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Bebop Spoken There

Spasmo Brown: “Jazz is an ice cream sandwich! It's the Fourth of July! It's a girl with a waterbed!”. (Syncopated Times, July, 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

17421 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 695 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Sept. 30).

From This Moment On ...

October

Tue 08: ???

Wed 09: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free. Wed 09: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 5:00-7:00pm. Free.
Wed 09: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 09: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 09: The Tannery Jam Session @ The Tannery, Gilesgate, Hexham. 7:00-9:00pm. Free. A ‘second Wednesday in the month’ jam session.
Wed 09: Shunya, Dudù Kouate & Seb Rochford @ The Cluny, Newcastle. 8:30pm (7:30pm doors). £21.00.

Thu 10: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 10: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. ‘Collaborations - it happened all the time’.
Thu 10: Indigo Jazz Voices w. the Little Big Band @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:45pm. £5.00.
Thu 10: Side Cafe Orkestar @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 10: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. 8:30pm. With guests Donna Hewitt (sax); Bill Watson (trumpet); Graham Thompson (keys); Ron Smith (bass). Free.

Fri 11: Dulcie May Moreno @ The Old Library, Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland. 1:00pm. £8.00.
Fri 11: The Jazz Quartet + Stratosphonic @ Tynedale Rugby Club, Corbridge. 7:00pm. £15.00. A Rotary Club of Hexham event. The Jazz Quartet (Jude Murphy & co), Stratosphonic (blues/rock).
Fri 11: Joe Steels Trio @ The Pele, Market Place, Corbridge NE45 5AW. 7:30pm. Free.
Fri 11: Crooners @ Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. 7:30pm.
Fri 11: Mo Scott Band @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

Sat 12: Milne-Glendinning Band @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 12: Michael Woods @ Victoria Tunnel, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £12.00. (£10.00. adv.). Country blues guitar & vocals.
Sat 12: Nauta @ Cobalt Studios, Newcastle. 7:00pm. £13.28, £11.16, £9.04. A two-track recording launch gig.
Sat 12: Stuart Turner @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Rockabilly, rhythm & blues etc. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 12: Lapwing Jazz Trio @ The Ship Inn, Low Newton. 8:00pm. Free. New trio: Paula Whitty, Richard Herdman, Jude Murphy.

Sun 13: Am Jam @ The Globe, Newcastle. 2:00pm. Free.
Sun 13: Emma Wilson @ Tyne Bar, Newcastle. 4:00pm. Free. Blues.
Sun 13: Catfish Keith @ The Cluny. 7:00pm. Country blues.
Sun 13: Cath Stephens & Paul Grainger @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Stephens & Grainger, one third of a triple bill.
Sun 13: Dulcie May Moreno Quartet @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

Mon 14: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 14: Black is the Color of My Voice @ Hippodrome, Darlington. 7:30pm. Apphia Campbell’s one-woman show inspired by Nina Simone, performed by Nicholle Cherrie.

Tue 15: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Alan Law (piano), Paul Grainger (double bass), Bailey Rudd (drums).

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

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Album review: David Weiss Sextet - Auteur (Origin Records)

David Weiss (trumpet); Myron Walden (alto sax); Nicole Glover (tenor sax); David Bryant (piano); Eric Wheeler (bass); E.J. Strickland (drums)

There have been a lot of excellent albums dished up for review this year and already the contenders for Album of the Year are amassing.

Auteur is one guaranteed to be in the shake-up. It's the kind of music I had in mind when I first started blogging all those years ago - bop, hard bop, post bop and beyond (albeit not too far beyond). 

In his notes, Weiss states that, just like in politics, jazz has no middle anymore. adding that, unlike in politics, in music, the middle is not the safest place to occupy, it may in fact be the riskiest. Yet the risk is worth the reward. Where political compromise can cause a dilution of policy, in art, eclecticism can lead to subtlety.

Well that's all a bit heavy for me although I can see where he's coming from and, if this album is representative of those observations then I'm with him all the way!

Weiss is well remembered from a couple of visits to the Gateshead International Jazz Festival with The Cookers in 2015 and 2016 and, if anything, his trumpet playing here is even more fiery than it was then. 

Nicole Glover appeared earlier this month on Ben Wolfe's The Understated which also included a couple of tracks by the late Russell Malone. On that recording she was cucumber cool. Here, I suspect, her true self bursts free. It's gutsier than previous, maybe because of the gauntlets being thrown down by Weiss and Walden. Whatever, Glover meets the challenges and lays down a few of her own.

Walden was a relatively unfamiliar name to me although he has turned up on a couple of albums reviewed by others in the past. In the future, unfamiliar will be an adjective no longer used by me when making reference to Myron! Quite an amazing player stretching both the boundaries of the music and his instrument.  

Bryant is the kind of pianist I'm sure everyone wants in their band. A chordal chemist providing the harmonic elixor to inspire the soloist before grabbing his own spot centre stage. At times a hint of Monk or Bud or maybe Ahmad but always himself.

Eric Wheeler handles the session ably even though comparisions must have been made with Weiss' former bass player the late Dwayne Burno who passed in 2013 at the age of 43. That's as maybe, but Wheeler does the business here to perfection.

On drums, Strickland has an intuitive sense of what is needed, cutting his cloth to suit the individuals as well as the band's overall direction. Not surprising that he comes into his own on the final track - a tribute to Art Blakey.

Weiss composed five of the seven compositions, the other two were: Rebop by Freddie Hubbard and Slide Hampton's Blues For Bu.

A contender, maybe numero uno. The official release date is Sept. 20... Lance

Too Little, Too Late; Resilience (For George)*; The Other Side of the Mountain; Rebop; The Mirror; With Gratitude (For Wayne)**; One For Bu ***

* For George Cables. ** For Wayne Shorter. *** For Art Blakey

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