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Bebop Spoken There

Raymond Chandler: “ I was walking the floor and listening to Khatchaturian working in a tractor factory. He called it a violin concerto. I called it a loose fan belt and the hell with it ". The Long Goodbye, Penguin 1959.

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

16350 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 230 of them this year alone and, so far, 27 this month (April 11).

From This Moment On ...

April

Fri 19: Cia Tomasso @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle. 1:00pm. ‘Cia Tomasso sings Billie Holiday’. SOLD OUT!
Fri 19: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 19: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 19: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 19: Tweed River Jazz Band @ The Radio Rooms, Berwick. 7:00pm (doors). £5.00.
Fri 19: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Seventeen Nineteen, Hendon, Sunderland. 7:30pm.
Fri 19: Levitation Orchestra + Nauta @ Cluny 2, Newcastle. 7:30pm (doors). £11.00.
Fri 19: Strictly Smokin’ Big Band @ The Witham, Barnard Castle. 8:00pm. ‘Ella & Ellington’.

Sat 20: Record Store Day…at a store near you!
Sat 20: Bright Street Band @ Washington Arts Centre. 6:30pm. Swing dance taster session (6:30pm) followed by Bright Street Big Band (7:30pm). £12.00.
Sat 20: Michael Woods @ Victoria Tunnel, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Acoustic blues.
Sat 20: Rendezvous Jazz @ St Andrew’s Church, Monkseaton. 7:30pm. £10.00. (inc. a drink on arrival).

Sun 21: Jamie Toms Quartet @ Queen’s Hall, Hexham. 3:00pm.
Sun 21: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay Metro Station. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 21: Lindsay Hannon: Tom Waits for No Man @ Holy Grale, Durham. 5:00pm.
Sun 21: The Jazz Defenders @ Cluny 2. Doors 6:00pm. £15.00.
Sun 21: Edgar Rubenis @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. Blues & ragtime guitar.
Sun 21: Tweed River Jazz Band @ Barrels Ale House, Berwick. 7:00pm. Free.
Sun 21: Art Themen with the Dean Stockdale Trio @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm. £10.00. +bf. JNE. SOLD OUT!

Mon 22: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.

Tue 23: Vieux Carre Hot 4 @ Victoria & Albert Inn, Seaton Delaval. 12:30-3:30pm. £12.00. ‘St George’s Day Afternoon Tea’. Gig with ‘Lashings of Victoria Sponge Cake, along with sandwiches & scones’.
Tue 23: Jalen Ngonda @ Newcastle University Students’ Union. POSTPONED!

Wed 24: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 24: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 24: Sinatra: Raw @ Darlington Hippodrome. 7:30pm. Richard Shelton.
Wed 24: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.
Wed 24: Death Trap @ Theatre Royal, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Rambert Dance Co. Two pieces inc. Goat (inspired by the music of Nina Simone) with on-stage musicians.

Thu 25: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 25: Jim Jams @ King’s Hall, Newcastle University. 1:15pm. Jim Jams’ funk collective.
Thu 25: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm.
Thu 25: Death Trap @ Theatre Royal, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Rambert Dance Co. Two pieces inc. Goat (inspired by the music of Nina Simone) with on-stage musicians.
Thu 25: Jeremy McMurray & the Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Arc, Stockton. 8:00pm.
Thu 25: Kate O’Neill, Alan Law & Paul Grainger @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 25: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Guests: Richie Emmerson (tenor sax); Neil Brodie (trumpet); Adrian Beadnell (bass); Garry Hadfield (keys).

Monday, March 16, 2015

CD Review Doc Bowling and his Blues Professors – Black Country Boy

Doc Bowling (guitar & vocals), Donnie Burke (guitar, baritone guitar, banjo & backing vocals), Simon Minney (bass, acoustic bass, whistle & backing vocals), Graham Hadley (drums & backing vocals), Roger Champion (percussion & backing vocals), Sophie Loyer (violin), Lawrence Davies (harmonica) & Eddie Kulak (keyboards)
(Review by Russell)
A new name to your reviewer, Doc Bowling is a new favourite. Doc and his fellow seven ‘blues professors’ can be pigeon-holed quite easily – providing you have a vacant dozen or more pigeon holes! Alt country, blues (twelve bar and its variants), Americana, rock-a-billy, shuffling bottleneck, ska – all from an oblique (psychotherapist’s) view point and a Stetson brim-full of humour and understated musical excellence.
Doc Bowling sings on all eleven tracks on Black Country Boy. The eponymous first track identifies Doc Bowling as a lad raised in the West Midlands:
Smethwick Town to Langley Green 
Rowley Regis!
Old Hill to Cradley Heath
From Lye down
To Stourbridge Town
The remarkably prescient Fal$e Prophit Blues is right on the money:
Draw a picture of the Prophet,
You’re shot dead on sight
A politically aware band making a statement! It’s a change from the current vogue for bands making a quasi-intellectual pitch for their brand of ‘original composition.’  The musicianship isn’t in any way secondary to the lyric content; Eddie Kulak (keys) and Lawrence Davies (harmonica) feature. Existential Blues is heavy stuff. Don’t worry, read the liner-notes…A guitar and harmonica-driven up-tempo twelve-bar blues. That’ll do.
Pedestrian Crossroad Blues borrows from Robert Johnson. Slide guitar from Donnie Burke and fiddle from Sophie Loyer despairing of ‘the deadly and deplorable state of England’s pedestrian crossings’ is unabashed blues with lyrics not of 1930s America, but of twenty first century concerns:
You say you’ve got road rage
What we need is road peace!
These vehicular road-wars,
They’ve just gotta cease
The spitting out of Ve-hic-u-lar has to be heard. Almost as good as the classic I was born in 19 and 42 (wailing Chicago harp ‘n’ all).
Biodiesel Blues poses the question:
Must the poor go hungry
Just so the rich can drive?
Growing corn for diesel
Will the earth survive?!
The CD cover image Pastorale (detail) is by Claire Spencer courtesy Bridgeman Images.
One could be tempted to vote for a Green candidate at the forthcoming General Election!
Back to the music – and it is about the music – Church Going Blues, great lyrics:
My man Muddy Waters
He brought me the news
You gotta go to choich
If you want to sing the blues
A lyric with choich in it makes Black Country Blues a ‘must have’ purchase.
Black Country Boy by Doc Bowling and his Blues Professors is available now. The band’s CD launch is on Friday 20 March at King’s College London Students’ Union.  
Russell
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