John L

Thanks, Brownie and Lon. But my real question is: how much of the JSP volume 3 is not on the King Jazz series? That would presumably be the tracks that are not in the "And His Rhythm" series. John

I have the complete "And His Rhythm" on King Jazz. How much of volume 3 overlaps with that?

I think there's an interesting quote in the liner notes to Sugar which compares his BN albums to the playing of a guy who bats at 0.280. Guy Reggie Jackson always batted under .280. But damn if he wasn't one of the most exciting ballplayers of all time. Sure, Stanley T had the pay the bills, and made some subpar commercial recordings. (On the other hand, his CTI material was both commercial and, for the most part, profound (IMO).) But there is no reason to stand judgement over his greatness from that point of view. His incredible body of successful work speaks for itself, and will continue to speak.

That sounds like something that Peter Bocage probably told you. Yes, Bocage was one of my informants--you have a good memory, because I'm sure that was not a guess. I just put two and two together. I recall that Peter Bocage went on record making disparaging comments on Bolden. I also know that you produced his Legends of New Orleans record.

That sounds like something that Peter Bocage probably told you. Playing good basic blues in a jazz context at the turn of the century doesn't sound uneventful to me. According to Sidney Bechet and others, few if any orchestras in New Orleans were oriented toward blues music at all at the time of Bolden. At any rate, Bolden left his mark on the memories of many.

Speeding Arrow is very easy to use. I believe that anyone who requests registration gets it very quickly. Are they legal? Well, maybe pseudo-legal. They have a policy of not providing anything that is available (in print) as official product. Check it out.

Good list, although Hipnosis will probably not be considered due to its inclusion on the Grachan Moncur Select. How about a few of the best Three Sounds discs? Cuscuna's complete boycott of the Three Sounds in US reissues is rather ridiculous.

You may be a fan of "official product," but all of this music can be downloaded for free in high quality 256-bit MP3s at this site Speeding Arrow

Yea, "Two Steps From the Blues" was certainly his breakthrough record. Up until that time, Bland sounded quite a lot like Roy Brown (IMO), and made few really distinctive recordings. That record established him once and for all as one of the greats. While Bland's Duke period is justly celebrated, I love a lot of what he did after that as well. His voice narrowed, but the lower range deepened, and became even more distinctive. Songs like Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City, Members' Only, & You've Got to Hurt Before You Heal can stand with the best (IMO). Speaking of covers, Bland's relatively recording recording of Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone is also prime.

Joe and Woody live was usually something special. I had the pleasure in growing up and living in the SF Bay Area in the 70s where they often performed together. Another classic match up is on Larry Young's Unity.

What we need here first is a definition that distinguishes "soundtrack" from "music video." Purple Rain resembles more the latter (IMO): a bunch of music videos strung together with some irrelevant talking and bad acting.

I had always considered myself a fairly hard core pre-1979 fan, but lately I have been really enjoying vintage 1979-1981. Although I much prefer Keith to Brent, Jerry Garcia's guitar playing at this time is at a peak that is quite different than what he was doing pre-1979. A lot of great music was recorded during this period. The Jerry Garcia Band recordings of this vintage are also not to be missed.

Albums were issued in both mono and stereo well into the 60s. My family had a mono player that could not handle stereo records. So we only bought mono. It wasn't until the late 60s that albums started coming out only in stereo. Then we had to persuade my father to bite the bullet and get a stereo player.

When Wynton Marsalis and others ranted about the 70s in the early 80s, it was wrong. But there was still something vaguely compelling about it then. After all, the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s came before the 70s, and they were arguably more important, successful, and dynamic decades for jazz. The jazz profession and many jazz musicians were also suffering financially, which didn't bode well for attracting the best and brightest young musicians. Making artistic compromises for commerical success seemed to become much more common. So people seemed to be saying "Let's get back on track. Maybe we got lost somewhere along the way? So let's go back a bit and look for that good road that we may have passed up." Now that we have had the 80s, 90s, and beyond, it no longer sounds compelling at all. Take me back to the 70s. PLEASE!

I interpret "lose it" here in a relative sense. Aretha is still a fine singer (although very recent years have not been too kind to her voice), but she perhaps lost that special edge some time ago that made her earlier Atlantic work so incredible and timeless. I would say that the first decline in average quality in the latter 70s had more to do with less inspired material on average than Aretha herself (IMO). From the 80s on, however, I would say that Aretha herself is different. I listen to later Aretha every now and again, and like some of it very much. But it is almost like listening to a different singer. Part of it is a physical change in her voice, which deepened but lost some of its subtlety (IMO). The level of insipiration seems to have diminished somewhat as well. Still, if I were to choose Aretha albums for a dance party, I would first take "Who's Zoomin' Who" and "Jump to It" from the 1980s. The 1980s gospel album, "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism" has some really fine moments as well. In some ways, it feels even more sincere than Amazing Grace. I like some of her more recent records too: "A Rose is Still A Rose" and "So Damn Happy." They may not be the same masterpieces for the ages as the early Atlantic albums, but they are still very enjoyable for what they are.

