The Magnificent Goldberg

MG

This evening Freddie McCoy - Listen here - Prestige Milt Buckner & Buddy Tate - Crazy rhythm - Black & Blue Now Teddy Edwards - Heart and soul - Contemporary (black label Stereo) next Mango Santamania - Soy yo - Concord Picante (Bellaphon Germany) MG

I don't listen to musicians at all - I just follow labels MG

I never saw one when I was looking a couple of years ago. I'd be interested. Discographies are really hard to find on Google. MG

Kenneth Goldstein produced a lot of the stuff that's been illustrated here. He also produced recordings for Bluesville, including some Lightnin' Hopkins and Memphis Slim. I wonder what happened to him? The name is familiar in other contexts that I can't identify. MG

I have Grady's Milestone album 'TNT' on which he sings throughout. I think he has one of the best voices I've ever heard. MG

Is that for the recordings of Les McCann, Hank Crawford, David Newman, Roy Ayers, Herbie Mann etc or other stuff? MG

Hey, you can have Delmark instead of Deutsche Grammophon, which ain't a jazz label. Or I'm going to put Syllart back in I'm not familiar with the whole range of Rounder - only have a couple of jazz albums on that label. Oh, and Columbia (not your choice, I know, Bebop) is hardly a jazz label. Only a tiny proportion of its output has been jazz, compared to Atlantic, Savoy and Chess. MG Columbia may not be primarily a jazz label, but look what you get! ! Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Monk, Mingus, Stan Getz, Ellington, Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith,Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, and countless others. amen. Yes, you certainly get a lot of jazz with Columbia, but I was taking what you said as what you meant, Aloc Anyway, I wouldn't want most of the people Peter mentioned I have hardly any Columbia records in my collection. MG

Manu is on Paris Soul Food, which has been reissued. Unless there's another one you're referring to. It's not 'Paris soul food'. That has different track titles, most of which are popular R&B numbers. The tunes on my CD are all originals by DIbango and one with Singer as co-writer. MG

I assume you mean Percy Wyndham Lewis, the Vorticist painter, not D B Wyndham Lewis, the biographer and humorous writer (the original 'Beachcomber'). I'd always take Percy's statements on art as meriting about a stone and a half of salt. He wrote superbly using what I think of as the most powerful style in the English language; but it was very self-serving and not at all objective. MG

This afternoon Milt Jackson/Ray Brown Jam - Montreux 1977 - Pablo live (UK issue) T-Bone Walker - Very rare - Reprise (UK issue) James Brown - Ain't it funky - King (Polydor) Thione Seck - Pouvoir d'un coeur pur - Akan (Sterns UK) Jimmy Dawkins - Fastfingers - Delmark MG

for honkers and screamers, are you sure you don't want 60s and 70s impulse? MG

Hey, you can have Delmark instead of Deutsche Grammophon, which ain't a jazz label. Or I'm going to put Syllart back in I'm not familiar with the whole range of Rounder - only have a couple of jazz albums on that label. Oh, and Columbia (not your choice, I know, Bebop) is hardly a jazz label. Only a tiny proportion of its output has been jazz, compared to Atlantic, Savoy and Chess. MG

Oh goodness, what a question!!! OK, 1 Prestige - mainly for Soul Jazz 2 Syllart - for recordings covering most of francophone West Africa 3 Atlantic - mainly for R&B & Soul But I'd want Savoy, too, for its Gospel music. And what about Chess? Oh, you really mean jazz labels? Well, take Syllart out and put Savoy in, although I'm not nearly as interested in the Bebop as I am in the honkers and screamers and the Gospel material. MG

I have this one TTK Soul Makossa It has about 4 tracks from the album issued in US as 'Soul Makossa', and in Britain as 'O boso' (I think the original title. There are also several tracks from an album I've never been able to trace the original of with Hal 'Cornbread' Singer. You can get it at Amazon.fr here http://www.amazon.fr/Soul-Makossa-Manu-Dibango/dp/B00004ULPY/ref=sr_1_57?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1348238070&sr=1-57 MG

And most of them were compilations of music first issued on 45. A quick shufti through the Atlantic album list reveals the following R&B LPs that seem to have been recorded as albums. 8002 - La Vern - La Vern Baker [1956] 8015 - Ivory Joe Sings the Old and New - Ivory Joe Hunter [1958] 8019/SD-8019 - Blues From the Gutter - Champion Jack Dupree [4/59] 8035/SD-8035 - The Wildest Guitar - Mickey Baker [1959] 8036/SD-8036 - Precious Memories La Vern Baker Sings Gospel - La Vern Baker [11/59] 8039 - Ray Charles In Person - Ray Charles [1960] MG Another Atlantic R&B album recorded as an album is T Bone Walker--T Bone Blues (great album, too). http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/image.html/WPCR-27524 Doubtful. It was recorded in 3 sessions, in April 1955 (Chicago), Dec 1956 and Dec 1957 (both LA). The first session appeared on 45s, the other material remained unissued until 1959. MG

And most of them were compilations of music first issued on 45. A quick shufti through the Atlantic album list reveals the following R&B LPs that seem to have been recorded as albums. 8002 - La Vern - La Vern Baker [1956] 8015 - Ivory Joe Sings the Old and New - Ivory Joe Hunter [1958] 8019/SD-8019 - Blues From the Gutter - Champion Jack Dupree [4/59] 8035/SD-8035 - The Wildest Guitar - Mickey Baker [1959] 8036/SD-8036 - Precious Memories La Vern Baker Sings Gospel - La Vern Baker [11/59] 8039 - Ray Charles In Person - Ray Charles [1960] MG

