The Magnificent Goldberg

I particularly like the last paragraph. MG

The Blackhearts Blackbeard Big Black

Jimmy Ponder - Alone - HighNote MG

Good piece that. MG

Slide Hampton Brother Bones Joan

If you read some of the old BFT discussion threads, you'll see that there are only two or three of us who are any good. The rest of us thrash about and sometimes score a near miss. MG

Oh yes, Mike - a DL for me please! MG

Hm, I see. Trouble is, I don't really, because I've never heard Sgt Pepper all the way through and maybe I've only heard a few tracks anyway. If you'd talked about Otis Redding's 'Soul ballads' or 'Otis blue', or even Aretha Franklin's 'I never loved a man', well, I'm not sure you'd see those albums as integrated pieces (assuming, which isn't necessarily likely, that you've heard any of those all the way through ) in the way you evidently do the Beatles' album. So it's not clear to me that we're speaking the same language here MG

It wasn't lost with CDs - CDs enabled other kinds of programming. It became possible to develop programmes like the Chronological Classics have - put a couple or three years' worth of singles into a programme, something that was never done on LP, which provides a historical perspective on the music which isn't apparent to those who didn't grow up with the music coming out in the order it came out in. It also shows the warts in various people's art. I regret I didn't realise this when they started coming out. MG

Clyde McPhatter Ben E KIng Rudy Lewis

Erskine Hawkins - Swingin' in Harlem - Vocalion (Tax Sweden) now Florida Mass Choir - Higher hope - Malaco MG

Well, well. I still buy albums (in case y' hadn't noticed). What makes albums good? 1 You don't have to keep getting up to change the record, though you also can go and make a cup of tea while it's on - if you like putting your iPod on random shuffle, you're welcome to do so. 2 You can listen to something in some kind of order that works for you - maybe the artist's view of how the music fits together, maybe chronological order, maybe the producer's view of something, or some other thing - and ditto about the random shuffle. 3 Where would the album cover threads be without albums? 4 You can learn stuff from sleeve notes - but much music isn't worth learning about and sleeve notes have been disappearing for the last forty-something years anyway. 5 I just like 'em. Even when I mostly bought 45s, I always wanted albums. MG

Little Large Bigfoot

Spent most of the day, so far, with Jazz Crusaders - PJ Studio sessions - Mosaic I REALLY enjoy this set, all the way through. Now on disc 4. MG

Smirt Smith Smire (Nightmare has triplets, by James Branch Cabell)

The Gay Sisters Mr Happy Arthur Blythe

DeLois Barrett Campbell & the Barrett Sisters - God do loved the world - Creed MG

Edith Dame Edith Evans Dame Edith Sitwell

Yeah, you're right, Jeff. What's bullshit is that it's being put over as THE recipe. Any time anyone says they have the answer for you - whether it be shoe salesman, politician, priest, artist - you know it's a con, because a) there is no THE answer and b) they don't know you from Eric Dolphy. MG

Gil Scott-Heron Brian Jackson Milt Jackson

Sometimes, but usually when the musician was trying to push his/her personal envelope and not quite making it, or not quite able to sustain it. I don't regard that as a bad thing. I never thought it was lack of concentration that made things drop off. But It might be sometimes and, hey? so what? What happens, happens. MG

Well, I thought it was bullshit. I don't deny that "the sounds have intellectual as well as emotional appeal," but that only applies to someone who can listen with the ear of a musician. So, for me, the whole thing was a self-serving exercise. Furthermore, he treats music as a thing in itself, but it isn't and it's at least as interesting to listen to music as an expression of a time and place. But is that something that musicians think of music? - that it's a thing in itself, without broader context? MG

Lionel Hampton - Hampton hits - Ades (World Record Club, UK) MG

Tolstoy Mme Tolbert Bembeya Jazz National

Columbo Christopher Columbus Columbine