The Sun Ra Arkestra, with whom Sanders played in the 1960s tweeted: Pharoah Sanders Sun Ra Arkestra alumnus has departed this planet.
Closer to home, guitarist Tom Atkinson has assembled a band of disciples to pay tribute to one of the founders of Spiritual Jazz this Sunday (Oct. 2) at the Prohibition Bar on Pink Lane. See poster for details - Lance
Her relationship with Charles Mingus, particularly during his latter years, are told without gloss in her book Tonight At Noon - A Love Story.
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By way of a preview of the music to be heard on a forthcoming album, the Harry Keeble Quartet presented a 'play-through' to the Gala Theatre's lunchtime audience. Keeble indicated he would prefer to let the music speak for itself and keep the talking to a minimum. And with that Keeble counted them in. Mark Williams sported a Telecaster, Andy Champion a five-string bass, Abbie Finn her familiar custom-made kit.
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Bartholomew – Electronics
Taupe - Jamie Stockbridge (alto sax, electronics); Mile Parr-Burnham (guitar, objects, synths); Adam Stapleford (drums)
A full house at Bobiks created a great atmosphere for the first of the two weekend gigs in the upstairs venue within the Jesmond hostelry. First up saw local favourite Archipelago turn in a superb performance despite having to contend with a somewhat iffy sound system. A mellow start soon burst into a skronking high energy blast to send the room rocking. It was all high energy stuff. There were a couple of vocals from Faye MacCalman and an eastern themed piece with Faye MacCalman on clarinet which featured a great John Pope bass solo. A song full of loops with a highland twist saw Christian Alderson on drums excel and bring the set to a splendid conclusion.
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Andrew Woodhead (compositions, conduction, keyboards, electronics); Charlotte Keeffe, Sam Wooster (trumpet); Sam Andreae, Lee Griffiths (alto sax); Alicia Gardener-Trejo, Helen Papaioannou (baritone sax); Sarah Farmer (live visuals) + 8 Bellringers from the Newcastle Diocesan Association of Church Ringers led by Kristopher King.
Recorded live in 2016 at Auditorium, Opéra National, Bordeaux, Jarrett plays a suite consisting of some 13 movements numbered Bordeaux I - XIII. That Jarrett is a master pianist is beyond question. Likewise as an innovator, he has taken contemporary jazz piano into previously unexplored territory even further than legends such as Evans, Corea or Hancock.
The death has been announced of saxophonist Pharoah Sanders - may he Rest In Peace. OBITUARY - Lance
Playlist 25/09/22. (Repeated Tuesday 27/09/22)
RIP: Ramsey Lewis, Joey DeFrancesco.
Requests from the Jeff Barnhart session: Eubie Blake, Ella Fitzgerald, Vienna Art Orchestra.
Requests: Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Frank Sinatra, Gordon Goodwin arrangement.
What’s on in Scotland: Matt Carmichael, Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.
Joe Pass, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins.
Birthdays: John Coltrane.
Seasonal: Benny Carter. George Shearing, Cannonball Adderley/Miles Davis.
Doors:
7.30pm. Music: 7.45pm - 9.00pm
This event is BYOB we will not be running a bar in the Church but you are welcome to bring some refreshments along.
There were twelve major ones and another twenty four minor ones (twelve each, harmonic and melodic). It was usually at this point that the wheat was sorted from chaff. The latter became politicians, truck drivers, window cleaners or played the banjo.
This, I think, was the fourth time that I've heard Madeleine at the soon to be renamed Sage Gateshead and, upon reflection, the best of the lot!
Promoted as the Careless Love Forever World Tour - named after her iconic 2004 album now reissued in a deluxe package - from the get go it reminded me how wonderful that album was and that the singer had lost none of her original qualities 18 years later.
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Lots of interesting tunes were played tonight by the Freddie Garner Quartet including compositions by Sonny Rollins, Mulgrew Miller, Kenny Barron, Kenny Garrett, Horace Silver, Tadd Dameron and Jay Jay Johnson. Jim Collins who sounds great on both alto and tenor sax was in top form tonight and his rendition of Jay Jay Johnson’s Lament was one of the many highlights. This was the only ballad played tonight and strange to say there were no twelve bar blues performed in either of the two sets.
The venue is the Westovian Theatre down near the sea front and the show starts at 7:30pm.
It's a big band/vocal concert not to be missed with top north east singer Paul Skerritt and top north west big band the Danny Miller Big Band putting on a show that is guaranteed to have your feet tapping - close your eyes and you'll be in Vegas at The Sands or Caesars Palace. But no, don't close your eyes because Skerritt is a mover as well as a singer and you can't get Colmans fish and chips in Vegas. Lance
The house trio got the show on the road with a bluesy number followed by I Only Have Eyes For You and All the Things You Are both with delightful out of tempo intros by Alan Law.
