Total Pageviews

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

Sat 18: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 18: Alter Ego + Jamie Toms/Graham Don Duo @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 7:30pm. £15.00. at the door; £14.35. (inc £0.35 bf) online, in advance.
Sat 18: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Repas 7 by Night, West St., Berwick TD15 1AS. 7:30pm. Free. Album launch gig.
Sat 18: Delta Prophets @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

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.

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

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Album review: Pharoah Sanders Quartet – Live At Fabrik, Hamburg 1980 (Jazzline Classics, 2023)

Sanders (tenor sax); John Hicks (piano); Curtis Lundy (bass); Idris Muhammad (drums).

As it was for scruffy scousers in the early '60s, based on this ongoing series of archive concert releases, in the '80s Hamburg looks like it was the place to be for jazzers. And that’s no Fabrikation! This week brings a 1980 recording by the Pharoah Sanders Quartet out of the drawers. And it is Sanders looking quite old on the cover but displaying no age related restraint in the music. In fact it is, largely, 70 minutes of joy, swing, energy, screaming, screeching, blueswailing fun. I don’t know whether it was exceptionally well recorded back in 1980 or if the sound is the result of some analogue to digital cleaning up, but this recording leaps out of the speakers. I first played it whilst driving on the A1 and Ferrybridge has never seemed such a joyous place.

Most of the music (four of five tracks) is from Sanders’ then newly released Journey To The One; the exception being the ‘greatest hit’ The Creator Has A Master Plan from the Karma album which came out in 1969. Hicks and Muhammad were both featured on the Journey album whilst Lundy looks to have been brought on board for live dates.

We’re thrown into the roiling melee from the off with John Hicks' heavyweight left hand introducing You’ve Gotta Have Freedom. In fact Hicks is a player of contrasts, his right hand plays some lovely melodies whilst the weight of his left hand block chords sound like he’s trying to smash the piano apart. Sanders, meanwhile takes the tenor to places it doesn’t usually go offering up high pitched growls, wails and snarls. There’s a furious, full-blooded drum solo that keeps things kicking along at the same level to revel in. A slow, bluesy coda leads us out with Sanders circular breathing and playing against echoes of his own notes. The crowd, and quite reasonably so, goes absolutely bonkers. It’s been 18 minutes (nearly three times as long as the studio version) and everyone wants to celebrate.

Second piece, the ballad It’s Easy To Remember is a Rodgers and Hart composition for the 1935 Bing Crosby film Mississippi but it is more likely that it came into Sanders’ orbit through hearing John Coltrane’s recording on his Ballad album which came out in 1962. It opens with a lovely, romantic duet between Sanders and Hicks, with Hicks playing what’s left of his piano after the first tune. He plays especially lyrical, long, elegant, dancing runs. Just a lovely piece.

Dr. Pitt is at that point where, in the sixties, the new soul met jazz and both parties partied; all it needs is a hopeful Gil Scott-Heron vocal over the top. If Easy…. showed the tender side of the band, Dr. Pitt is all aggression. Sanders swings his way through some early choruses over absolutely rock solid percussion from Muhammad and Hicks then he takes off, running through his whole repertoire of wails, grunts, shrieks, yells and growls. As with the first track, Dr. Pitt is given a greatly extended workout but there’s not a wasted moment.

The Creator Has A Masterplan is truncated from the 30 minute studio original. It has a lovely melody, intended to invoke the spiritual heights of A Love Supreme. For all its brevity, this is another powerful performance with Sanders displaying the full range of the tenor’s voice from powerful, impassioned shrieks, suggestive of a Southern Baptist preacher, to lovely elegant lines. This version is for those of you who were stunned by the free jazz wigout on the studio version.

To close we have Greetings to Idris which sounds like a celebration as if the band know how good they have been across the previous hour and now want to party and just swing the evening out. And why not?

These Fabrik releases have received universally positive reviews and I hope that this re-issue series continues. This one covers the period in Sanders’ career after he had been dropped by Impulse, for which label he had recorded his best known work. This Live At Fabrik album suggests that Impulse had made a bad decision and that he was still capable of outstanding work. He picked up many fans with his collaboration with Floating Points shortly before he died and this live album is as good a place for any who first heard of him then to continue their journey into his music.

Now I’ve got half an hour before tea so we’ll be listening to the studio version of The Creator Has A Masterplan, wigout included. Dave Sayer

No comments :

Blog Archive