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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

17444 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 718 of them this year alone and, so far, 100 this month (Oct. 10).

From This Moment On ...

October

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).

Wed 16: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 16: Cath Stephens’ improvisation workshop @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 4:30-6:00pm. Collaborative group focusing on vocal improvisations.
Wed 16: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 16: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Thu 17: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Olivia Cuttill Quintet @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Free.
Thu 17: Moonlight Serenade Orchestra UK: Glenn Miller & Big Band Spectacular @ Phoenix Theatre, Blyth. 7:30pm.
Thu 17: Merlin Roxby @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. Ragtime piano. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 17: Niffi Osiyemi Trio @ The Harbour View, Sunderland. 8:00pm. Free.
Thu 17: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesborough. Guests Jeremy McMurray (keys); Richie Emmerson (tenor sax); Mark Toomey (alto sax); Adrian Beadnell (bass). 8:30pm. Free.

Fri 18: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 18: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 18: Hot Club du Nord @ St Cuthbert’s, Crook. 7:30pm.
Fri 18: Chet Set @ Seventeen Nineteen, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm. Pete Tanton & co.
Fri 18: Michael Woods @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. Doors 7:30pm (upstairs). A Hoodoo Blues dance & social event. £10.00. class & social (£10.00., £7.50., £5.00. social only). Michael Woods (country blues guitar) on stage 9:00pm.
Fri 18: East Coast Swing Band @ Hexham Abbey. 7:30pm. £9.00.
Fri 18: Ben Crosland Quartet @ Traveller’s Rest, Darlington. 8:00pm. Opus 4 Jazz Club.
Fri 18: Durham University Jazz Society’s ‘High Standards’ @ Music Dept. Music Room, Divinity House, Palace Green, Durham University DH1 3RS. 8:009:30pm. Tel: 0191 334 1419. £7.00., £5.00.
Fri 18: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Blues Underground, Nelson St., Newcastle. 9:00pm. Free.

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

The John Potts Story


Ted Fry of the notorious Figleaf Jazz Band passed your e mail on to me. So great to hear from you. You say from a website people are hunting me down – hope it’s not collection agencies after the 3 quid I borrowed from Joe Shenton in 1951. You are right about the College of the Venereal Bede connection – we were there at the same time – moi from 57-59. Do you remember GE Selby of the English department – he tolerated some of our more bizarre interests in eng lit. Keith Oglesby was my room buddy and he had the entire Frank Sinatra Capitol recordings at the time – big influence in later years.

I think 1957 was the year I started with the River City Jazz Band of Newcastle. In the early 1950s I had started with Tojo’s Jazzmen from Gosforth with me on mandolele (cross between mandolin and ukulele) and Tojo on bass trombone – we played Norrie Paramour arrangements – the reedman played an A clarinet while the rest of us were in Bb so we had some very advanced dissonance for the time! A little later I played banjo in Clem Avery’s Jazzmen with Peter Cole on piano – we were both at Heaton Grammar where there was quite a bit of jazz – and pitched fisticuffs between the trad jazz maniacs and the Stan Kenton aficionados.

Around 1952 Peter Cole and I formed a band with Johnny Handle on piano (he later moved on to folk and the High Level Ranters) with Colin Beale on clarinet and Chas Cole on drums, Pog Hall on banjo. We played some dances at All Saints Youth Club in Gosforth. Called up for 2 years in the RAF 54-56.  

Meanwhile Ray Shenton, Herbie Hudson and Harry Stevenson who had heard us at All Saints were involved in a mouth organ band called the Harmonica Hoodlums coached by Maxie Share who had a music store in the Grainger Market. After I got demobbed I was working as a porter at Newcastle Central Station when this bloke told me on a coffee break that the only other person he knew who wore orange crepe sole shoes was a geek called John Potts. By this time heavily bearded I confessed that it was indeed I. Ray said that they had recently formed a band called The River City and that their trumpet player had just been called up for national service and was I interested in playing for them – did Harold Wilson vote labour!! – of course I joined up right away and played with them until 1962. Great fun years with Ray Shenton on the oldest tuba in western Europe, Joe Shenton on washboard, Herbie Hudson trombone, Harry Stevenson on clarinet, Brian Sampson on drums, Colin Hopper on banjo and self on trumpet.

Ray Shenton tracked me down through the Figleaf Jazz Band website and we have corresponded a few times and exchanged photographs of the early River City.

I was married in 1960 with a sweetheart I met at the Downbeat Club in Newcastle. With two kids we headed off to teach in Cadiz Spain in 1962. Returned to Gateshead in 1963 for a year then off to Ankara Turkey to teach for 4 years before emigrating to Canada with 5 kids (a Canuck baby added in 1974). Didn’t play any jazz until about 1973 when my mom-in-law brought my trumpet from  Blighty. I had no case and carried it around in a paper bag. Fell in with the early Figleaf Jazz Band about this time – by coincidence the piano player is Geoff Mulholland from Walker, Tyneside (didn’t know him in the UK), Roger Kerslake trombone played with various bands in Devon before coming to Canada. Ted Fry drums and Dildo Dave banjo were mates in Toronto recently deported to the Great Frozen North for unsavory behaviour. Bass player Bruce Rumble was at the time an acne blighted teenager – now in appalling physical decline like the rest of us. 28 years later the band still has the same personnel although we have gone through several reed players two of whom passed on to celestial (or otherwise) endeavours some time ago.

Glad to hear that the Ashington Jazz Club is going strong. Perhaps you can send me some stories about jazz in the northeast. The 1970s and early 80s were the halcyon days for the Figleafs – bars, ski clubs, restaurants often 4 or 5 times a week. In recent years there has been little interest in trad jazz and we are regarded as pre-Jurassic dinosaurs. The band gets a few summer jobs in parks and plays the Simcoe County Jazz Society once a year. I play mostly now with a group called Moonglow which as a trio concentrates on swing style while as a duo (plus computer) play senior citizen residences – standards (Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers-Hart), Irish, Scottish, Newfoundland, novelty songs.

You were pretty accurate guessing my age – actually I’m 75 pushing 76. I would love to hear about your adventures since Bede College.I think you found the figleaf website which also has a link to Moonglow. If you listen to the musical examples you will hear that my excruciating tone has deteriorated over the years and my pathetic technique is even more pitiable.

http://rstrathdee.com/
moonglow/
John Potts (pottsi with a small pee.)
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Original post. from George Simpson.

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