Total Pageviews

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

17502 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 776 of them this year alone and, so far, 14 this month (Nov. 5).

From This Moment On ...

November

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.

Mon 11: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 11: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Wheatsheaf, Benton Sq., Whitley Road, Palmersville NE12 9SU. Tel: 0191 266 8137. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 11: Graham Hardy’s Eclectic Quartet @ The Black Bull, Blaydon. 8:00pm. £10.00.

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.

Wed 13: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 13: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 13: The Tannery Jam Session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. A ‘second Wednesday in the month’ jam session.
Wed 13: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 13: corto.alto @ Hoochie Coochie, Newcastle. 7:45pm (doors 7:00pm). £14.00. + bf.

Thu 14: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 14: Faye MacCalman & John Pope @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 14: Student Performances @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 4:00pm. Inc. Olly Styles (saxophone).
Thu 14: Happy Tuesdays @ Ye Olde Cross, Ryton. 7:30pm. Free.
Thu 14: John Stowell & Tom Remon @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Top class US/UK guitar duo!
Thu 14: King Bees @ The Cumberland Arms, Byker, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Superb Chicago blues band. Note, Struggle Buggy will no longer be appearing.
Thu 14: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. Free. Guests: Jeremy McMurray (keys); Kevin Eland (trumpet); Mark Toomey (alto sax); Adrian Beadnell (bass).

Fri 15: Nicola Farnon Trio @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. SOLD OUT!
Fri 15: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 15: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 15: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 15: Tim Kliphuis Trio @ Morpeth Methodist Church, Morpeth NE61 1HU. 7:30pm. £18.00.; £3.00. student (over 18); Free 18 or under. A Morpeth Music Society event. Kliphuis (violin), Nigel Clark (guitar), Roy Percy (double bass).
Fri 15: Lindsay Hannon’s Blues Trio @ 1719, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. £12.00. + bf.
Fri 15: Groovetrain @ The Exchange 1856, North Shields. 7:00pm. £22.50. + bf. Groovetrain’s ‘Big Night Out’.

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

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Matt Carmichael @ St Mary’s Church, Wooler - June 23

Matt Carmichael (tenor sax); Fergus McCreadie (piano); Charlie Stewart (fiddle).

It’s a funny old world. At the moment we have Rothbury seeking to establish itself as the Jazz Corner of the World and then we have, courtesy of Wooler Arts, one of the biggest names in British jazz (Fergus McCreadie) playing in a Matt Carmichael led trio on a Sunday afternoon in a church in the village. Truly it is an interesting time to follow jazz in Northumberland.

I spoke to a fellow audience member about how impressed I was at the turn out for a jazz gig and her comment was along the lines of ‘We’ve had some great music here recently and if someone puts on something good we’ll all come to it’. Can’t argue with that! It’s worth mentioning the good sound in the church as well.

McCreadie is highly regarded in this house and Carmichael’s Marram album was one of my ‘Best of 2022’ so there was a lot of anticipation surrounding Sunday’s gig for which Carmichael had brought two of the quintet that recorded Marram. The others being left at home in Scotland to enjoy (?) the football. 

The first set opens with a Scottish lilt, typical of the Marram album; a gentle ballad of mists and spaces with delicate piano, spare, plucked fiddle notes; McCreadie plays runs and rills. As the piece develops it’s clear that no one is soloing and everyone is soloing. Stewart’s fiddle grows from faint scratches to a dominant voice over McCreadie’s fluid piano; Carmichael blows rich round notes evocative of open spaces and rural images while Stewart’s fiddle conjures the calls of the birds of the air. This is a full sound, panoramic, that ebbs and flows, the lead role passing seamlessly from one musician to another. A full voiced solo from Carmichael over delicate, rolling playing from McCreadie fades away and Stewart adds a flavour of Scottish Jazz, Folk-Routes & Landscape before the wave flows back and breaks again. It’s wonderful, unanchored improvisation.

The first piece flows into a second which is even sparer than the first; floating and pastoral, with a lurking menace, led by McCreadie and Stewart with the, by now, familiar Scottish essence. Carmichael’s burnished, mellow tone is melancholic, nostalgic and wistful. A duet between sax and piano builds and builds to a wave that rolls down the nave of the church. The mood of loss and yearning is overtaken by an uplifting solo from McCreadie, dancing and, dare we say it, jaunty. The others follow him. This is the real folk jazz. McCreadie’s piano is ringing and singing out and all three are intensely listening and picking up hints of where to go next.

The second set starts with subdued scratching from Stewart’s fiddle; Carmichael blows a mournful line which rolls into a solo that rises in volume and mood. Circular notes become more expansive and lilting and are answered by McCreadie’s dancing piano lines. Beyond the music, this performance is all atmosphere, textures and layers; the flow rising and falling like a bird in flight. The three move into a reel; Stewart plays a repeating motif and lifts off for a solo while McCreadie vamps behind him. Carmichael’s solo also takes flight. This is what Sonny Rollins would sound like if he was from the glens. Softer notes, gentle and breathy, evoke Lester Young.

We flow into the next piece with a beautiful, elegant solo from McCreadie rising and falling, full of right hand runs and fills. His solos carry a melody within a tumbling cascade of notes; an orchestral martialling of forces. Carmichael breathy tenor comes back in and raises its voice again as part of a rich full sound from the trio.

Carmichael tells us that we have been listening to On the Gloaming Shore and Road to the Sea.

The next piece opens with more mournful evocations of open space from Carmichael’s sax, underpinned by McCreadie’s flowing piano. He takes us through a passage of short phrases, almost ecclesiastical, with McCreadie adding some rolling thunder in between some heavy chording and poetic flourishes. Carmichael surrenders the stage to McCreadie and Stewart who carry the elegance onwards to evoke another landscape, open and storm washed. Carmichael steps forward again, the tenor voice blending beautifully with the other voices. He blows a complex, knotty, building solo as the others rise behind into a combined celebration of release. 

The encore, again, evokes open landscapes, though this time of the Midwest in a country hoe down meets Broadway (but not via Oklahoma!). Heavy duty right hand vamping from McCreadie beneath Carmichael’s dancing sax; Stewart adds extra structure. Carmichael’s solo rises out from beneath the piano line, forceful and building on the mood.

The poster outside had promised ‘Jazz, Folk and Landscapes’ and this trio had delivered. Carmichael is doing what many of those Scandinavian musicians, such as Jan Garbarek, have done for their homelands over the years, usually on ECM or Edition Records. One thinks, as well, of Charlie Haden’s evocations of America on some of his later albums, such as Beyond the Missouri Sky, recorded with Pat Metheny. Matt Carmichael has set out to evoke his love for the land of his birth. It’s an endeavour in which, alongside the others in the trio, he fully succeeds. Dave Sayer

2 comments :

Hugh said...

Excellent review, Dave - I really feel like I was there (I wasn't)!

Dennis Smith said...

Super review thank you which helps relive what was a sensational concert from such gifted young players.
Definitely worth the 800 mile round trip!
And the acoustics in the church were perfect for this jazz on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Thanks to all of those involved for arranging and providing such a wonderful event.

Blog Archive