I don't think I agree with this, but I do think it probably depends on how you look at it. You're treating this issue of 'personal expression and creativity are so at odds with the working day and the demands of business,' as an absolute, but it ain't. There are hosts of original creative artists whose work is in no way at odds with the working day and the demands of business. Rev J M Gates, Rev C L Franklin, Ellington, Armstrong, Parker and Coltrane made plenty of money, (though they didn't always spend it wisely). I think I'd have to recognise that for musicians to reconcile these different and apparently opposed concepts is more difficult in a country in which the markets are ruled by huge monolithic dompanies (such as the USA) than in one like Senegal, in which there are no major companies and there's therefore a much freer and more competitive market, with room for a much greater diversity of approach. But, in the end, people are probably best at dealing with their own circumstances rather than with a foreign system. MG

Which one is Hersch? The fat one who looks like a butcher from Barnsley? I don't find Hersch boring. Haven't found him at all, as it happens MG

I think it's the child of the French and Industrial Revolutions. Under the Ancien Regime, since the dawn of civilisation, the ruling classes had always been the patrons/employers of artists of any type; they were the only ones who could afford to support artists. Under those circumstances, there could be no question of the artist being seen as 'The Great Man', even if he was a Bach or a Da Vinci, because he was an employee of some rich nob. The two revolutions reduced the importance of the old aristocracy, in frequent cases by killing them off, but also by pauperising them. At the same time, they increased the prosperity and importance of the bourgeoisie, which within relatively few years became the new ruling class. Parvenus. It became possible for artists to look down on those people, who, unlike the aristocracy, didn't have the education to appreciate their skills because it was attuned to more practical matters. This was encouraged by such works as 'La vie Boheme', which served the interests of the new ruling class by absolving them of responsibility (the members of the old aristocracy, despite many defects, did understand, and insofar as they or their descendants exist, still does understand that their position was one of responsibility) and served the interests of the artists by placing them on a pedestal. This is a VERY great generalisation but may be useful in terms of identifying a trend. At the same time, some, perhaps many, artists realised that they had to appeal to a wider public than just the nouveau riche. I always think of Theophile Gautier's novel 'Mademoiselle du Maupin' (1835) as being the greatest example of the commercialisation of the great man view of art. It's regarded as a handbook of Art for Art's Sake, and rightly. But it's a HOT sex story, too. Is this the way to market Art for Art's Sake? MG

= (at best) rehearsal. MG The only time it = an (at best) rehearsal is if the musicians are playing at each other trying to do some basic calibrations that should have been done at an actual rehearsal. To do that in front of an audience is only salvageable if you let them in on what's going on, why it's necessary, and beg their understanding. Then you might have a successful performance. Might. Depends what you mean. Louis Jordan and Ray Charles both used to work on new songs live, as you say, getting the calibrations right, then, when they'd played about with the songs and were pretty sure the audience would like them, go into the studios and record them. I never heard of either of them begging their audiences' indulgence or even telling them. Nah, I'm talking much more basic than that. I've been on gigs where people will stand around discussing how some new "composition" is supposed to go for, like, 10-15 minutes, on the bandstand, and then turnaround and start playing w/o as much as a word of apology/explanation to the audience before or after. I've also seen people get up and leave the second or third time that happened - in the same set - and to be honest, I'd just have soon done so myself. Then there's the question of having sound checks/getting instruments tuned/can the drummer and bassist hear each other/etc. going on after the set starts. Sometimes it's a logistical inevitability, sometimes not, but I really don't think it's something that you don't acknowledge to an audience if it goes on for too long and is too obvious. You're handling the "private" part of your business on "public" time, and I think it's a bit lax and/or arrogant to do that and expect an audience to not wonder wtf is going on, why are these guys being such amateurs (or behaving like it, anyway). So you should be proactive about that type thing wen it happens. Just my opinion, though, and far from universal. Oh, I do agree. Seems to me I've seen that happening more in rock than jazz. MG

I think in 1960 BN were cashing in on 'House party', 'The Sermon' and 'Home cookin''. Plenty of JOS to cash in on at all times, though those albums weren't hits. Chuck has mentioned elsewhere that he was working at Jazz Record Mart in those days and sold a LOAD of those two. MG

Aye aye, skipper! MG

= (at best) rehearsal. MG The only time it = an (at best) rehearsal is if the musicians are playing at each other trying to do some basic calibrations that should have been done at an actual rehearsal. To do that in front of an audience is only salvageable if you let them in on what's going on, why it's necessary, and beg their understanding. Then you might have a successful performance. Might. Depends what you mean. Louis Jordan and Ray Charles both used to work on new songs live, as you say, getting the calibrations right, then, when they'd played about with the songs and were pretty sure the audience would like them, go into the studios and record them. I never heard of either of them begging their audiences' indulgence or even telling them. Les McCann did, at Montreux with Eddie Harris in the intro to 'Cold duck time'. That came out all right. I don't think I have a problem with either way, though I was never at a Ray Charles gig where he was working up 'What I say' I agree with all that. MG

MG