The Magnificent Goldberg

Lived there once. So did I! Not for long; we lived with my grandmother for a few months in '59. There was a cinema there where I saw 'No sun in Venice', better known as 'One never knows', with a soundtrack by John Lewis. I think it was my first exposure to modern jazz. MG

Wow! What a line! The Atlanta R&B scene has fascinated me since 1980. When you were a teenager, theCounts were down there, recording for Aware Records. Surprised your teenaged youth never ran accross this MG

Good grief! I was at Roundhay Grammar from 1955 to 1958! I lived in Street Lane, at the bottom, just by Roundhay Park. MG Those were the years I was in the 6th form - I managed to clock up 3 years there! I wouldn't have known you as you were only a sprog in those days. I lived off Oakwood Lane and had a one mile walk to school. If memory serves, Oakwood Lane was the turning off Street Lane, going down to the school. Our place was opposite the top of Oakwood Lane. I probably knew you, Bill, because you'd have been a prefect and thus to be avoided MG You've forgotten your Leeds geography, MG! Oakwood Lane leads off from Roundhay Road at the bottom end of the Soldiers' Field. Remember the Oakwood clock tower? You're right, of course. The road I was thinking of, now I've looked at the Google map, is Old Park Road. Not sure about the clock tower; was there a cheap cinema (ie fleapit) down by there? MG Yes, I thought you meant Old Park Road, where the school entrance was. Still off the mark with Oakwood, though. No fleapit, but to help you get your bearings, you can just see to the immediate left of the clock tower in the photo a hint of the red roof and white wall of a house at the bottom end of Old Park Road. You lived at the top end of OPR; the school entrance was in the middle. Oh, that's the way we went on cross country runs into the bottom of the park and up through it. Of course, once out of the park, the route ran past our place and I used to stop off for a cuppa MG

Good grief! I was at Roundhay Grammar from 1955 to 1958! I lived in Street Lane, at the bottom, just by Roundhay Park. MG Those were the years I was in the 6th form - I managed to clock up 3 years there! I wouldn't have known you as you were only a sprog in those days. I lived off Oakwood Lane and had a one mile walk to school. If memory serves, Oakwood Lane was the turning off Street Lane, going down to the school. Our place was opposite the top of Oakwood Lane. I probably knew you, Bill, because you'd have been a prefect and thus to be avoided MG You've forgotten your Leeds geography, MG! Oakwood Lane leads off from Roundhay Road at the bottom end of the Soldiers' Field. Remember the Oakwood clock tower? You're right, of course. The road I was thinking of, now I've looked at the Google map, is Old Park Road. Not sure about the clock tower; was there a cheap cinema (ie fleapit) down by there? MG

I've got to say that the more I listen to those Criss Cross Jazz albums, the less I'm enthralled by them. It's as if Gerry is saying to Mel, 'well, this is what we do here, so fit in, would you? I've got Peter Bernstein and Eric Alexander coming in, as usual...' And they must have done enough business for Mel to have been invited back year in, year out, so OK, no one would turn that money down. But it's neo-hardbop, not the truth. There IS a truth in hardbop organ, but it's Earland's ferocity, not Rhyne's somewhat (to me) academic approach. Which is not to say I think those albums are bad - more like slightly wrong-headed. At the same time, I've been more and more drawn to his sessions with Wes. Mind you, I always thought they were the acme of Wes' work. But the more I listen, I feel the two of them were so empathic together, no other organist and guitarist approached what they sounded like as a team. MG

DING DING DING! I am guessing Jim that you remembered the discussion five or six years ago when the Ray Charles in Brazil 1963 DVD came out but never actually picked it up? Otherwise I would have guessed you would have taken the time to confirm your suspicion and and post full details. Can't slip nothing past you guys.... but this is one I thought MG would have and recognize. Actually I am sure he owns it, just didn't think about the chance that I could lift out the audio track and use it in a BFT. Ah... I don't buy DVDs, so I never knew about this. Jolly good thinking there, Dan. MG

