John L

If you are just starting out, you might pick up some of the budget packages on JSP. That will expose you to a lot of the greatest artists. For starters, you couldn't do any better than the JSP package "Nuggets of the Golden Age of Gospel." There are other great ones as well: Powerhouse Gospel, Memphis Marvels, Gospel Live - a huge amount of great music to digest for little money. Acrobat records had a great run of gospel reissues. I don't know about the availability of the CDs now, although perhaps downloads are still possible. The 9-volume issue of "Texas Gospel" is actually the complete gospel Peacock singles, a sort of holy grail. Four CDs entitled Windy City Gospel vol. 1 & 2 contain most of the Vee Jay gospel singles - also absolutely incredible music. If you can find it, the 2-volume set of the early recordings of The Spirit of Memphis on Acrobat is also not to be missed.

Yes! They issued a nice full CD of Govan's 60s recordings for Fame not along ago. But these later Broadway recordings are the sh#t, the pinnacle of his recording career.

Sam Cooke? Aretha Franklin?

Yes, indeed. Robert is a huge O.V. fan. He has been using O.V.'s Ace of Spades lately as theme music that is played as his band comes on stage.

If I can say Wilson Pickett

Lots of great recommendations here. A few other greats that should not be left out: Joe Tex Solomon Burke Bobby Womack Ann Peebles Johnny Adams Ted Taylor Peggy-Scott Adams (Particularly her more recent stuff) William Bell Geater Davis Little Johnny Taylor (Different than the other phenomenal singer - Johnnie Taylor - who Jim already mentioned Z.Z. Hill Mitty Collier Ronnie Lovejoy Jimmy Hughes Otis Clay Tyrone Davis Ella Washington Jerry Butler Irma Thomas

I saw him at the Birchmere not long ago. He was great.

If you haven't heard it yet, I would suggest checking out his earlier album "False Accusations." That really blew my mind when it first came out, and it is still my favorite Robert Cray album.

I am a huge Robert Cray fan, although I find his albums to be a bit uneven in inspiration. Robert Cray's real genius is in his guitar playing (IMO). He is one of the handful of blues guitarists who reached the pinnacle of the art, someone who speaks through his guitar with a blues voice so distinctive that you know it is him after just a few notes. He is probably the last of the giants in that regard.

I don't have it on CD and can't remember now from where on the web I pulled it down. But it is a fine recording. I have never heard the Verona concert.

That is an interesting article. I like most of what Ted Gioia writes. Others have also lavished praise on these recordings. I still listen to them every now and again hoping to catch something that I missed. The music is certainly good and enjoyable. But Lester Young's last great album? I beg to differ. I wouldn't give up one of Pres' solos on The Jazz Giants from the same year for all five of these volumes.

The Octet Live might be my favorite among those five - a high energy affair that works quite well. After that, I would probably go for the two trio albums: Autumn Colors and Dissent or Descent. Tapscott is in good form on the former with Everett Brown Jr. on drums. Dissent and Descent puts him in a less familiar context with Fred Hopkins and Ben Riley, and it works well. I am less fond of Faith, despite the solid rhythm section, as it suffers (IMO) from inadequate and sometimes out of tune performances from the strings. Little Afrika is a good solo date, although I tend to prefer listening to Tapscott with a rhythm section,.

These are not among my favorite Lester Young recordings. The music is certainly good. Pres is in good physical shape and the sound quality is excellent. However, for me, most of them don't have the sparkle and moments of bliss present in many of Lester Young's other recordings from 1956, in particular those with Teddy Wilson on Verve, live in Europe, and live at the Cafe Bohemia.

Good question. I can't think of any sideman appearances. He did make some recordings with George Coleman, Donald Byrd, and Stanley Turrentine in France in the 1990s.

I certainly do not recall a box set, and I have followed most Lester Young releases closely since the 1970s.

Me too. By contrast, the earlier Atlantic albums are the Mingus that I listen to the most.

What is being discussed and argued here is nothing new. There has long been a tension between the creative forces in jazz, which have been predominantly black, and the critical establishment that has been predominantly white. I find it interesting and ironic that the advent of bebop, which was almost entirely a black creation, marked the time when audiences for jazz become more and more white. In the end, of course, it is the quality of writing about jazz that matters, not race. But it is not so simple that we can just wish this tension away.

RIP to one of the last true giants.

Two of my favorites.

Very nice! I really liked listening to Armstrong reminiscing at length about his time with Oliver and the recordings.

I recall reading an interview with an old Jamaican musician who argued that the evolution of the ska beat from calypso came initially from Jamaican musicians trying to swing US style but not getting it right.

RIP - He was a truly fine artist.

It would be an interesting research project for someone like Lewis Porter to document as much as possible the emergence of a Philadelphia school of tenor saxophone. Unfortunately, most of the people who could have contributed new key information for this have already left us.

When we hear a tenor player sounding like Coltrane, we usually assume that it is because of the influence of Coltrane. But I wonder if, in the case of Jimmy Heath, some of the influence also went in the other direction.

The Jimmy Heath solo here at 1:42, particularly the entry, has always sounded very Coltranesque to me. But this was recorded in April, 1953. Was Coltrane himself that Coltranesque back then? Were they working this out together in Philadelphia? Thoughts?