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Showcasing the band’s second album Blink - which couldn’t be a more appropriate name as the hallucinatory soundscape Lucid Dreamers produced certainly induced a blissful dreamlike state into many of the audience.
Brigitte Beraha’s coupling of superb voice with electronic activity board created a wonderful and absorbing tapestry aided and abetted by a seriously good band. George Crowley is currently one of the country’s leading saxophone players and everything he touched on Sunday turned to gold.
The hottest/coolest jazz vocalist on the planet is, with this new release, even hotter and cooler than ever. She's more adventurous, more her own person. The Sassy feel is still there but no longer dominant, just a suggestion of her early inspiration. That she's also absorbed the teachings of Ella and Billie hover in the distance but, for me, more than any of those gals, it's Jon Hendricks who I hear the most in her phrasing, particularly when she does a few bars here and there of vocalese.
The streets were deserted, the buses empty and so was my local pub which had opened earlier out of respect or maybe in the hope of pulling in a few more punters. As it turned out there was only me with a jug of ale, a book of verse and a thou (barmaid).
I watched the funeral procession which was like Wagner's Ring Circle and seemed to last twice as long albeit with lots of soldiers, sailors and airmen in their colourful uniforms - a bit like a light operetta in slow motion.
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This was an evening of great tunes, mainly standards and who better to interpret them than top trombonist Suzanne Fonseca and her team of outstanding musicians. Some of the numbers were done in bossa nova style but all maintained my interest and were well received by an audience of all age groups.
The opening number, Ellington’s In A Mellotone was played at the maestro's original medium tempo and, straight away, I was impressed by the great sound Robin Dewhurst was producing on the house upright piano.
In 1995 the original Newcastle Jazz Festival closed its doors, leaving a void in the city, until Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music was launched for the first edition in 2017. Responding to the cities need for a contemporary grass roots jazz festival, the programme proudly presents an innovative and diverse international line up, celebrating and pushing boundaries that challenge perceptions of jazz and improvisation.
The album title sums it up - BLOOZ. And blues it is indeed! Brilliantly played by a guitarist, now with 16 albums to his name. Geissman, composed all 12 tracks and each have at least one name guest to add to the occasion without in any way detracting from the leader. That these include Randy Brecker, Tom Scott and Joe Bonamassa speaks volumes.
An unusual and interesting album by Americans Ferm and Wollesen along with two highly regarded Danish musicians. It's probing, explorative and, if I'm truthful, not entirely to my taste although I could well be in the minority. The quality of the playing is impeccable. Ferm in particular has a beautiful sound on tenor and the arrangements show the individuals in a favourable light. It's a mix of Scandinavian folk and contemporary European jazz albeit not without a touch of New York.
https://www.ayclifferadio.co.
Playlist 18/09/22. (Repeated Tuesday 20/08/22)
In Memoriam: Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton.*
Request: Chris Tyle's Silver Leaf Jazz Band of New Orleans.
Paul Skerritt with the Danny Miller Big Band,
Paul Skerrit makes his choices: Greg Porter, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Harry Connick Jr., Matt Monro, Bobby Darin.
Request: Ramsey Lewis Trio.
What's on in the NE: Harry Keeble Quartet
Duke Ellington: The Queen's Suite.
* (Editor: Assuming that Marsalis and Clapton haven't died, presumably this is related to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.)
The third release from a singer who I understand is also a best selling novelist, a commercial jet pilot, a marriage and family therapist and, among other things, rides horses and cans peaches - sounds like an updated version of I Can't Get Started!
Oh yes, another thing, she really can sing!
A choice selection of covers that have probably been done by everyone from Bing to Sting (well maybe not Sting but as it rhymes with Bing ...) and it has to be said Judy loses nothing by comparison although maybe Frank just edged her on Wee Small Hours.
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.
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Marco Woolf may well have created his own genre of music combing improvised storytelling with jazz - maybe it could be labelled Jazzanory!
Woolf is a cool and charismatic character and the performance at the Globe on Thursday evening was quite captivating. Most of the set told the story of the lifecycle of a young woman called Francine from small child to adult. Woolf’s gentle words dovetailed nicely with the rest of the band and a special mention must be made for Miriam Willmott on the drum kit and the saxophone player, who’s name I sadly didn’t catch, they both excelled.
