Total Pageviews

Bebop Spoken There

Kurt Elling: ''There's something to learn from every musician you play with''. (DownBeat, December 2024).

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

17641 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 915 of them this year alone and, so far, 60 this month (Dec. 26).

From This Moment On ...

December

Fri 27: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 27: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free. Business as usual!.
Fri 27: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Fri 27: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar & vocals.

Sat 28: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 11:30am. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Sat 28: Fri 20: Castillo Nuevo @ Revoluçion de Cuba, Newcastle. 5:30pm. Free.
Sat 28: Jude Murphy, Rich Herdman & Giles Strong @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 28: Ray Stubbs R & B All-Stars @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Stepney Bank, Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sun 29: Paul Skerritt @ Hibou Blanc, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Skerritt working with backing tapes.
Sun 29: Alexia Gardner Quintet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 30: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 30: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 30: Jason Isaacs @ STACK, Exchange Sq., Middlesbrough. 4:00-6:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.

Tue 31: Jason Isaacs @ Seaburn STACK, Seaburn. 12 noon-2:00pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Tue 31: Lapwing Trio @ Wallington (National Trust), Cambo, Morpeth NE61 4AR. 12 noon & 2:00pm. Admission to site £19.00.
Tue 31: Jason Isaacs @ St. James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:30-5:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Tue 31: Archie Brown & Friends @ Tyne Bar, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 4:00-8:00pm. Free.

January 2025

Wed 01: ???

Thu 02: ???

Fri 03: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 03: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 03: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 03: John Gregory @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Country blues guitar.

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, May 02, 2024

Mayhem in Manhattan - JATP remembered

Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips (tenor sax); Howard McGhee (trumpet); Bill Harris (trombone); Hank Jones (piano); Ray Brown (bass); Jo Jones (drums).

As the review CDs pile up I'm in the horns of a dilemma. Our local binmen are on strike and charity shops frown at being overloaded with more of the same - particularly with  jazz CDs. So, in the forlorn hope that the hustlers out there will ask me first before dumping 'the latest thing' on me, I decided to listen to some of the albums that I've treasured over the years that I no longer find the time to listen to.

The recordings by Norman Granz's JATP were among the earliest ones I got hooked on after I'd graduated from Goodman, Dorsey, Miller and the big bands of the swing era.

Initially on double-sided 78s then on 10" and, eventually, 12" vinyl they were slow in appearing in the UK and, when they did, were expensive. However, tracks often showed up on AFN and other European stations - usually late at night. For a pubescent youth it was magic and I guess this was how teenagers, as they were soon to be called, felt when they were hit with rock and roll.

When the albums became more generally available I bought them all - concerts from 1944 to the early 1960s. However, there was one vital track missing from the concert recorded live at Carnegie Hall on Sept. 27, 1947. I had Perdido and Mordido  but not the final track Endido which was akin to buying a symphony without the last movement! Fortunately, all three 'didos' were eventually collated on Mayhem in Manhattan plus the more sedate I Surrender Dear.

The critics hated JATP, they probably still do! I loved them as, apart from Illinois and Flip slugging it out and driving the audience wild, you also had Howard McGhee reaching for the moon and Bill Harris  producing sounds from a slide trombone that Jack Teagarden never dreamt of! However, to maintain a degree of sanity, there was also Hank Jones, Ray Brown and Jo Jones to temporarily cool things down. The final chorus of Endido makes local jam session finales seem like a Palm Court Orchestra playing for dowagers and retired colonels in bath-chairs at a  seafront spa on the south coast. Lance

No comments :

Blog Archive