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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

Fri 02: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm.
Fri 02: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 02: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms, Monkseaton. 1:00pm.
Fri 02: Joseph Carville Trio @ Saltburn Community Hall. 7:30pm.
Fri 02: Claire Martin & Her Trio @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 7:30pm. £25.00., £20.00. Feat. Jim Mullen, Alex Garnett & Jeremy Brown.
Fri 02: Guy Davis + Michael Littlefield & Scott Taylor @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. Doors 7:30pm. Blues double bill.
Fri 02: Anders Ingram @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Blind Pig Blues Club. Country blues. A 'Jar on the Bar' gig.

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.
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.

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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