The Magnificent Goldberg

Shit, I HAVE got this and didn't recognise it. OBO110X. Or maybe I haven't - if it's live. I'm not aware that Les made a live version of this with Eddie, unless it's maybe on one of those albums recorded in Africa. Must have another listen to check. MG Released on an American label. Twice, in fact! 'Soul to soul' was, I think the title of the concert. In Ghana? Nigeria? Anyway, on Atlantic. Ike & Tina were there, too. MG

Doubtless it still does MG

Lionel Hampton - Hamo - CLef (MFP) MG

Shit, I HAVE got this and didn't recognise it. OBO110X. Or maybe I haven't - if it's live. I'm not aware that Les made a live version of this with Eddie, unless it's maybe on one of those albums recorded in Africa. Must have another listen to check. MG

These Les Baxters don't sound anything like the Les Baxter I Imagined. Where's Plas Johnson? (Yes, I know) MG

House bombs from a man living in Tel-Aviv? MG

OK, I'll have a go at this tomorrow. Thanks folks. MG

Well, here we go with BFT105, which I’ve been looking forward to a lot and I’m sure I shan’t be disappointed. 1 Wake up song from a radio station. Very cheerful. 2 Dunno. Good singer, interesting song. Wild soprano sax player. Interesting. Something I might go for. 3 ‘Loving you was like a party’. This is Marlena Shaw. A cut from her album ‘Who is this bitch, anyway?’ Oh yes, I’m glad you put this one in. You’ve been plugging it for a while. If the rest of that album is that good, I’ll go for it. 4 Phew, full of action. Guitar solo in search of a car chase! Is it Eric Gale? Is it Ronnie Cuber on baritone? Effin’ INSANE pianist! Jerry Lee Lewis! 5 A story. But it isn’t Al Jolson. Well, when the punchline comes, maybe it was. 6 Nat ‘King’ Cole, I’m sure. With Billy May arrangement, I’d guess. Oh, could this be an Earl Grant you’ve put in to fool us? I don’t think so. I think it’s Nat. 7 Don’t recognise the singer. Don’t know the song either. Interesting funky 70s type arrangement. 8 Sorry, the tag gave it away. It just came up when I opened the folder to play it. Funny, I’d checked the tags before, to make sure the download had worked and checked all the timings, but this track and #7 came up completely blank, so there was something wrong with the tagging. Oh, that was nice – Jimmy Owens on trumpet and I don’t know who on baritone. 9 Ray and Aretha. Never heard this before. Oh yes, ‘things go better with coke’. I knew they did an ad together for that. Wonderful. 10 This has to be Jug. I guess I’ve got it somewhere among all the compilations of his early material, but I don’t recognise it. One thing Jug did was write tunes that were utilitarian riffs, on which he could hang what it was he wanted to say. And they all worked, from that point of view; you always know who’s playing, it’s just WHAT utilitarian riff he’s playing that’s a mystery, because those riffs don’t have much individual character. So Jug never came close, except for ‘Hittin’ the Jug’, to writing a jazz standard. 11 Oh, here’s a thing. Yes, definitely a thing. Quite a groove to it, too. Now, where’s the tenor solo? Oh a vocal group. The technology says ‘eighties’ but the vocal group says ‘no, fifties’ Technology wins, however. Unfortunately. I just got bored through the guitar solo. And very bored through the bass solo. Oh well. Listened to it all, despite boredom, because I still love the groove. Well, if this is anyone well known, it’d have to be Sun Ra. Right, off outside for a quick cough and drag. 12 ‘Lazy bones’. Wonderful talking trombonist. Phew, this is WUNNERFUL! And someone’s growling in the background. Singer sounds like Kay Starr. Is that possible or even rational? Could the trombonist be Britt Woodman? 13 Outro for a fifties DJ. Agree strongly! 14 Oh, I know this tune, but the title eludes me. I think I’ve got it by the same tenor player. No, I don’t think I have any records by a tenor player who plays like this! But I want some. Oh, I know, it sounds like Marvin Cabell! Oh yes! Real nice Jim, really real nice. Thank you. MG

I wouldn't use iTunes if it weren't the easiest way to put stuff on an ipod. But I'm miffed that: a) iTunes and ipods work inconsistently in the way they treat artist names and genre names - which is completely CRETINOUS! and b) that iTunes won't list what's on my ipod and let me delete stuff off the ipod if I've made a mistake. MG

Oh yes, indeed. I believe it was in the sleeve notes to one of GGs early Blue Notes that it was stated that he'd previously worked with Tommy Dean and Jack Murphy. So I checked Jepsen back in the day and, as soon as I started seeing Dean's 78s coming up for auction, put in bids. It ain't a secret; not even something for afficionados only. Just something that not a lot of people take any notice of. Well, I've just had a look at a few of GG's early sleeve notes (on CD) and, while I can find refs to Murphy, can't find one to Dean. But I know I read it. One thing I WOULD not do in the sixties is spend my weekends sitting in Brighton library READING Jepsen from cover to cover, in the hope of finding some previously unknown (to me) session featuring Grant Green. I may be an idiot, but I'm not effin' stupid! MG

I guess two paces for Basie - flagwavers and the four to a bar, and no cheatin'. MG

