The Magnificent Goldberg

Thanks Guv MG

Arnett Cobb - Jumpin' at the woodside - B&B Kansas City Melodyaires - Softly the night is falling - Songbird Freddie McCoy - Lonely Avenue - Prestige (blue label mono) Odell Brown plays Otis Redding - Cadet MG

Is this Hank Ballard or something else? MG

NONSENSE I agree - in any case the thread is asking for favourites, not classics. So: Twilight - Fred Anderson - 16:37 Strut time - Fred Anderson & Hamid Drake - 21:16 All day long - Kenny Burrell - 18:03 (and that one IS a classic!) A night in Tunisia - Johnny Griffin - 17:05 Marchin' along - Tiny Grimes & Coleman Hawkins - 17:37 Hip cake walk - Don Patterson - 16:31 (another classic) Muse blues - Don Patterson - 17:55 The creator has a master plan - Pharoah Sanders - probably 30:00 + (no accurate time on my LP) Black unity - Pharoah Sanders - 37:19 Drag 'em out - Shirley Scott - 16:08 Au privave - Jimmy Smith - 15:09 Just friends - Jimmy Smith - 15:15 The sermon - Jimmy Smith - 20:10 Stand - Dr Lonnie Smith - 17:20 Trouble man - Grover Washington Jr - 15:55 MG

I suspect there's an answer in Hardbopjazz' BFT107 (But he won't tell us until the end of the month.) MG

This evening Great Wilson Pickett hits (It's too late) - Double L (Marble Arch UK) Tommy Dean - Deanie Boy plays hot R&B - Official Walter Bishop - Bish bash - Xanadu MG

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I don't know about Lee Morgan. Fine player and I have quite a bit of stuff by him or with him, but I can't truly get along with him. I think he's too intense. Back in the days when my wife actually used to listen to my records, she once said that black musicians and singers didn't try hard enough to project energy; this while I was playing Sonny Criss (!) But I think I know what she meant and I think Lee Morgan was one who DID try too hard. Whenever I listen to Hank Mobley's 'Hi voltage', I'm so relieved that it's Blue not Lee on trumpet. That said, there are some exceptions. 'Sonic boom' has already been mentioned. So has 'Search for the new land'. Another I like, where Lee seems more relaxed, is 'The sixth sense' and there's the great Frank Mitchell on that, too. Also 'The rajah'. I really like the track 'Sidewinder', though I flogged the LP decades ago and never bothered to replace it, as it seemed like a one track album to me. I don't miss it, as I seem to keep hearing it as background to cooking, gardening & DIY TV programmes my wife watches and generaly rush into the lounge to catch a bit of it MG

I’ve loved swords and sorcery fantasies since I first read Tolkien in the early 60s. Since the beginning of December, I’ve been reading Robert Jordan’s ‘Wheel of time’ series; a huge swords and sorcery series of 14 books – big books, with about 30 main characters, about a hundred (or maybe more) significant characters and a cast of probably thousands of bit parts. I’ve easily read the early books half a dozen times; the later ones not so often. I stopped buying them in about 2004, thinking that Jordan had made the thing too complex for its own good, that it would be impossible for him to pull the whole thing together coherently. But then I heard he’d died, leaving the final books outlined with lots of parts drafted, and that his wife had organised completion by one Brandon Sanderson. So I decided I’d save the last four up until the final volume was published (it came out on 8 January over here) and read the whole thing. Well, Jordan and Sanderson did manage to pull the whole thing together – a terrific feat of concentration and focus, which made the last three books the most unputdownable I can ever remember reading. All of what seemed to be artificial complexity, created because Jordan had to produce another book for the publishers, turned out to be not just relevant but necessary. All but about two of the threads were tied up in the end. I suspect this was mostly Sanderson’s work; for Jordan to have even outlined how he proposed to tie all this up, it would probably have been necessary for him to have written virtually the whole thing, which he definitely didn’t. Sanderson’s an interesting writer – I haven’t ready anything else he’s done, but whereas Jordan seemed to lose his sense of humour as he wrote (his Conan books are full of humour), Sanderson’s sense of humour is very nice. Many of the later exchanges between Mat and Talmanes are drily hilarious. If you read this, make sure you haven’t anything better to do for a couple of months. Now going on to a bit of SF; Peter F Hamilton’s Confederation and Void series. MG

(I think Erwbol meant this to go in here, not the sheet music thread ) MG

It's still being used but Rudy pretty much stopped cutting vinyl in the late 80's when most record labels dropped vinyl. I have plenty of CDs that were recorded at Rudy's place in the 90s and 00s. Fine recording but I bought it because of Hardman, Cook, etc back when it was released. The RVG connection was at least secondary. While I may have bought it on a whim for "Van Gelder" in the deadwax, the names certainly helped in this case. Turk Mauro & Jed Levy on the other hand... I bought Turk Mauro's 'Hittin' the jug' soon after it came out (the title and Dr Lonnie's presence, you know ) so I got 'Heavyweight' and 'Underdog' on sight. The photo of Mauro on the back of the 'Heavyweight' sleeve does seem to me to show him to be a bit of a nasty character. When I found out about the back story, several years ago, I pretty well stopped playing his albums, though they're quite good, particularly the two on Milestone produced by Bob Weinstock. 'Home' for me was a no-brainer, particularly as it was produced by Houston Person. I love that album. MG

I can remember. My daughter dragged me into a MacDonalds in London when we were going to Sussex to visit my wife's uncle in 1984. Never again. When I was at work, I sometimes used to have a cup of tea in the Burger King near the bus stop in Westgate Street in Cardiff, if it was raining and I had a while to wait for the next one, but never anything else. MG

