christmas | NorVol Jazz

Frosty Christmas as The Central

Posted on 14 December, 2014 by Steve Crocker

Richard Hardy writes Dear Jazz at The Central supporter A quick reminder for this week’s line-up. That’s this Thursday 11th December. Then, an easy one to remember, we will be re-starting jazz at The Central 2015 just four weeks later Continue reading Frosty Christmas as The Central→

River City Ride Again – as a quartet!
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 16-01-19
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CD Review: Quinsin Nachoff’s Flux – Path of Totality.
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 16-01-19
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CD REview: Chris Ingham Quartet – Stan
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 16-01-19
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Hey, wanna buy a guitar?
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 15-01-19
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CD Review: Jack Kilby & the Front Line – Love is a Song Anyone Can sing
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 14-01-19
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Mike Gordon’s best from 2018
Source: Northern Jazz LivePublished on 14-01-19
3 days ago
Snake Davis @ Charts – January 13
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 13-01-19
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Up Next . . .
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CD Review: Justin Morell – Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra
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CD Review: Betty Bryant – Project 88
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Preview: Quilliam Bros in La La Land
Source: Bebop Spoken HerePublished on 12-01-19
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Birthday Party @ Cullercoats Crescent Club with the Vieux Carré Jazzmen – Jan 11
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CD Review: Theon Cross – FYAH
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Matt MacKellar Band @ the Black Swan – Jan. 10
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CD Review: Ernie Watts Quartet – Home Liight
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Jeremy McMurray with the Pocket Jazz Orchestra @ Dormans Jazz Club, Middlesbrough – Jan.3
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CD Review: Beverley Church Hogan – Can’t Get Out of This Mood
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Jam Session @ the Black Swan – January 8.
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CD Review: Alan Pasqua – Soliloquy
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NorthernJazzLive

Voice of the Norvoljazz network - independent jazz promoters in the North.

Mike Gordon's best from 2018

Jazz Aesthetic

Sorry I’ve been a while sending this but here we go!

Dave Newton & Alan Barnes
They were a highlight at the 2018 Scarborough Jazz Festival as they celebrated forty years of playing together since their student days at Leeds College of Music. They have, as you would expect. incredible rapport but what always stands out is the freshness of their music. They haven’t stood still and continue to explore and develop musical ideas.

Jazz Aesthetic
This Hull University student band has become a regular annual booking at Scarborough Jazz and they always attract a good audience., They play exciting contemporary jazz by Brian Blade, Michael Brecker, Bob Mintzer, Dave Holland and others all arranged by Director Pater Elsdon. The band’s line-up varies each year but they always tackle this challenging music with enthusiasm and skill. On 5th December you could hear a pin drop. You feel the future of jazz is safe in their hands.

Benn Clatworthy Quartet
David Kennard wrote in the Scarborough Jazz programme in October: Benn is recognised as a truly world class saxophonist who has performed with Herbie Hancock, Cedar Walton and Bobbie Shew. Born in England and tutored by Ronnie Scott, who rated him as one of the best UK players that he had ever heard, Benn has been based in Los Angeles for 40 years. He possesses the tunefulness of Lester Young and skilfully merges it with the muscular tone of Coleman Hawkins. Like Sony Rollins, he is harmonically adventurous, and is capable of playing at speeds that recall Charlie Parker. He puts all this together with punch, beauty and at times surprising delicacy. Benn lived up to this and more. A stunning evening for Scarborough Jazz @ The Cask.

Mike Gordon
Scarborough Jazz Club and Jazz Festival

Author: Steve Crocker

Posted: January 14, 2019, 10:18 am

Lance Liddle's New Year Honours list

2018 has been such a good year for 5* gigs that to select just three is like being asked to name the three best of anything. However, here goes!

Greg Abate w. Paul Edis Trio – Jazz Café, Newcastle (picture Ken Drew)
The 2018 DownBeat Critics Poll had Greg placed third in the ‘Rising Star Alto Sax’ category. How bizarre is that for a 70-year-old who has been delighting audiences throughout the world for many years? Greg’s session with Paul Edis (they’d played a duo set earlier in Durham) was but the latest of many gigs he’s played, over the years, in the northeast. This one ticked all the boxes from the previous ones and maybe a couple more.

