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Bebop Spoken There

Steve Coleman: ''If you don't keep learning, your mind slows down. Use it or lose it''. (DownBeat, January 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

17719 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 17 years ago. 39 of them this year alone and, so far, 39 this month (Jan. 15).

From This Moment On ...

January 2025

Mon 20: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 21: ???

Wed 22: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 22: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 22: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 22: Pasadena Roof Orchestra @ Fire Station, Sunderland. 7:30pm.

Thu 23: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, Holystone. 1:00pm. Free. Fortnightly.
Thu 23: Jazz Appreciation North East @ Brunswick Methodist Church, Newcastle NE1 7BJ. 2:00pm. £4.00. Subject: Obituaries 2024.
Thu 23: Jason Isaacs @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 4:30-6:30pm. Free. Vocalist Isaacs working with backing tapes.
Thu 23: Pedal Point Trio @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Fri 24: Zoë Gilby Quartet @ The Gala, Durham. 1:00pm.
Fri 24: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 24: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 24: Creakin’ Bones & the Sunday Dinners @ Lindisfarne Social Club, Wallsend. 9:00pm. Admission: TBC. Jazz, blues , jump jive, rock ‘n’ roll.

Sat 25: Boys of Brass @ St James’ STACK, Newcastle. 3:30-5:30pm. Free.
Sat 25: New '58 Jazz Collective @ Jackson's Wharf, Hartlepool. 6:30pm (doors). Free. A Burns' Night event. Jazz, swing, funk, soul, blues etc.
Sat 25: Edison Herbert Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free.
Sat 25: Jack & Jay’s Songbook @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sun 26: Musicians Unlimited @ Jackson’s Wharf, Hartlepool. 1:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: Graham Hardy Eclectic Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 26: Ruth Lambert Trio @ The Juke Shed, Union Quay, North Shields. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 26: Jazz Jam Sandwich! @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sun 26: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Barrels Ale House, Berwick-upon-Tweed. 7:30pm. Free.
Sun 26: Gratkowski, Tramontana, Beresford, Affifi @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £12.00. JNE.
Sun 26: Jazz Jam @ Fabio’s, Saddler St., Durham. 8:00pm. Free. A Durham University Jazz Society promotion. All welcome.

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, January 09, 2025

Album review: Arild Anderson – Landloper (ECM)

Arild Andersen (double bass, electronics)

Despite its dawn evoking slow motion opener, evocative of the first fingers of sunlight across the long-frozen tundral wastes this is, in the main, a free-wheeling, entertaining, even, at times, humorous work. It’s a far cry from the usual intense, immersive, contemplative ECM fare and at 35 minutes, it feels more like an interlude, rather than a full set. It’s a set of works for solo bass and effects pedals with no recorded backing tracks and the sleeve notes clarify that “All the loops used were produced live during the performance.”

On that opener, Peace Universal, Andersen uses a wash of electrical sound as the bedding for spare bass lines. By way of contrast Dreamhorse opens with a bouncing, jaunty bass line that Andersen records and plays as a loop over which he runs dancing lines full of good cheer. It’s a formal dance but brimming with life. I could almost imagine it as the music surrounding the spinning frocks at a society ball in Bridgerton. Three pieces that don’t fit comfortably together, namely Albert Ayler’s Ghosts, a Norwegian folk song, Old Stev and Andersen’s own Landloper make up the longest piece on the album and it works because of the contrast. The haunting Ghosts cuts suddenly into the propulsive folk dance of Old Stev and that, in turn, changes into the loping, easy groove of Landloper, as if Andersen is saying “I’ll show you what I can do and have a bit of fun doing it!”

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square brings more good cheer as Andersen capture the bird in flight in swoop and dive, waltzing and loping around the main melody line before a bit of deconstruction and a return to the main theme. Mira is another dance, a loping waltz, if you can have such a thing, and we close with a pairing of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman and Charlie Haden’s Song For Che, the latter a much stripped down version from the Liberation Orchestra’s original. Lonely Woman is spare and pleading slowly building up to a brief, frantic Coleman–esque passage after which Song For Che captures some of the defiant DNA of the Orchestra but it’s a slow, questing piece, a requiem rather than a celebration.

Having only really heard Andersen on a couple of trio albums he made with Andy Sheppard or Tommy Smith the undiluted focus that this solo album allows makes for a very different listen and shows that even in those long winter nights Norwegians have a sense of humour too.

Landloper is out now. Dave Sayer

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