Emma Fisk
(violin); James Birkett, Dave Harris (guitars); Bruce Rollo (bass)
Answer is, I don't really know! It was certainly in the early fifties just after I'd left school and started buying records (78s). Back then jazz and popular music - the latter had yet to be reduced to a three letter word or, in some cases, a four letter word - were still, more or less, working the same side of the street. Family Favourites or Housewife's Choice had no inhibitions about playing Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong or even Stan Kenton alongside Guy Mitchell, Johnny Ray or Frankie Laine.
The first programme, which will be available on Mixcloud from noon on Saturday 17th September, includes music by Archipelago, Andrew Woodhead’s Pendulums project, SA Malley, Skylla, the Anthropology Band, Mark Solborg, Maniscalco/Bignoni/Solborg, Binker Golding, and Alexander Hawkins.
My kinda jazz! A tribute to Wes Montgomery by a guitarist who, in years to come, may well be receiving his own tributes.
To the best of my knowledge Montgomery didn't record for Blue Note - his main albums were on Riverside, Verve and AMI - and, whilst the horns occasionally blow in an east coasterly direction, the feel is distinctly that of California albeit via Chicago where it was recorded and Fitzgerald is very much a part of that city's ever evolving jazz scene.
(Press release) Rock
guitar dynamo Samantha Fish and
outlaw country badass Jesse Dayton have
joined forces for an upcoming album of collaborative music, due out in May 2023 via Rounder Records. In
December, two cover songs and accompanying videos will be released in
conjunction with four special concerts in the USA.
Ramsey Lewis: “I guess all piano players go through a phase when Bud Powell is God ” – (DownBeat May 6, 1965).
From the beginning, meaning has been assigned to numbers - practical, powerful, fanciful, philosophical, mystical, spiritual. For Pythagoras, 3 was considered the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. It was also the number of time - past, present, future; birth, life, death; beginning, middle, end - it was the number of the divine.
So states Charles Lloyd in the notes to this, the second of three albums in his A Trio of Trios trilogy.
Needless to say, given the profundity of the above, this isn't a New Year's Eve album. Nevertheless, it is none the worse for that and is in actual fact quite delightful.
This was just like the good old days - or was it the bad old days when livestreams prevailed? I guess it was a bit of both. I'd have loved to be at the 606 tonight but, with close on 300 miles between us I guess I'm excused..
Fortunately, just as Covid hasn't totally gone away (booster jab on Thursday), nor have livestreams from the 606.
Although I'd heard him many times on record (see pic.) I only recall hearing him live on three occasions but they were all memorable occasions.
The first was at the Caedmon Hall in Gateshead as part of the Michael Garrick Sextet. This was in 2008 and one of my first stumbling attempts at reviewing - I even spelled Caedmon as Caedman!
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Tonight’s gig was advertised as the Gaz Hughes Quartet but there were only three musicians involved! However, no one seemed to mind as this turned out to be a well-rehearsed unit with some interesting arrangements of well known standards and some originals. The opening tune was an up-tempo groover entitled Bebopillusions followed by another original number which Gaz named Edith. Then it was Andrzej featured on Ellington’s wonderful ballad Sophisticated Lady and his version was excellent - as it always is.
The Central Bar Quintet meets this evening (Monday 12). This month, Grant Green's 1964 album Solid takes centre stage. The recording features some of the modern jazz heavyweights of the time - Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones - and close on half a century later it's down to Joe Steels (as Grant Green), Jamie Toms (as Henderson and James Spaulding), Alan Law (pictured last night at the Jazz Co-op, as McCoy Tyner), Mick Shoulder (as Bob Cranshaw) and John Bradford (as Elvin Jones) to do justice to the Blue Note album.
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This year's Great North Run took centre stage, at least until seven o'clock in the evening when Newcastle Jazz Co-op opened its doors. Not quite the sixty thousand who took part in the race from Newcastle to South Shields, nevertheless, the room on Railway Street began to fill up in anticipation of a vocal masterclass by Ruth Lambert.
Hopefully by now the runners in the GNR will have completed the course and gone home or to the pub thus making the roads and the Metro less congested and freeing the way for Ruth Lambert's many fans to make their way to the Globe.
As always, Ruth enthralls audiences with her immaculate conception of the GASbook and tonight, I'm sure, will be no exception but, time is ticking so don't hesitate - run if you have to. If several thousand can run to South Shields then 11 Railway St., should be a doddle if you start now. Lance
Playlist 11/09/22. (Repeated Tuesday 13/08/22)
Request: Ella Fitzgerald/Oscar Peterson/ Roy Eldridge.
Requests from Darlington New Orleans Jazz Club: Coleman Hawkins.
Requests from The River City Hot Six: Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke.
And from the Audience: Ken Colyer, Dave Donohoe Band, Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman.