Mingus Big Band – Middlesbrough Town Hall.
To hear an American big band just down/up the road from you these days is quite something. In my younger days, Basie, Ellington, Herman, Kenton and others were regular visitors to Newcastle’s City Hall. In retrospect, I can’t believe how naïve we were in thinking this would last forever but, tempus fugit, they, the musicians, died and we, the listeners, grew older.
Fast forward to Middlesbrough Town Hall and a Sunday evening concert in the refurbished civic auditorium – I’d previously heard Kenton there – and the years tumbled away. A big band that took the work of Mingus, not as a tribute band but a band that brought his vast legacy into the present day. I’d heard the band a couple of days previous at Ronnie’s and this rubber-stamped that earlier concert. Wow!

Mick Shoulder Quintet – Black Bull, Blaydon.
For reasons unknown, sightings of Lewis Watson playing a jazz gig are about as rare as a duck-billed platypus turning up on your bird table. However, on one magical night at Blaydon Jazz club, bassist Mick Shoulder put together a hard-hitting bebop band that let those present realise that they were in the presence of perhaps the greatest unsung tenor-player ever to play there (or anywhere come to that!). He blew up a storm and trumpet player Graham Hardy and the backroom boys, Shoulder, Edis and Russ Morgan, were with him every step of the way. On Bebop Spoken Here, I referred to it as The Quintet of the Year – decision stands.

I could have listed many many more but, alas, Jo Harrup at Ushaw Jazz Festival and Alison Rayner Quintet at the Globe are but two of the concerts that I have reluctantly had to leave out, but, maybe if you ask me again tomorrow, they will be in!
Lance.
Lance Liddle
Bebop Spoken Here

Author: Steve Crocker

Posted: January 1, 2019, 11:34 pm

Steve Crocker's Jazz Honours 2018 from Leeds

Leeds is such an amazing city for live jazz now it is almost impossible to pick out three highlights but here (with one big add-on!) they are,,,

The Shuffledemons (painted by Gina Southgate)

The Leeds Jazz Festival 2018 was a much bigger event this year, covering six days in July with six venues and around 50 bands. The grand finale, curated by Sally Coe, Xero's partner was "Celebrating Xero Slingsby" on 24 July at the Wardrobe. Xero was a punk jazz sax hero in Leeds in the 1980's, his music is now popular amongst young jazz musicians, especially Belgium where Xero played a lot so we were pleased to welcome Den Hoed over to take part. The event was a triumph from start to finish. Improv, the changes, dancing in the ailes, Gina Southgate's live painting, The Shuffledemons from Canada, Leeds Local Heroes like Tony Burkill , Maggie Somers, Paul Hessian, Louis Colan etc.

The Mingus Big Band at the Howard Assembly Room 13/10/18. Simon Godley's review sums it up "A nigh-on two hour performance – bisected by a short interval – the Mingus Big Band provided the sell-out crowd with a startling reminder of Charles Mingus’s genius as they shifted easily from the swaggering invention of ‘Jump Monk’ (a song that first appeared on the 1955 live concert recording Mingus at the Bohemia) to a modern arrangement of ‘Invisible Lady’, cementing Mingus’s place in the vanguard of the Third Stream. Charles Mingus’s generosity as a bandleader was well-regarded and this was replicated in today’s ensemble with ample time and space afforded each individual musician for what were some really quite incredible, improvised solos. Philip Harper was the first to step up to the plate during ‘Jump Monk’ with a raucous, rebellious blast of his trumpet whilst Helen Sung contributed a most phenomenal piano interlude during ‘Sue’s Changes’, a wonderfully spontaneous ballad-come-free jazz piece written by Mingus for his wife." The Howard Assembly Room programme has had some lovely jazz during the year, curated by the irrepressible Jo Nockels - the venue will be missing from the Leeds Scene from March 2019 for 12 months because of rebuilding and improvement works but it will mean even more jazz can be programmed there afterwards.

My third honour goes to the whole Leeds Jazz Scene. When I first came to the city in the 1980s there were maybe four venue playing jazz? Now there are almost 30. Special mention must go to local heroes like Richard Lindley at the Cafe Lento, Jack Simpson at the Hyde Park Book Club, Les and the team at Jazz at the Spa, Mark Young at the Sela Bar, Ryan de Warne at the Domino, both Leslies (Best and Jeffries) at Heart in Headingley, and the two JazzLeeds venues run by Leeds Jazz - Inkwell and Seven Arts in Chapel Allerton. Also worth mentioning are the jazz musicians appearing increasingly at nightclubs like the Brudenell, the Belgrave, the Wardrobe etc where they are putting on musicians like Pharorah Sanders and David Murray. The Leeds young jazz album "To be there now" was a triumph - produced by local saxman Ben Powling and highlighted by Jazz DJ Gilles Peterson.

Author: Steve Crocker

Posted: January 1, 2019, 6:59 pm