis or King Oliver on record or, if it berthed nearby, on a riverboat. Bix did that too and Hoagy's story is peppered throughout with memories of Bix from the day he first heard him until the day he died.

The narrative's chronology is ragged, nonexistent and yet, that makes it all the more readable! You can almost taste grandma's apple pie, visualise the clothes and sigh at Hoagy and his then girlfriend's failed attempts to carve their initials on a campus tree which was probably just  as well as they both ended up marrying someone else. If the tree is still there it would surely be a tourist attraction!

The now incomprehensible Hoosier humour of the age may be just that - incomprehensible - but it can't diminish the privilege of discovering what went into the DNA of one of the greatest songwriters ever. Like his friend and occasional collaborator Johnny Mercer, he didn't need a chorus line of Broadway beauties to write a good song - he just did it.

Stardust Road was published in 1946. Twenty years later, Carmichael wrote a second autobiography which, I gather, is a more chronologically annotated tome - Sometimes I Wonder - which updated his career. It's on the shelf so maybe I'll give it a whirl but... Lance

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