In most such cases, yes, it's fair to offer this kind of criticism. "Oh but this guy is a LEGEND you can't criticize his note choice or phrasing or rhythmic feel, because he's a legend for a reason" doesn't wash. There's a long tradition of older players coming down hard on younger ones for various deviations from "authenticity" when playing. The big example that comes to mind is inattention to detail to the lyrics of standards, leading to phrasing that sounds awkward or weak when you know the original sheet music. But there's no reason this can't cut the other way too. In this case, the essence of Oliver Nelson's writing isn't just the melody or the changes, it's the voicings in the harmony. That's the reason The Blues and the Abstract Truth is a top-100 jazz recording and every cover of it is just some dude blowing over a minor blues after playing the melody line. So unless KB (or another player) is doing something else that's equally hip on the head, it's fair to ask "why are you even bothering to play THIS tune rather than Equinox or whatever if you're not going to show that you've thought about what made the tune interesting in the first place?" ...adding to say, this is the same reason Larry Goldings's "Hans Groiner" character is hilarious. He's taking things to an extreme by not treating Monk's music with the same pedestrian attitude as 95% of players playing the tunes out of the Real Book. Only the gag in this case is that Groiner has thought very carefully about Monk's music...and as a result has made deliberate harmonic/rhythmic choices that are the exact opposite of what makes Monk's music tick, taking care to iron out every single quirk. I'm most grateful for that explanation, which I'm sure is right, as far as it goes. But acknowledging that most listeners are like me - I have Jaws' version of 'The stolen moment' but not 'Blues & the abstract truth' - and Kenny, I feel, has always played more for people like me than for a musicianly audience, what we want is for jazz musicians to play a variety of material, some familiar, some unfamiliar, and to create thereby an entertainment for us (which may move us greatly, or not). In this, tunes are more important than the harmonies and the voicings (though there are some exceptions, such as Fats Domino's recordings, where the way the band is massed is the most important thing). Since I don't think I've heard Kenny's version of SM, (or the Nelson version on BATAT) I can't be sure whether his carrying those voicings into the head of his version would make any difference to me. But IN THEORY, it doesn't matter; us oiks have to accept what musicians offer, because we can't do it ourselves, or even know (or want to know) how it's done. MG In the end MG, it's all about how the harmony hits you emotionally. Technically, I could say that ON did something that I've never heard any composer before him do; use a Major 3rd in a measure that is a minor chord, eg. in Cminor he used an E natural in the harmony of the fourth note of the melody.It's not just that he used cluster harmony, which many people have done. But when I heard that as a kid in HS, it gave me a mental orgasm! If it can't affect a music lover on an emotional level, whether subconsciously or consciously, it's meaningless. What is interesting historically is that I still haven't found an example of that being done in a systematic manner like ON did, by any classical composers. It probably exists in an isolated instance, but ON used it repeatedly in a very deliberate way, that created a mood that is very intense; hence the many "covers" of it. The version I hate the most is Carmen McRae's. ;'( I do agree with you there. To me, the skill of a great musician is in getting through to people who don't have the means to appreciate his skill. Did ON use that device in the Jaws version of the tune? MG

My favourite in this vein MG

Oh yes, very early recollections are good. My earliest memory is singing along with my mother to 'Open the door, Richard', which must have been early 1947, so I'd have been three and a bit. There were about a hundred and fifty versions of the song recorded in 1947, so I don't know which version it was MG Good grief! I was at Roundhay Grammar from 1955 to 1958! I lived in Street Lane, at the bottom, just by Roundhay Park. MG Those were the years I was in the 6th form - I managed to clock up 3 years there! I wouldn't have known you as you were only a sprog in those days. I lived off Oakwood Lane and had a one mile walk to school. If memory serves, Oakwood Lane was the turning off Street Lane, going down to the school. Our place was opposite the top of Oakwood Lane. I probably knew you, Bill, because you'd have been a prefect and thus to be avoided MG

Good grief! I was at Roundhay Grammar from 1955 to 1958! I lived in Street Lane, at the bottom, just by Roundhay Park. MG

Sorry to hear this. RIP. MG

Couple of nice downloads from Amazon UK Buddy Tate meets Abdullah Ibrahim - Chiaroscuro - very, very nice indeed! Mory Djeli Dienne Kouyate - La flamme de la verite - TWS - MDDK has a fabulous voice! I've got 5 of his now. Pity there's no info with Amazon's downloads; don't know how old this is, but probably less than ten years. MG

Goodness! I had no idea this came out in Britain! Little Willie Jackson was himself MG

