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Bebop Spoken There

Orrin Evans: “Now, getting a teaching spot is the new record deal”. (DownBeat, November, 2024).

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!"

Simon Spillett: A lovely review from the dean of jazz bloggers, Lance Liddle...

Josh Weir: I love the writing on bebop spoken here... I think the work you are doing is amazing.

Postage

17487 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 761 of them this year alone and, so far, 66 this month (Oct. 30).

From This Moment On ...

November

Tue 05: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval NE25 0AT. 12:30pm. £12.00. ‘Guy Fawkes Steak & Ale Pie & Pea Lunch’. To book tel: 0191 237 3697.
Tue 05: Customs House Big Band @ The Masonic Hall, North St., Ferryhill DL17 8HX. 7:00pm. Free.
Tue 05: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Stu Collingwood, Paul Grainger, Abbie Finn.

Wed 06: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 06: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 06: The Horne Section’s Hit Show @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Wed 06: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 07: Jazz Appreciation North East/Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘George - named musicians, vocalists & composers (Chisholm, Duke, Lewis, Shearing, Benson, Melly, Gershwin et al)’.
Thu 07: Aki Remally: The Gil Scott-Heron Songbook @ Gosforth Civic Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Remally (guitar, vocals); Fraser Urquhart (piano); Tom Wilkinson (bass); Max Popp (drums).
Thu 07: Rat Pack Live @ Whitley Bay Playhouse. 7:30pm.
Thu 07: Mo Scott @ The Mill Tavern, Hebburn. 8:30pm. Free.
Thu 07: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. Guest band night with the new Pensacola Boulevard: Josh Bentham (trumpet!); Donna Hewitt (clarinet); Ron Smith (bass); Graham Thompson (keys); Mark Hawkins (drums); Django ZaZou (trombone); Vicky Jackson (vocals).

Fri 08: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 08: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 08: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 08: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Corbridge. 7:00pm.
Fri 08: TC & the Groove Family + Swannek + Knats @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm.

Sat 09: Moscow Drug Club @ Hamsterley Village Hall, Co. Durham DL13 3QF. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Sat 09: Anth Purdy @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. ‘Swing Jazz Guitar’. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 10: The New ’58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free. A ‘second Sunday in the month’ residency.
Sun 10: Panharmonia @ Central Bar, Gateshead. 2:00pm. £6.00.
Sun 10: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 10: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 10: Jude Murphy, Steve Chambers & Sid White @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 10: Moscow Drug Club @ Lesbury Village Hall, nr. Alnwick NE66 3PP. 7:30pm. £15.00.
Sun 10: SH#RP Collective @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Tue 12: Matthew Forster Quartet @ Newcastle House Hotel, Rothbury. 7:30pm.
Tue 12: Phil’s Elastic Band @ The Forum, Darlington. 7:30pm. Free, but ticketed, book online.

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

Thursday, October 26, 2023

The Elina Duni and Rob Luft Duo – Songs of Love and Exile @ Kings Place, London. Oct. 22

Elina Duni (vocals and tambour); Rob Luft (guitar) plus, for 3 songs, James Kitchman (guitar).

This was a concert of music for the twenty-first century nomad including songs from Germany, Scotland, the Balkans, all four corners of the Mediterranean and on further south into Africa. Songs from across the ages as well; the oldest piece is from Egypt in the 1300s. Duni’s rich voice is set against a palette of Rob Luft’s psychedelic space folk from that hitherto unexplored point where Pat Metheny, John Martyn and Steve Hillage meet. Using more pedals than the Raleigh factory, Luft and his trusty Gibson semi-acoustic archtop uses echoes, loops and reverb to create an orchestra behind Duni as her voice rises through the scales to a full force impassioned wail and drops back to a whisper.

Duni treats each song as a dramatic vignette as she inhabits each character at the heart of the lyric. Thus, during the second song, Bella Ci Dormi, a tragic Italian piece she is passionate, singing of yearning and loss, dramatically reaching out. On another she is a Parisian boulevardier, scatting her way up the scales indulging in a little call and response with Luft’s guitar. 

Lamma Badaa Yatathana is the ancient Egyptian number with Luft’s delicately plucked Arabic swirls and Duni’s gentle hand drum, it’s another dramatic performance. Luft plays dazzling, crystalline single note runs reminiscent of Metheny in his early days. One of the high points of the first set was an Albanian folk song which originated in Pristina in Kosovo in the 1960s. It’s another song of loss and Duni’s character seeks the help of the moon to find her lover. Luft plays a simple single note motif which subsumed into a series of dense flurries; Duni fills the song with tragedy and we feel like voyeurs, intruding on private grief. As her despair builds so does the guitar ringing out and echoing. The audience is enraptured.

Another song talks of being at one with nature, as she says in the introduction, at the point where things are exactly as they are supposed to be. It opens with a fragile waterfall of notes. As Duni sings in the upper register Luft conjures up images of dappled sunlight in a forest. The music is a light dance with hints of the song's Albanian folk origins. She sings of more pressing current woes in My Rainbow, a song about migration and exile. As she curses the years of separation her voice is enveloped in the guitar tones, tragedy writ large.

Hexham lad James Kitchman joins the duo for Luiz Bonfá’s The Gentlemen. The extra musical voice fills the bottom end of the sound providing a foundation over which Duni’s sultry vocal and Luft’s crying guitar take the lead. He stays on stage for Wayfaring Stranger, a Scottish by way of America tune of heartbreak and hope, resignation and acceptance. The two guitars are seamless, there’s a wash of reverb and delicate silver filigree picking and in Duni’s voice there’s still a trace of her origins, enough to make the song hers. They close with some joyous African hi life. The guitars challenge Duni’s voice as she runs up and down the scales, Luft adding in extra flourishes. Kitchman providing some solid ground under all of Duni’s and Luft’s sonic acrobatics. Dave Sayer 

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