Allen, here's the playlist from the cd I was looking at. It includes everything on the old kent lp. For some reason I can't get the link from amazon to post here. 1. Please, Please, Please 2. If I Can't Be the First 3. Feelin' Good - 4. Love of My Man - Venetta Fields, 5. Think - Bobby John, 6. Drown in My Own Tears - 7. I Love the Way You Love - Robbie Montgomery 8. For Your Precious Love - Vernon Guy, 9. All in My Mind 10. Am I a Fool in Love 11. All I Could Do Was Cry/Please, Please, Please 12. My Man He's a Loving Man 13. I Know You Don't Love Me No More 14. It's Gonna Work Out Fine 15. Way You Love Me 16. I Can't Stop Lovin' You 17. You Should Have Treated Me Right edit to add: One tune from the lp might be missing, but they are kinda loose with the titles so it may not be. That is the last tune on the lp "I can't believe what You Say." Then some of the extra material looks like it might be duplicated from the first Warner lp. Here is the cover.

I was wondering about this record. Based on the recommendations here, I will pick it up. Thanks!

There was an Ike & Tina live album that I played the hell out of in my 60s childhood. I can't remember its name. It was a good representation of the Review live. It started out with Sweet Soul Music ("spot light is on me, y'all"), then went into Son of a Preacher Man, and never let up. The Ike and Tina Turner Review was something like a life-changing experience for me. When I was 11-years old, my father took me to the Review. We sat in about the third row, right underneath Tina and the Ikettes miniskirts. I was completely blown away both in mind and body. As far as recommendations, you might look at some of the hits compilations. Try to find one with the 45 version of River Deep, Mountain High, which is much more direct and powerful than the 33 album version. I have it on a 4-CD 100 song compilation that was released a while back on a questionable European label. Outside of the hits and the live albums, there are the straight blues sessions that Ike and Tina recorded for Blue Thumb records. They are very worthwhile (IMO), and as much for Ike's blistering guitar playing as for Tina.

Thanks, Clem. Of course, I realize that I will have to do a lot more homework before I can expect a direct response to a question from the Titans. But it is still useful to know that I am on the wrong track.

Clem: It is not completely clear to me what you are looking for here. As you write, taste is taste. You and MG don't seem to like Aretha as much as most of the rest of us, and that's fine. There seems to be a virtual consensus here that Aretha has made recordings during her career that are far from stellar. We might disagree about exactly which recordings belong in this category, but that is a side point. Aretha has certainly had her share of personal problems during her life, some of which probably interfered with her artistry at what time or another. OK, she is human, maybe even emotionally "fragile," as you put it. You probably also know the rumors about her childhood that don't bear repeating here. So what? As I see it, this leaves us with one fundamental disagreement that we might try to discuss in one way or another. You and MG do not seem to acknowledge what the rest of us do, namely that Aretha made a large number of absolutely brilliant records that place her in the handful of greatest soul singers. Discussing that disagreement from the objective point of view is not easy. Aretha's music is so much a part of me that I can't help but feel emotional about it. So what should we discuss? Maybe her historical importance in American music and influence on her peers? Correct me if I am wrong, but I really can't think of a female singer who came before Aretha who sang R&B with complete "sanctified" abandon in the same sort of manner. In that sense, Jim's citation of Ray Charles may make a lot of sense. There were certainly female R&B singers who came before Aretha who had strong backgrounds in gospel, and made use of those backgrounds in their R&B singing: Dinah Washington, Maxine Brown, Dionne Warwick. But those singers used a different approach than Aretha. They didn't really try to integrate fully the harder sanctified side of gospel with their R&B singing. They are to Aretha in gospel-based R&B singing something like what Clyde McPhatter and Sonny Til are to Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. There were female singers before Aretha who sang "hard," but more in a blues/R&B than sanctified sense: Ruth Brown, Big Maybelle, Tina Turner, Etta James. Then there were female singers who sang hard and sanctified, but strictly within gospel: Bessie Griffin, Inez Andrews, Marion Brown, Clara Ward. There was Mavis Staples, of course, who sang sanctified hard gospel and then crossed over. But Mavis didn't really break out into her "soul music with sanctified abandon" style until after Aretha arrived. Maybe Faye Adams comes the closest to fitting the bill of hard and sanctified R&B. But her mix of these elements is completely different to that of Aretha. To me, something like Dr. Feelgood sounds revolutionary relative to what came before it. On the one hand, it is deep blues, more solidly blues than what other female gospel singers were doing. Yet it is hard and sanctified in a manner that is different than what other female R&B singers were doing. Most importantly, it all fit together seamlessly, as if it had always been together. Perhaps it sounds so natural today, and has been copied by so many other singers, that it is hard to imagine its previous absence. Yet name another record like Dr. Feelgood that came before Dr. Feelgood. Sure, there were quite a number of male singers who came before Aretha who sang hard sanctified soul. But their approach was rooted in male gospel singing of the likes of R.H. Harris, Sam Cooke, June Cheeks, Claude Jeter, Archie Brownlee, which was very different than the female hard gospel singing tradition that Aretha came from. Thus, I would argue that Aretha's particular integration of gospel and R&B was unique and innovative, as well as highly influential. I don't know if this is the type of discussion you are looking for or not. If not, please clarify exactly what it is that you want to discuss.