Bev’s nostalgia thread for 1973 started me thinking about the period when I began to develop a taste in music – 1956-58. (Mind you, I’ve been thinking a bit about that period recently, buying various albums from those years.) I didn’t get a record player until Christmas ’58, so I was restricted to hearing records people brought into school, what I heard at the Judean Club on Sunday evenings, on juke boxes and, most of all, the radio and, after 1957, when we got one, on TV. I didn’t like pop music at all in the early fifties; looking back, I think that the awfulness of the pop music of that period directly contributed to so many white kids suddenly getting black music in the mid-late fifties. And so it was with me, when rock & roll came along. The first rock & roll I heard was Fats Domino’s ‘I’m in love again’, early in ’56, when I was twelve. It seemed significant to me even then; real music, even though the words were trivial; the rolling beat and the riffing of the band behind latched onto the main preoccupation of twelve year old boys – sex. Sex not love was what was being broadcast in the music; and it was hot! Later, when I heard Elvis Presley, there was undeniable talent there; and anger; but not much sex. (Of course, I wasn’t a twelve year old girl, or I might have felt differently about Elvis. And indeed, about Fats, who didn’t look or behave at all like a sex idol.) So I appreciated Presley, but wasn’t a fan. I was a fan of Little Richard, when I heard him soon after. I didn’t know that he had substantially the same band behind him as Fats Domino. I didn’t know anything, but his fervour, on top of that sexy beat again, got me. And ‘Long tall Sally’ was definitely about sex, not love; and moreover, adulterous sex. And that interested me, as well; my mother and stepfather didn’t marry until after my father died, but my mother and stepfather were ‘living in sin’ in those days and I was under strict orders not to tell my father, on the rare occasions I saw him. I was nearly thirteen by then. People were worried in those days that rock & roll was corrupting the young. Well, they were right as far as I was concerned; adultery was not a problem, it was a solution. Shirley and Lee’s hit ‘Let the good times roll’ – another I didn’t know came from New Orleans – also hit me hard. So did a South African recording, ‘Tom Hark’ by Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes which I think made #1 in Britain. The Platters were about on the radio in those days, too, singing love songs with a passion that I recognised, as were a number of other doo wop groups, though few of them made the BBC. In fact, the only ones I can remember from ’56 are Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers’ ‘Why do fools fall in love’ and the Flamingos’ ‘I’ll be home’, though it was mostly Pat Boone’s version one heard. Boone, however, I thought of as a joke. As also Bill Haley and most British attempts at rock & roll. In fact the only British artist I didn’t consider a joke in those days was Lonnie Donegan, whose songs usually had good meaty lyrics, though musically they didn’t seem like anything to write home about. Not having a record player, I didn’t buy pop magazines, so it wasn’t until we got a TV early in 1957 that I started seeing some of these artists and found out that they were mostly black; it wasn’t something I’d thought of before. By then, my attention had been drawn to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, then Jerry Lee Lewis and the Crickets. And I saw the Platters in person at the Bradford Gaumont, where my stepfather was assistant manager. The Platters were wonderful and I was seriously besotted with Zola Taylor (even though she didn’t have all that good a voice ) Late in ’57, now fourteen, I started going to the Sunday night dances at the Judean Club in Leeds. Phew! That’s where I learned to dance. And it was Jackie Wilson’s ‘Reet petite’ that taught me. It was a much bigger hit over here than in the US, strangely. It was at that club that I heard another New Orleans group, a few months later, in ‘58, Huey Smith & the Clowns, whose ‘Don’t you just know it’ was a favourite of the DJ there. It wasn’t a hit in Britain, but the DJ had picked it up and we all stomped like crazy to it; for months! Another record I heard first at that club was ‘Jennie Lee’ by Jan and Arnie. Jan and Arnie soon became Jan and Dean, as Arnie left to have a baby and Dean recovered from injuries in a car crash. So you know what that record sounded like! I’d never heard anything like it! Sure, there were bass singers on a lot of groups’ records, but Jan was riding roughshod over the whole record on this one. You really couldn’t hear the words; all you could hear was the bass voice; it was completely nihilistic! I loved it. So did the rest of us at the club; it was another unknown record in Britain, but an anthem to us. So was ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray & the Wray Men. It was great to dance to; a very slow, pounding groove, just right for hugging a girl and standing still, except for your hips. That record kind of opened me up to instrumentals, which I hadn’t bothered with before (‘Tom Hark’ being ‘foreign’), and led to Duane Eddy, and being open to exploring jazz and soul jazz. How was it for you? MG

Milt Jackson Quartet - Savoy (Oriole Realm UK) MG

Did he play with Ray? Bubba would be a more likely choice, I'd think. MG Oh wait! There was some British tenor player Ray found when he was a tenor player short of a big band and he didn't just sub for the tour, he joined the band. I can't remember his name. MG

