The Magnificent Goldberg

Have you, or have you read, his 'American record label directory'? It covers the same period as the discography and is full of great little anecdotes about the record companies of the time. MG

That's really difficult for me. I could say soul jazz. But it was only not of its time among the white jazz community, who didn't catch on until the '80s, when the Acid Jazz thing started. Until then, it was dismissed by most jazz critics (and their readers) as commercial trash. In the black community, it was the normal kind of music you listened to when you went out drinking/eating/partying and that was what it was mainly intended for. So, in that sense, it wasn't undervalued. Nor, for that matter, was early Mbalax, though hardly any white people (or anyone outside Senegambia) heard it until the early nineties. And that applies to most modern music from Africa. I could say the same about large gospel choirs; most white fans of gospel music don't think much of them but, in their time ('70s to early '00s) they were the dominant form of gospel expression in the black community; the Mississippi Mass Choir had two albums which each stayed at #1 on the Billboard gospel chart for over a year. Music is intended for a specific audience and seeks to do things for the particular community that audience is part of and bollocks to the rest of the world. So it looks as if you ought to be asking what music DIDN'T meet the needs of its natural/normal/expected audience but which is now regarded by THAT audience as being good. Could anyone from outside one of those communities give an answer? I dunno, Guv... MG

Today's vinyl, so far Lionel Hampton - Hamp - Clef (MFP UK) Bunk Johnson - Bunk's brass band - American Music (Dixie Records 10" boot - no image of this on web) The Loving Sisters - Tribute to Doctor Martin Luther King - Peacock/The St Matthews Baptist Church Choir - Songbird (Vogue twofer France) now Junior Walker & the All-stars - Shotgun - Soul (MFP UK) (Not the original 'Shotgun' LP but a compilation on a chewapo label) next John Wright - Makin' out - Prestige (DG mono) MG

Link's not there, Aloc. MG

Oh yes, Brownie. PM on the way, if I'm not too late. MG

Having another shot of The Atlantic New Orleans jazz sessions Wonderful! MG

Good point about drummers. Billy James. Louis Hayes. MG

Yeah - me too. It's 'Presenting Perri Lee Blackwell' on Combo 600. With Curtis Amy and Johnny Kirkwood. Recorded 1957. MG

BRILL! MG

Yes. It's probably the only BN sleeve which was IMPROVED when Applause issued it MG

Thanks Jim - truly, a lot of us were worried, I think. MG

MG

Is that what Louis Armstrong used to call a break? It appeared in lots of his big band recordings. MG

That's very interesting. That passage you highlight from the liner notes stood out and remained with me as well when I first read it (albeit via the early 90's cd issue ). I often recall it in my mind when I think about things related to the music. Certainly the music isn't ambitious in the way so much Jazz was/is, but it ain't easy to learn to play either. It's still really the earthy side of Be-bop (or at least Babyface is - the music Hobsbawm had in mind might be from closer to the R&B spectrum perhaps? Who is Marlowe Morris MG?) Hobsbawm seems to be from an earlier generation of Left wing thinkers that I know not much about, but I am getting the feeling he was like a 60's Slavoj Zizek perhaps, in terms of being a kind of Left wing public intellectual. That quote made a big impression on me as well, but I feel somewhat saddened that such a basic recognition of the basic humanity of the whole thing inevitable became a political statement. Not saying that I don't understand why it was, but geez, people going out for drinks and dancing and having a boisterous good time to the accompaniment of music of a similar quality, that's a pretty basic human activity, It's pretty damn depressing to think that it took a "political statement" or whatever to see it as simply as it was. I agree, but that's a pretty basic human activity, too Glad to see you're better Jim MG

Is that what the well-dressed jazzman was wearing in 1990? Looks more like the late forties. MG

The Hobsbawm 'diary' link is a great read. So Marlowe Morris is definitely on the Jazz side of Blues? Wild Bill Davis like perhaps. And here's the sound itself - to use an old Australian colloquialism - 'shit hot!" I totally get where Hobsbawm was coming from hearing this. Yes, I used to have the LP that came from, but sold it when I was poor in '71. Nice to hear it again. Thanks. MG