Courtesy of Kevin B MG

Is either #6 or 7 Tommy Whittle or Spike Robinson, by any chance? I can hear these two a bit better now. They both have a slightly tentative approach, with lots of influences from elsewhere, which they seem to be trying to controil, or disguise. So I thought they might be Brits MG

Thanks. I'll have another go at this. MG

Just listening again to #12. Yes, I can hear the fingering, so it's an accordion, as everyone else said I think the voice is provided by the accordionist and he doesn't sound American. I love the way he's doing that. MG

Aha! So, is the pianist Cecil Bernard, too? MG No it isn't Bernard Oh well, I give up. MG

Rail Band - Belle epoque vols 1-3 - Syllart Now on disc 2 of vol 3. Wonderful set! MG

Aha! So, is the pianist Cecil Bernard, too? MG

Mentioning Soul Jazz Records in Broadwick Street (THEY'RE still there) put me in mind of two other selfconsciously hip shops in Soho, both of which had a tiny stock of extreme hipness. The first was a tiny stand on the corner of Lisle St and Wardour St. It was opened in the mid 60s and only sold US import 45s. You couldn't browse; all the records were behind the counter and the customers were in the street, shouting stuff like, 'got the new Bobby Bland?' or whatever. The stuff they sold had only been out in the US about a week. To buy anything there, you had to KNOW what to ask for. The other was on the corner of Dean St and Old Compton St. That was around in the late 60s/early 70s. Another shop that exclusively dealt in US imports and not too many of them. I remember getting Rusty Bryant's 'Soul liberation' and Charles Earland's 'Black drops' there only a very short time after they'd come out in the US. I do like the idea of having a limited stock of highly hip albums. So long as the people running the show can keep up with what's hip, they can keep a business going, like Soul Jazz have; they don't sell much in the way of soul jazz any more - avant garde seems more their meat now. Strange, because most of their other stuff is dancehall-oriented. MG

I think I only went into Ray's once. Found it a bit pricey for me and a long walk up Shaftesbury Ave for nowt. Reckless Records and Soul Jazz Records in Soho were a lot more convenient and had better stuff. Was Ray's an offshoot of Collett's? MG

I've got this on CD - issued in Germany by Bellaphon, but also, I think, in the US on Blackhawk. Definitely a great album, though. MG

Well, here we go. 1 Pretty nice version of ‘Good morning heartache’ by a pretty nice guitarist. It’s extremely quiet, though; very hard to identify the musician at this volume. There is something quite familiar about his phrasing, however. Ray Crawford? 2 This is quiet, too. ‘In a sentimental mood’ by a live flautist. I’m not much good on flautists, and hardly better on flute players. Sometimes this guy sounds as if he’s heavily influenced by Ben Webster. Other times, he sounds like he’s just noodling away there. Well, most of the time, really; flutes ain’t really got much of a sound to actually PLAY anything. A great bass solo; pretty well inaudible. 3 Oh, another quiet flute player doing ‘In a sentimental mood’ live. #2 was OK, but this grabs me immediately on account of how melodically the guy’s playing. Yeah, flutes ain’t got much of a sound but, if you can play a tune in your solo, making it flow and carrying the audience with you, that’s a good ‘un. I’d like to guess that this might be Herbie Mann, though it isn’t the kind of thing I hear him doing much, because I only buy his commercial albums. The guitarist sounds like it might be the guy who’s on #1, a few years later. Oh, out with a soprano sax now. 4 Oh I know this one. It’s Lou Bennett surely. Something from ‘Enfin’ with Rene Thomas. Oh it’s live, so it’s not from ‘Enfin’. Or maybe it's Larry Young, live. The guitarist sounds too much like Thomas, but the organist does sound more like Larry than Lou. 5 This is a country song that Wyclef Jean incorporated into one of his interludes. Well… There’s some chat in there, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. 6 Very quiet ‘But beautiful’. Nice version but too quiet for me to really concentrate on or identify the tenor player. 7 I do like this idea of having different versions of the same song back to back. If anything, this guy is playing the song just a trifle too slowly; makes it rather easy to lose the thread of the tune, particularly when he puts in those little fast runs. As before, it’s too quiet to really get a feeling for who the players are. 8 This is a bit louder. ‘Blue bossa’. So, a trombonist with one of those modern thin sounds with no vibrato worth mentioning; thousands of them knocking about. I have a feeling that the vibes player may be Booby Hutcherson, mainly because, between him and the piano player, they sound like they do on the Hutcherson BN album at Montreux. 9 Reasonably audible pianist. Can’t say this is my kind of thing, however. Just chops. 10 Ah, this is a good volume, though I haven’t had to turn the vol control down; still on max. There’s something about the alto player – but every time I think I get near him, those horrid chords the band is playing behind him get in the way. 11 Back to the quiet stuff again. I think there may be two guitarists here, plus a pianist. 12 A harmonica with a really Roy Rogers sound to it. I like this but haven’t the foggiest notion of who it might be. 13 ‘Easy to love’ and I think I’ve never heard the singer before. I feel I NEARLY know the tenor player; but could it REALLY be Houston Person? The singer has a good voice but doesn’t quite get to me. 14 And another version by a guitarist. Same guy as on #1? No, two guitarists, or even 3? Or Les Paul? Oh, in comes the LSD song. So, well, that dates it to the late sixties or early seventies. So probably NOT Les Paul, but still maybe... Well, that was nice, Tom, thank you. Lots of stuff in there I think I would have liked quite a lot if it had been a bit louder. MG

I LURVE that CLifford Scott. Never been on CD except for my own vinyl rip of that and the one Les made with Teddy Edwards, which DID come out as a single CD in Japan. They make a great twofer. MG