In most such cases, yes, it's fair to offer this kind of criticism. "Oh but this guy is a LEGEND you can't criticize his note choice or phrasing or rhythmic feel, because he's a legend for a reason" doesn't wash. There's a long tradition of older players coming down hard on younger ones for various deviations from "authenticity" when playing. The big example that comes to mind is inattention to detail to the lyrics of standards, leading to phrasing that sounds awkward or weak when you know the original sheet music. But there's no reason this can't cut the other way too. In this case, the essence of Oliver Nelson's writing isn't just the melody or the changes, it's the voicings in the harmony. That's the reason The Blues and the Abstract Truth is a top-100 jazz recording and every cover of it is just some dude blowing over a minor blues after playing the melody line. So unless KB (or another player) is doing something else that's equally hip on the head, it's fair to ask "why are you even bothering to play THIS tune rather than Equinox or whatever if you're not going to show that you've thought about what made the tune interesting in the first place?" ...adding to say, this is the same reason Larry Goldings's "Hans Groiner" character is hilarious. He's taking things to an extreme by not treating Monk's music with the same pedestrian attitude as 95% of players playing the tunes out of the Real Book. Only the gag in this case is that Groiner has thought very carefully about Monk's music...and as a result has made deliberate harmonic/rhythmic choices that are the exact opposite of what makes Monk's music tick, taking care to iron out every single quirk. I'm most grateful for that explanation, which I'm sure is right, as far as it goes. But acknowledging that most listeners are like me - I have Jaws' version of 'The stolen moment' but not 'Blues & the abstract truth' - and Kenny, I feel, has always played more for people like me than for a musicianly audience, what we want is for jazz musicians to play a variety of material, some familiar, some unfamiliar, and to create thereby an entertainment for us (which may move us greatly, or not). In this, tunes are more important than the harmonies and the voicings (though there are some exceptions, such as Fats Domino's recordings, where the way the band is massed is the most important thing). Since I don't think I've heard Kenny's version of SM, (or the Nelson version on BATAT) I can't be sure whether his carrying those voicings into the head of his version would make any difference to me. But IN THEORY, it doesn't matter; us oiks have to accept what musicians offer, because we can't do it ourselves, or even know (or want to know) how it's done. MG

Yes. Late 60s I think I remember seeing his name on a personnel list. Ray ALWAYS had Texas tenor players, until Teddy Edwards, I think. Oh, so not him... Well, I'm going to buy a buch of Fats Domino CDs - Ace's 5 CDs of his complete Imperial singles - and an Aminata Kamissoko album, before dinner, so I've given up on this for a while. MG

Hum... Curtis Amy? MG

ANother try at these, but I'm not getting it. I defintely don't own #9. I'm focusing on Lonnie Smith because of it's eccentric style and tricks, but can't get there. On #8 the tenor player's smears are terribly familiar and remind me of Conrad Lester. But I think I must have everything he recorded and it's not among my collection. So it's someone else. I'll get there in the end, though maybe after you publish the results MG I can't find the thing for sale. but here's a link to some site that knows about it. http://www.catawiki.co.uk/catalog/records-cds-and-vinyl/artists-bands/charles-ray/182139-ray-charles-meets-dizzy-gillespie?area=c77636f49a70ab0ec3c781300daf0cf5a1483e28 Good luck. MG

After another listen to #10, this has to be a sixties edition of Ray's big band, because David Newman is the first soloist in the chase. James Clay, with whom I'm not overly fond, is probably the other tenor player. But I don't know where this comes from; it's not on any of the live albums I've got. I'll be interested to see where you did get it from, Dan. MG

I like that one - it's very relaxing and sometimes that's what you want/need. MG

Acrobat isn't a boot label; it's a regular label using out of copyright material. As to this lot, as some of it's never been out before, it doesn't look as if that material at least is out of copyright. But in that case, copyright must be owned by someone. Acrobat must have got those unreleased tracks from the copyright owner, whoever it is. And it's for the copyright owner to pay royalties, not the licensee. Mosaic doesn't pay royalties, either, on either recent or old material. Royalties are the responsibility of the copyright owner, who may or may not pay and thast may depend on what the contract said. MG

Can't get this to come out after the quoted bit. Well, anyway... So this IS the Ray Charles band, but not the 70s... Incredible... I've found a number of Ray Charles albums, including one that I should have jumped on, but I never heard of, at Montreux with Diz and Esther Phillips. But it's 1978 and the instrumental track is 'Blowin' the blues away' and if Diz were on it, he'd be obvious. Must try to find that album, Ray, Diz, Esther, Hank, Fathead, Kenny Burrell, Duvivier & Roker and that's all!. It may not be the right record, but you've led me to it, Dan - thanks! OK, there's a live album from '93, with a few tracks that appear to be instrumentals. On the Jazz Door label, but no personnel listed. Is it this one? MG

Oh, I'm going to have another go at those two organ cuts - though I'm SURE I haven't got them in my collection.