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Bebop Spoken There

Branford Marsalis: "As ignorance often forces us to do, you make a generalisation about a musician based on one specific record or one moment in time." - (Jazzwise June 2023).

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!"

Postage

15491 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 15 years ago. 512 of them this year alone and, so far, 133 this month (May 31).

From This Moment On ...

June

Sat 03: Newcastle Record Fair @ Northumbria University, Newcastle NE8 8SB. 10:00am-3:00pm. Admission: £2.00.
Sat 03: Pedigree Jazz Band @ St Augustine's Parish Centre, Darlington. 12:30pm.
Sat 03: Play Jazz! workshop @ The Globe, Newcastle. 1:30pm. Tutor: Sue Ferris. £25.00. Enrol at: www.jazz.coop.
Sat 03: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free.
Sat 03: Rendezvous Jazz @ Red Lion, Earsdon. 8:00pm. £3.00.
Sat 03: Papa G's Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

Sun 04: Smokin' Spitfires @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 12:45pm.
Sun 04: Central Bar Quintet @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00-4:00pm. £5.00. The Central Bar Quintet plays Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus. Featuring Lewis Watson.
Sun 04: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 3:00pm.
Sun 04: Struggle Buggy + Michael Littlefield @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Acoustic blues.
Sun 04: Swinging at the Cotton Club: Harry Strutters' Hot Rhythm Orchestra @ The Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Sun 04: Richard Jones Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.
Sun 04: Jam No. 18 @ Fabio's Bar, Saddler Street, Durham. 8:00pm. Free. All welcome. A Durham University Jazz Society event.

Mon 05: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.

Tue 06: Paul Skerritt @ The Rabbit Hole, Hallgarth St., Durham DH1 3AT. 7:00pm. Paul Skerritt's (solo) weekly residency.
Tue 06: Jam session @ Black Swan, Newcastle Arts Centre. 7:30pm. House trio: Stu Collingwood (piano); Paul Grainger (double bass); Sid White (drums).

Wed 07: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Wed 07: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 07: 4B @ The Exchange, North Shields. 7:00pm.
Wed 07: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm.

Thu 08: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free. CANCELLED! BACK ON JUNE 15.
Thu 08: Easington Colliery Brass Band @ The Lubetkin Theatre, Peterlee. 7:00pm. £10.00.
Thu 08: Faye MacCalman + Blue Dust Archive @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 08: Dilutey Juice + Ceramic @ The Ampitheatre, Sea Road, South Shields. 7:00pm. Free. A South Tyneside Festival event.
Thu 08: Lara Jones w. Vigilance State @ Lubber Fiend, Blandford Square, Newcastle. 7:00pm.
Thu 08: Michael Littlefield @ the Harbour View, Roker, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free. Country blues.
Thu 08: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman's Club, Middlesbrough. 9:00pm.

Fri 09: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 09: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 09: Castillo Nuevo @ Revolución de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30-8:30pm.
Fri 09: Emma Rawicz @ Sage Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Friday, September 16, 2022

Album review: Clark Summers Lens – Intertwine (Outside In Music)

Clark Sommers (bass); Geof Bradfield, (tenor/sop sax/ clarinet); Chris Madsen (tenor sax); Matt Gold, (guitar); Dana Hall; (drums).

This is an absolutely stonking group playing high energy jazz, dragging in influences from a variety of sources and trampling clichés in the dust. Sommers is the composer of all the music but this is a band album, though it’s hard to believe, after listening to the first track Also Tomorrow, that this isn’t a drummer led band. The front line ranges from wild to subtle but overwhelming it all is a man at the back driving in piles for a tower block or taking furniture apart with a large hammer. And it’s all rather joyful in many places.

Second track, James Marshall, is a tribute to Mr Hendrix. Gold’s guitar echoes and suggests some of Jimi’s lines but he develops these hints and makes them his own. Dana Hall continues dropping bombs and blowing things up at the back. By now you will have noticed that Sommers is the anchor, holding everything together for the others to do their things. This is not to suggest that he is simply playing rhythms or vamping - he is a master of long fluid runs, stops and changes of direction.

Ancient Voices is the breather, an elegant flowing lament that pushes the bass to the front. Hall’s cymbals provide the backwash for dancing, intertwined guitar and clarinet. Sommers talks about jazz being conversational and the album title comes from a belief that we all need each other. He combines those two ideas beautifully here.

Why the next track is called Silent Observer is anybody’s guess. It opens as a driving drums/bass/sax trio before the others join in and it’s everybody’s rodeo. You can imagine wide grins all round and the body language, urging each other on, as they were recording this one. Skin And Bone, which follows is a brief, but intense, diversion into free jazz but with an ancient feel as if music is first being explored and the only instruments are skin and bone.

Weeks & Weeks is another tribute, this time to Willie Weeks who played with everyone in the 70s and 80s and is still going strong. Sommers seems to have captured the best in every soul music instrumental break from that period. It is a mellow, late night jam, with the horns playing in harmony throughout but the fractured rhythm stops it sliding into Sanborn/Washington Jr territory.

Nichols on the Quarter is preceded by a short bass solo before it moves off in a mellow mood with only Hill’s galloping around the drum kit promising something more lively to come. There’s solos in turn from clarinet and guitar before the saxes give it a more widescreen feeling and turn up the energy levels.

The title track Intertwine, closes the album. It is more delicate, contemplative, philosophical than what has gone before; an opportunity to reflect on the last two years. Sommers showcases his bass in a long solo playing over subdued contributions from Gold and Hall again covers the kit before the saxes, exchanging squabbling solos, join again to take us home.

It’s worth awarding points to the production on the album which is probably by Ken Christiansen (it’s not clear). The music is beautifully recorded with clear separation between the instruments. That you don’t always get this makes it worthy of comment.

I can’t help feeling that the name of the group, Clark Sommers Lens, is missing an apostrophe somewhere along the way, although that is the only problem with this album.

The album is released today, September 16 and there is more about Clark Sommers and this group at his website HERE - Dave Sayer

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