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Bebop Spoken There

Sullivan Fortner: ''I always judge it by the bass player: If the bass player is happy, it's going to be a good night". (DownBeat, February 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

17755 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 76 of them this year alone and, so far, 1 this month (Feb.1).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

Fri 07: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 07: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 07: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 07: James Birkett & Emma Fisk @ Old Lowlight, Clifford’s Fort, North Shields NE30 1JE. 7:00pm. £15.00. + bf. www.oldlowlight.co.uk. SOLD OUT!
Fri 07: Stuart Turner Trio @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. Jazz, blues, Americana etc.
Fri 07: Dean Stockdale Quartet @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm. £12.00.
Fri 07: Rose Room @ Wylam Institute. 8:00pm. £19.67.
Fri 07: John Rowland Quartet @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 08: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 12:30-2:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 08: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 08: Milne Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 08: Lewis Watson Quartet @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 7:30pm. £15.00. at the door; £14.35. (inc £0.35 bf) online, in advance.
Sat 08: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. ‘Swing Jazz Guitar’.
Sat 08: NUJO Jazz Jam @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A Newcastle University Jazz Orchestra event. All welcome.

Sun 09: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ The Forum, Billingham. 3:00pm.
Sun 09: The New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 09: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 09: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 09: Tom Remon & Mark Williams @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 09: Rod Oughton’s Tomorrow’s New Quartet with Ben van Helder @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Line-up inc. Deschanel Gordon.
Sun 09: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

Mon 10: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 11: Steve Summers Quintet @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm.

Wed 12: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 12: Jam session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free.
Wed 12: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 12: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 13: Student Performances @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 4:00pm. Free. Inc. Olly Styles (tenor sax).
Thu 13: MOBO Awards Fringe 2025: Artist Showcase @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:00pm. Free (ticketed). Line-up inc. Hannabiell & Midnight Blue.
Thu 13: Indigo Jazz Voices @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.

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, November 17, 2022

Album review: Esbjörn Svensson - HOME.S.

Esbjörn Svensson (piano)

These recordings do, of course, come with more than a tinge of sadness as they are hitherto ‘lost’ solo pieces recorded by Svensson at home before he died in a swimming accident in 2008. He’d recorded them, digitally, onto a hard drive and after his death the hard drive had been left in a bag at the back of the cupboard and lain undisturbed until this year. We have to consider the ‘rightness’ of releasing them. I’ve called them pieces already but some feel more like aural doodles or sketches rather than finished works. 

On the scale of what’s right and wrong they are not as bad as a World Cup in 'Catarrh' but the question remains to be asked. There have been posthumous releases by the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (Leucocyte, 301 and Live in London) but in those cases the other two members of the Trio (Dan Berglund and Magnus Ostrom) were able to make the decisions about their release.

On the other side of the scale are the facts that posthumous releases of possibly unfinished works is no rare thing (just look at the catalogue of Jeff Buckley, who died in a similar swimming accident 11 years before Svensson) and the quality of the work. If these were just sketches and noodles the standard of playing is very high.

So, we have here 9 tracks, named after the first 9 letters of the Greek alphabet clocking in at 36 minutes and change. From these humble beginnings follows a concert, an online event and, next year, a book as well as the album (more details can be found on Esbjörnsvensson.se ).

And to the music. The pieces display much of the flare for which Svensson was famous, both his pensive Evans-ish delicacy and his Tyner-esque percussiveness. The quieter pieces draw you in; Alpha opens with an almost quote from Evans’ Peace Piece that flows into something more powerful as it closes. Beta is all delicacy.

Delta opens with trills like something from a Regency ball before that percussive left hand comes into dominate and left and right dance around each other in a quest for domination. Epsilon is, simply, imperious. Beautiful, intricate, knotty melodies are worked through rising time and again to climaxes and then flowing into further intricacy. Listen closely and you can hear Svensson humming as he plays. (That’s humming, not Jarrett-esque grunts).

Zeta is a romance for a film and Eta is a folk dance, again with that solid left hand foundation under melodic frills and thrills. The closer, Iota, really encapsulates, in its two and a bit minutes, all that went before. We have that delicacy and intricacy and a rolling thunder central passage that fades away leaving a simple melody that takes us to the close.

Is it right that this should have been released? On balance I think so. The recordings were completed in the months just before Svensson’s accidental death and they show the range of his ambition at that stage in his career, suggesting further classical and folk influences. Some pieces may have stayed as solo works and others may have been worked up by the Trio but, sadly, we’ll never know which and how.

HOME.S. is released this Friday Nov. 18, through all the usual channels. Dave Sayer

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