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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

17777 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 98 of them this year alone and, so far, 23 this month (Feb.8).

From This Moment On ...

February 2025

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.

Fri 14: John Rowland Trio @ Jesmond Library, Newcastle. 12:30-1:30pm. £5.00. at the door. New second Friday in the month concert series.
Fri 14: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 14: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 14: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 14: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 14: Archipelago + Anna Tempest @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £12.00., £10.00., £8.00.
Fri 14: Paul Jones & Dave Kelly @ Alnwick Playhouse. 7:30pm. Rhythm & blues.
Fri 14: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The White Room, Stanley. 7:45pm.
Fri 14: Jazz Sabbath @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 8:00pm.

Sat 15: Joseph Carville Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 15: James Birkett & Emma Fisk @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 7:30pm. £15.00. at the door; £14.35. (inc £0.35 bf) online, in advance.
Sat 15: Elkie Brooks @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 7:30pm. ‘The Long Farewell Tour’.
Sat 15: Milne Glendinning Band @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 16: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 16: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 1:00-2:45pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sun 16: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 16: MOBO Awards Fringe 2025: BBC Introducing NE X MOBO Showcase @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead. 6:00pm. Free (ticketed). Line-up inc. Jambone, Knats, Rivkala, SwanNek.
Sun 16: The Shayo Experience @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 16: Gerry Richardson Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. .

Mon 17: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 17: Matt Forster Quartet @ Yamaha Music School, Blyth. 1:00pm. £9.00. at the door; £8.20. (inc £0.20 bf) online, in advance.
Mon 17: Russ Morgan Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

Tue 18: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law, Paul Grainger, John Hirst.

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, September 27, 2023

(Press release): Matthew Halsall - An Ever Changing View

Manchester-based trumpeter, bandleader and composer Matthew Halsall has announced his new studio album An Ever Changing View, an expansive, immaculately conceived project which presents Halsall’s signature blend of jazz, electronica, global and spiritual jazz influences and affirms his status as one of instrumental music’s most vital voices. An Ever Changing View will be released on September 8 on Gondwana Records (the label Halsall founded 15 years ago) ahead of a landmark show at The Royal Albert Hall in London on September 21.

 Halsall has never seen himself as part of any one sound or scene: he builds his own sonic universe instead. An Ever Changing View finds him at his most experimental yet, once again expanding his sound and production techniques to create his unique brand of deeply meditative music. During its creation, he was staying in both a beautiful architect’s house with breathtaking sea views in north Wales and a striking modernist house in Bridlington, in the northeast of England, and he composed what he saw “like a landscape painting”. In these new environments, Halsall wanted to capture “the feeling of openness and escapism” and to approach making music again from scratch. “I hit the reset button and wanted to have complete musical freedom,” he says. “It was a real exploration of sound.”

 

It was hearing jazz on the dancefloor as a teenager that first opened up new possibilities in Halsall’s mind. He’d been playing trumpet since the age of six and in various big bands, but a switch flipped when he snuck out to a club and witnessed eclectic selector Mr Scruff play out Pharoah Sanders’ ‘You’ve Got To Have Freedom’. “I got obsessed by the exploding DJ culture that was happening at that time,” he remembers, “as well as Alice Coltrane and spiritual jazz records. I started listening to Mr Scruff and Gilles Peterson mixes all the time. I thought: this is what I want to do, something influenced by the past but in a contemporary, present form.”

 

An Ever Changing View melds those forms in a way that feels heady and, at times, even otherworldly. The album’s title track evolves and unfolds as it echoes the tide coming in and out; ‘Calder Shapes’ is an elevating, charming and totally modern jazz track with restless percussion evoking a warm magic realism; then there’s the laid back groove of ‘Mountains, Trees and Seas’, where hand percussion, deep bass and the gorgeous glisten of the Fender Rhodes meet a hip-hop beat. 

 

One of the album’s starting points was Halsall’s ever-expanding box of percussion, from congas and kalimba to various clusters of seeds, bells and chimes, which he sampled and looped to use as a foundation for the songs – a first for him and his band. ‘Water Street’, for example, gets richer with every listen, as spirals of kalimba, glockenspiel and other percussion sparkle underneath a gently bouncy 4x4 beat. In the studio,he says he “would almost be like a DJ at points, bringing different elements in and out for people to play on top of. It was a new and fun way of working, and everyone beautifully adapted to that process.” 

 

An Ever Changing View ends with the beautiful ‘Triangles in the Sky’, an entrancing, hypnotic track that deftly works wordless vocals into a final shifting tapestry of sound, underpinned by a skittering drum beat and featuring Halsall’s long-time collaborator Chip Wickham on flute. It closes an album that marks Halsall out not just as a trumpet virtuoso, composer and bandleader but as a gifted producer, who is able to draw out the expressive from the complex.


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