HA Ha! Absolutely! MG

This afternoon Al Grey - Shades of Grey - Tangerine Willis Jackson - Funky Reggae - Trip (no Reggae, but plenty of funky) (and we've had the next sleeve on the sexiest covers thread already ) Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis & BIll Doggett - Midnight slows vol 10 - Black & Blue A sudden thought; I think I got all of these LPs from Dan Gould. Thanks Dan. MG

Good LORD! I'd forgotten that years and years ago (probably about 20) I wrote to the guys at Clemson about the matrix number on Dean's first VJ issue. And they're still mentioning it, even though someone there has now acquired their own copy (because it's not mine that's illustrated). MG

I didn't know that my old version, which I'm still using, could access my ipod. How did you do that? Is it something that's only a feature if you've got a Mac computer? MG

He takes a nice obbligato behind the vocal on 'Anima Christi' but no solo. On 'Praise the lord' he's prominent in the rhythm section but no solo or obbligato. But that's not really describing his contribution to those two cuts, which is substantial and audible. 'Praise the lord' is a wailer and, like much New Orleans jazz, everyone's wailing at one time and not getting in each other's way. If you're thinking about getting this for the Grant Green, I'd say get it, because he never made anything like this in his life. MG

I think the producers must have known of Grant Green's involvement with Tommy Dean. It's mentioned in Sharony Green's bio of GG. Bob Blumenthal did a modicum of work on Lazar and looked at the sleeve notes of 'Space flight', in which he was stated to have taken up organ in 1958 ater hearing Jimmy Smith. To most people, that would be conclusive. However, Lazar may have picked up lots of techincal stuff from Smith but doesn't play anything like him. So there must have been some other ingredient that caused him to have the style he has. The little I've heard of Tommy Dean, who was part of that St Louis scene in the early fifties, suggests that Dean was the main stylistic influence. Dean had a combo that was pretty well like that of Bill Doggett but, while Dogget's band had that swaying, sassy, walking rhythm, Dean's band flew! Since I got the 2 78s of Dean in the early 80s, I've thought that both Lazar and Green owed a lot to Dean, simply in their approach to rhythm. Don't forget that Lazar and Dean were contemporaries. Even though Lazar had given up playing and was studying medical technology during Dean's heyday, the idea that he wouldn't have been a regular customer of Dean's seems pretty odd to me. The legend, that Jimmy Smith was the only original organist in the book and everyone else pinched his stuff (a legend that Smith did his best to foster, it has to be said), lives on. I believe that, in truth, the only (major) organist who really pinched Smith's stuff is Joey de Francesco. No one would deny Smith's importance and the lessons he gave to everyone, but even organists who started, like Lazar, after Smith had become well known, all brought something from somewhere else (and, of course, it's axiomatic that the ones who started before SMith's first Blue Note LPs came out, had started from somewhere else anyway, no matter what lessons they might have taken from JOS). I've been hearing this, from critics and fans, since I first started buying organ records, in the early sixties and I've always felt that it was sloppy thinking at best, but probably more usually, a brush off, coppping out from having to listen to a load of artists playing music the people concerned didn't really like. MG

Ah yes, I only used to hear Housewives' Choice duringthe school holidays. Interesting that the theme was written by the guy who wrote 'These foolish things' and 'A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Strachey The theme itself fits the thread to perfection. MG

Well, I do agree with you, but it IS a compromise with the rules about what is acceptable/traditional/workable. Within those rules, the 'right' note, or any of the possible 'right notes' is wrong; what the musician/singer does is right - stepping outside that framework to do his groan, grunt, cough, sneeze, special Jaws-style effect or Hodges' (or Teddy Edwards') infinite number of notes - or anything else that the musician considers really right. It's a compromise, because the guy steps right back into the framework afterwards. The people who DON'T compromise are the ones who stay outside all the time; 'Fuck these rules, we're going to do our own thing and make our own rules' they say. And there might be an infinite number of alternative sets of rules in the avant garde. MG

I think you use the 'Attach files' function, when you're posting using the full reply option. You attach the file, just like you do when you're adding one to an e-mail, then 'add to post' (in the right place in what you're writing) and it comes out here And I think it comes out as a tiny pic, which you have to click on to view full size. Let's see what happens... MG

More soothing Ossie Scott - The wonderful sound of... - Third World Lounge Reggae MG

We used to listen to the shipping forecast a lot, but I don't recall any theme music. Now listening to this and it occurred to me that there is a sub-genre of Jamaican lounge reggae, which fits exactly (as the Scott sleeve shows). Here's a bit of Ossie from you-tube MG

"Puffin' Billy" by Edgar White From https://www.youtube....h?v=Fcmp7kGAKmM Ring a bell, perhaps? That was the association I made, but didn't believe Thanks Jim. MG

The way you've linked those two is very interesting. Each is full of special 'effects', as well as this time thing. 'Effects' isn't really the right word I think, but I don't know what else to call it. Griff didn't know either He used to say that sometimes he didn't know if what Jaws was playing was even notes. Someone I read decades ago said that 'blue notes' weren't blue notes at all; they were a range of different sounds, only some of them 'music', placed where they were to form a compromise when the 'right' note would have been the wrong note. Seems to me that Jaws and Clark did this better than any other jazzmen. The way they affected time... MG

Thanks Jim. Oh, and I'd forgotten about Dex.