MG

I suppose you've got the same cover as I have: Never seen a 'Jazz Workshop London' pressing of any other title. This has very heavy vinyl, but not too good sound. Yes, that's the sleeve I've got. Couldn't find it yesterday. Sometimes the internet ain't your friend... Actually, I like that sleeve very much. I like his beard on 'Thesaurus', too. But the one on 'Easy living' is totally wimpy. Today's vinyl Charles Davis - Super 80 - Nilva Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi - Precious memories - Peacock (MCA) Dave Bailey - 2 feet in the gutter - Epic now Various artists - Singing preachers and their congregations - Blues Classics MG

From All Music Guide. MG Lucky's a real nice guy in my experience and very talented. He's lived in Dallas for 20 or more years but is of course little heralded in his home town. Aside from his many blues recordings, for the soul jazz fan, I recommend three fairly recent CDs on French Emarcy, The Organ Soul Sessions. This is all Lucky on organ, playing mostly with jazz players and mostly jazz songs. http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B001LV5OIA/ref=s9_simh_gw_p15_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A1X6FK5RDHNB96&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0EGCS4NC5THJKAX1SF4X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=312233167&pf_rd_i=405320 For the gospel oriented jazz fan, you might also enjoy his duet recording with Mavis Staples. Lucky is mostly on organ on this one and its very tasty. http://www.amazon.com/Spirituals-Gospel-Dedicated-Mahalia-Jackson/dp/B000004767/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1349151496&sr=1-1&keywords=Lucky+Peterson+Mavis+Staples Very interesting, thanks. I've bunged the 3 CD set into my wish list for next year. MG

I don't think either of them would be that thrilled with the comparison. But you might be right, I don't think that a thinker like Hobsbawm (or any of the other historians with high profiles in the 50s-60s) would get very far today without a Zizekian schtick attached (much as I enjoy that schtick, I should say). Too difficult by half, and too patrician. Hobsbawm was very down on intellectualist jazz, like other Marxist critics. There's a review of AMM from the late-60s which is very rude about their avant-gardeism. But there's also a really good little book, derived from a 1990s lecture, on the 20th century avant-gardes. What is AMM? Who is Zizek? Should I care? MG

Have a great day, Rod! MG

This afternoon Oscar McLollie & his Honey Jumpers - Roll hot rod, roll - Modern (Ace 10") Erskine Hawkins - Horizons du jazz no 17 - RCA France Maceo Parker - Us - People (POlydor UK) Rev Isaac Douglas & the CHarles Fold SIngers - Live in concert - AVI Gospel MG

Thanks Jim. MG

In his sleeve notes for Baby Face Willette's 'Stop & listen', Joe Goldberg quoted Francis Newton. 'Uptown there is the jazz of Harlem (the one that does not even get advertised in the New Yorker, otherwise a faithful guide to the music). This is the sort of noise you hear coming out of the dark belly of the L Bar, on Broadway and 148th, the visceral sound of Marlowe Morris' rhythmic organ playing, rather like a crystalised glue, at the Top Club on West 145th... It is not very ambitious music, but by God the place jumps and the clients at the bar laugh and stomp their feet as men ought to do when they are enjoying themselves. Those who listen to this music are not "fans"; they are just people who like to have some entertainment while they drink. Those who play it are craftsmen and showmen, who accept the facts of life in the jungle with disconcerting calm.' I know of no other critic who defined Soul Jazz as clearly as that. Reading it, when I was exploring this music in the sixties, was a revelation for me; a revelation that someone else got this; that I wasn't imagining it. I didn't then know that he was Eric Hobsbawm. Later, when I started reading Hobsbawm, and seeing him on the TV, I realised that, in order to write what he did, he HAD to be Hobsbawm; it is a VERY left wing statement. RIP Eric. MG

Yes, I've got a soft spot for Marlena. What about the others? MG