DECEMBER 2025
Sun 14: Musicians Unlimited + Darlington Big Band @ West Hartlepool RFC. 12 noon-6:00pm. £9.00. Musicians Unlimited’s Xmas Party. SOLD OUT!
Sun 14: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 14: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Sun 14: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 14: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The White Room, Stanley. 6:30pm. £15.18 (inc. bf).
Sun 14: Paul Skerritt @ The Black Candle, South Shields. 6:30pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Sun 14: Sean Noonan Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. JNE.
Mon 15: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Tue 16: Paul Skerritt @ Chakh Dhoom, Jesmond, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Indian restaurant. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Tue 16: A Jazzy Xmas @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 7:30pm. Paul Edis (MD, piano); Jo Harrop (vocals); Kyran Matthews (tenor sax, soprano sax); Faye Thompson (alto sax, clarinet); Sue Ferris (flute, piccolo); Graham Hardy (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone);Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Champion (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums).
Tue 16: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Tim Johnston.
Wed 17: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Spanish City, Whitley Bay. 12 noon. £29.00 (inc. bf). ‘Festive Lunch’. VCJ on stage 12 noon (three sets 'til 4:00pm).
Wed 17: Lazy River Band @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. Veronica Perrin, Chris Perrin, John Farragher, Phil Rutherford
Wed 17: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 17: Paul Skerritt @ Middlesbrough Town Hall. 7:00pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Wed 17: A Jazzy Xmas @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm. Paul Edis (MD, piano); Jo Harrop (vocals); Kyran Matthews (tenor sax, soprano sax); Faye Thompson (alto sax, clarinet); Sue Ferris (flute, piccolo); Graham Hardy (trumpet, flugelhorn); Jason Holcomb (trombone);Emma Fisk (violin); Andy Champion (double bass); Matt MacKellar (drums).
Wed 17: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 18: Paul Skerritt @ YOLO, Ponteland. 7:00pm. ‘Swing & Jazz Night’. Skerritt w. backing tapes.
Thu 18: Joe Steels & Friends @ The Pele, Corbridge. 7:30pm. Free (donations).
Fri 19: Fraser Urquhart @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. £8.00. SOLD OUT! .
Fri 19: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free..
Fri 19: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free..
Fri 19: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00..
Fri 19: Castillo Nuevo @ Hotel Gotham, Newcastle. 5:00pm. Free. .
Fri 19: Alexia Gardner @ FIKA Art Gallery, Morpeth. 6:30pm. Gardner, Alan Law, Jude Murphy..
Fri 19: Paul Skerritt @ Middlesbrough Town Hall. 7:00pm. Skerritt w. backing tapes. .
Fri 19: Giles Strong Quartet @ Sunderland Minster. 7:30pm. Old Black Cat Jazz Club..
Fri 19: Creakin’ Bones & the Xmas Dinners @ The White Room, Stanley. 7:45pm. £13.01 (inc. bf)..
Fri 19: Mark Toomey Quintet @ The Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Sat 20: Jazz Attack @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 11:00am. Free.
Sat 20: Alexia Gardner @ FIKA Art Gallery, Morpeth. 6:30pm. Gardner, Alan Law, Jude Murphy. SOLD OUT!
Sat 20: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. CANCELLED!
Sat 20: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Billy Bootleggers, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 20: Hoodoo Blues @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:15pm (doors). £14.25, £11.55. Dance class, social dancing, live music & Xmas Party. Live music from 9:00pm - Ruth Lambert, Giles Strong, Ian Paterson & John Bradford (jazz and blues).
Sat 20: John Pope Quintet @ Blank Studios, Newcastle. 7:30-8:30pm. £7.70 (inc. bf). Album recording session.
3 comments :
As a total Fletcher Henderson fan, I agree he wasn't a bopper but would note that in the 1940s he employed, amongst others, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Linton Garner, Ed Gregory (Sahib Shihab), and Sun Ra, along with many less well-known but worthy young swing-to-boppers. Check out the 1944/45 airshows on YouTube. Smack's last band in 1950 featured the wonderful Lucky Thompson on tenor!
This post prompted me to dig out one of my favourite 78s - My Gal Sal / Business In F by The Stokers Of Hades (aka Fletcher Henderson) on Parlophone R1196. To my now-antiquated ears, this offers superior sound quality to what is available on the 1961 LP set or subsequent CD reissues.
I have heard Steve Andrews play Business In F with the NCRO. Given that this piece is the work of Archie Bleyer, known in his words as "King Of The Stocks", would this indicate that the arrangement is still currently published? Having read up a bit on Mr.Bleyer, I
find that by the late 1950s he was the father-in-law of an Everly Brother and producer of the duo's famous hits, having had a hit
of his own a little earlier with Hernando's Hideaway. All of which is a far cry from Coleman Hawkins just over twenty years earlier!
Business In F didn't make it to the Frustration set neither, perhaps more surprisingly, did It's The Talk Of The Town, Hawkins' first fully-fledged ballad solo on record. Does anyone have any suggestions why? Some anti-Hawkins bias on the part of John Hammond maybe...
Re: Tony Charlton's comment, yes, the NCRO played Business in F off the Archie Bleyer stock arrangement (perhaps altered a bit by Dave Kerr, I can't remember now). I doubt that the stock is still available, but Dave seems to have the happy knack of finding them from his sources around the world! I DO remember starting it on the wrong note at Whitley Bay Jazz Festival - because the title is Business in F, I was thinking in concert key, and started on a C rather than a D (concert C on Tenor sax). Sadly for me, this cock-up is for ever immortalised on Youtube! Thanks for the fascinating further history on Bleyer, too.
As to why Hammond omitted those two great Henderson tracks on the LP set, I guess it was simply down to space available and the positive wealth of material that Fletcher left on record. They were both recorded on Columbia, so would certainly have been candidates. It's perhaps strange that he omitted Talk of The Town because it was from a session for English Columbia & Parlophone that Hammond arranged and supervised, so perhaps it WAS anti-Hawkins bias on his part - he certainly was a Lester Young man after the mid-'30s!
Post a Comment