Mike: The box is well done, sounds good to my ears, and contains the majority of Aretha's best Atlantic material except most of Soul '69, Amazing Grace, and Live at the Filmore. So one approach would be to get the box, Soul '69, the recent 2-disc Live at the Filmore, Amazing Grace, and (probably) the new 2-disc set being discussed here. That would give a rather comprehensive collection of Aretha's Atlantic prime. Picking up all of the individual albums would also be a fine alternative. Some of the discs do have more recent, and probably superior, remasterings to the box. "Never Loved a Man" and "Lady Soul" came out in deluxe editions a while back. Harold Z: I agree that Aretha got less consistent after Live at the Filmore. But she still did drop a few masterpieces for the ages, for example "Angel." I find Aretha's vocals on the final verse of that song (which is a sort a sort of bridge): "I know there must be someone, somewhere for me..." to be one of the most transcendent passages on record. It sounds like her voice is coming from somewhere high in soul heaven. As many times as I've heard that verse, it still puts tears in my eyes every time. That is as good an example as anything of pure Aretha magic. I would probably give up my entire collections of a number of fine soul artists before I would part with that single passage. As far as your question is concerned, the new release contains some of both. Yet the number of genuine full outtakes well outnumber the alternative vocal tracks or alternative mixes. There are also demos and tracks that have never been released before, period. This is all pre-disco stuff. It may be just what you need to revitalize your affair with Aretha.

Where did you post a William Bell video? I love his new album: That's from the musical dead end where I want to buy my house and live out the rest of my life.

Interesting but puzzling opinion, MG. I guess that I jumped to conclusions about "knowing your taste in music" in my first post. As far as my opinion, Aretha's "I Never Loved a Man the Way that I Love You" would probably get my nod for the greatest soul album of all time. . Then there is "Soul 69," an album that produced no hit singles at all, but is absolutely brilliant from start to finish (IMO). "Lady Soul" is another killer album, as is "Spirit in the Dark." Those albums had very little "filler," if you ask me. "This Girl's in Love With You" may have had a bit of filler, but it also contained some spectacular sides. If some of the songs on her Atlantic albums were not up to par, so what? I find the sheer number of extremely high quality songs that Aretha made at the time (including quite a number on the new disc) to be mind boggling. On that subject, I guess that taste is taste. Still, I can't accept your opinion that Aretha was not an innovator. She created something like a revolution in soul music. I still remember when "I Never Loved a Man" was released. It sounded so incredibly dynamic, innovative, and just outright mind-blowing. Sure, Aretha got something from Clara Ward, maybe something from Inez Andrews entered her mature style as well. But you could never mistake Aretha's mature voice for ANYTHING that came before her. A few singers like Shirley Brown can sound something like her, but that is because they came after her. Aretha was for female soul singing something like what Bird was for alto sax. MG: I would also be interested in hearing more about why you consider the years 1959-1962 to be the most critical for the development of soul. I had never thought of those years as being particularly important from that point of view relative to what came earlier (Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Little Willie John, Jackie Wilson, Roy Brown, Clyde McPhatter, Five Royals, etc.) and what came later (James Brown on-the-one, most of Sam Cooke's soul masterpieces, mature Stax & Muscle Shoals, Sly, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, etc.).

Jim: In my opinion, this material stands proud with the previously released stuff. The overall consistency may not be quite that of "I Never Loved A Man." "But what is? If you like Aretha, this is a no brainer, plain and simple. Clem certainly has eclectic taste in singers. I have always thought of Aretha as one of the least controversial figures in soul music. Little did I know that some big gospel-infused southern soul fans actually don't like her.