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Bebop Spoken There

Béla Fleck: “ And that's the great thing about live performances, you take people on a journey. It doesn't have to be like something else they've heard. It's not supposed to be". DownBeat, April, 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

16287 (and counting) posts since we started blogging 16 years ago. 169 of them this year alone and, so far, 41 this month (Mar 18).

From This Moment On ...

March

Thu 28: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ The Holystone, Whitley Road, North Tyneside. 1:00pm. Free.
Thu 28: Gateshead Jazz Appreciation Society @ Gateshead Central Library, Gateshead. 2:30pm.
Thu 28: Richard Herdman Quartet @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Thu 28: Tees Hot Club @ Dorman’s Club, Middlesbrough. 8:30pm. Guests: Josh Bentham (alto sax); Alan Marshall (tenor sax); Neil Brodie (trumpet); Adrian Beadnell (bass); Graham Thompson (keys); Steve Hunter (drums).

Fri 29: FILM: Soul @ The Forum Cinema, Hexham. 12:30pm. Jazz-themed film animation.
Fri 29: Classic Swing @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 29: Rendezvous Jazz @ The Monkseaton Arms. 1:00pm. Free.
Fri 29: New Orleans Preservation Jazz Band @ The Oxbridge Hotel, Stockton. 1:00pm. £5.00.
Fri 29: Abbie Finn Trio @ The Vault, Darlington. 6:00pm. Free. POSTPONED!
Fri 29: Thundercat @ Newcastle City Hall.
Fri 29: John Logan @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.

Sat 30: Papa G’s Troves @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 8:00pm. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig.
Sat 30: Pete Tanton’s Cuba Libre @ Whitley Bay Library, York Road, Whitley Bay. 8:00pm.

Sun 31: 4B @ The Ticket Office, Whitley Bay Metro Station. 3:00pm. Free.
Sun 31: Ruth Lambert Trio @ Juke Shed, Union Quay, North Shields NE30 1HJ. 3:00pm. Free. Lambert, Alan Law & Paul Grainger.
Sun 31: Sid Jacobs & Tom Remon @ Prohibition Bar, Newcastle. 7:00pm. Free. A ‘Jar on the Bar’ gig. USA/London jazz guitar duo.
Sun 31: Bellavana @ The Globe, Newcastle. 8:00pm.

April
Mon 01: Harmony Brass @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Mon 01: Ray Stubbs R&B All Stars @ Billy Bootlegger’s, Ouseburn, Newcastle. 3:00pm. Free.

Tue 02: Jam session @ The Black Swan, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free. House trio: Dean Stockdale, Paul Grainger, Abbie Finn.

Wed 03: Vieux Carré Jazzmen @ Cullercoats Crescent Club. 1:00pm. Free.
Wed 03: Darlington Big Band @ Darlington & Simpson Rolling Mills Social Club, Darlington. 7:00pm. Free. Rehearsal session (open to the public).
Wed 03: Take it to the Bridge @ The Globe, Newcastle. 7:30pm. Free.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Listening Through The Noise - Some Thoughts

My main thought about this book is that the writer is genuinely trying to say something original about music, but she fails to tell me anything I didn’t already know, so I won’t be hurrying to the shops any time soon.
I imagine there are others on the blog who feel the same, and I’d love them to write something as well. Mind, my experience of electronic music is limited to what I hear on Radio 3’s nightime ‘Late Junction’ music programme, which has a good mix of world and unusual music. I usually have to turn down the cacophany of the electronic stuff.
Maybe I’m missing something. The writer wants natural sounds incorporated into music. They always have been. Classical composers included birdsong motifs in their music. They didn’t have the facilities to record the real thing, and if they had they would presumably have modified the sounds into some kind of musical pattern. Birdsong has musical elements but I think there’s a world of difference between just listening to the natural world itself and making actual patterned music from the raw material.
The writer says there are new ways of listening to music, but people have always listened to music in different ways. When Mozart was played in salons it was often just a background to people flirting and doing business deals. There was never a golden age of people listening with rapt attention. Wagner was the man who tried to get people to listen ‘properly’, by turning down the lights in the theatre.
So people today listen in many different ways, such as background music, music for dancing, or songs in folk clubs where silence is expected because you need to hear the words.
I find listening to modern jazz challenging because I don’t know whether to follow one instrument, let it all wash over me, or what, and that’s what makes it interesting.
The writer mentions the use of silence. It’s in all music already. I believe it was John Cage who wrote a piece of 4 minutes silence, but that was really a piece to question the actual nature of music and what you heard was actually the coughs of the audience and distant outside noises etc. And as for the use of feedback, Jimi Hendrix positively thrived on it!
She gives the example of what happened to painting when photography came along. After a while painting reasserted itself and it’s alive and well today, and one style of painting even copies photography. We’ve already had the same kind of discussion about literature a few years back, when the ‘death of the novel’ was predicted, but it didn’t happen. All worthwhile art forms survive, with modifications over time.
No doubt electronic music will contribute something to music generally, without too much of a revolution.
Ann Alex

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