Jump to content

The Magnificent Goldberg

Moderator
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    23,981

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

  • Donations

    0.00 USD 

 Content Type 

Posts posted by The Magnificent Goldberg

  1. YOUR Top three all-time jazz vocalists

    in Artists

    Posted

    I don't really "get" Chris Connor all that much (don't dislike her, though). Can those who do tell me what they're hearing/feeling that I'm not, or is this just one of those "you do or you don't things"?

    If it's the latter, hey, c'est la vie.

    Sexiness, subdued swing, pleasant timbre, respect for lyrics, a warm kinda cool. I love her, and she got better with age. I saw her several times in the '80s and she was fabulous.

    I highly recommend this later recording:

    51jWNGDSGrL._SS400_.jpg

    Fair enough. I've had problems with her pitch, but that was mostly the earlier stuff.

    The Atlantic album she made with Maynard, however, GOOD stuff!

    I always used to think she had a pitch problem - if you say so, it must be true. But I don't care.

    The Roulette album with Maynard had more interesting songs, I think. One thing she was very good at was picking great songs you'd never heard of. One on the Roulette album is 'Deep song' by the team who wrote 'I left my heart in San Francisco'. With words like:

    "Where can I be headed for?

    The blues crawls through my door

    To lick my weary heart once more."

    who needs someone singing in tune?

    I agree with everything Pete said, except sexiness. Never found her sexy.

    I've got to say that there might be some nostalgia in my liking for her, though I'm not sure. Back in 1960, when i was 16, I used to have a neighbour who was a captain in the USAF legal department, stationed at Northolt. We got friendly and, as I was only just beginning to get interested in jazz, I went round to his place quite a bit - the Playboy was an added attraction :) Now I thought THAT was sexy. He introduced me to Chris Connor; about the only singer/musician he played me that I actually dug immediately - the rest was mostly West Coast material. His brother was Johnny Mandel.

    Why I don't think it's nostalgia is because, in 1969, I sold all my Chris Connor records and it wasn't until 1992 that I started buying her material again. And that wasn't a nostalgia trip for me; I bought them because I thought they were good records.

    By the way, try 'Free spirits', particularly her version of Ornette's 'Lonely woman'.

    MG

  2. Q. about bluenote and royalties

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    Sure, there were cashflow problems, arising as you say. But when BN had a hit, the distributor would have had to pay for all the others, to get the next hit. And BN ALWAYS had a next hit; there's a regular trail of them al lthe way from 'Midnight Special' to the Liberty days, including 'Search for the new land' would you believe?

    1962 MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

    1963 BACK AT THE CHICKEN SHACK

    1963 THE NATURAL SOUL

    1963 ROCKIN' THE BOAT

    1964 A NEW PERSPECTIVE

    1964 PRAYER MEETIN'

    1964 SIDEWINDER

    1965 SONG FOR MY FATHER

    1966 CAPE VERDEAN BLUES

    1966 SEARCH FOR THE NEW LAND

    Then there was Liberty.

    MG

  6. Q. about bluenote and royalties

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    Interesting but this doesn't jibe with the fact that on the BNBB we learned how a "sizable" check was hand-delivered to Jutta Hipp, iirc. Did they really convince EMI to pay royalties for which there was no contractual obligation?

    The way it came over was that this was the POINT of selling to Liberty; it wasn't just Horace and Lee.

    MG

  7. YOUR Top three all-time jazz vocalists

    in Artists

    Posted · Edited by The Magnificent Goldberg

    Ladies -

    Chris Connor

    Irene Reid

    Dakota Staton

    Gentlemen -

    this is hard - is Ray Charles a jazz singer? James Brown? Nat Cole? Well, so I'll say

    Ernie Andrews

    Slim Gaillard

    Fats Waller (have to put in someone who's already been mentioned. Where's the love for the others?)

    MG

    While I was walking the dog, I realised that Cab Calloway should be there, instead of Fats Waller.

  8. Q. about bluenote and royalties

    in Miscellaneous Music

    Posted

    Blue Note was a pretty profitable business. In David H Rosenthal's book, 'Hard bop' (OUP 1992), he puts some numbers to this. Average FIRST YEAR sales of hard bop LPs like those by Jackie McLean and Hank Mobley were about 7,500. Breakeven point for individual albums was about 2,500 sales.

    When Frank Woolf came to Europe to produce Hank's album 'The flip', he did an interview on the BBC's Sunday late night jazz programme which was pre-announced, so I listened to it. Woolf talked about royalties. My understanding was that he was talking about performer royalties, not composer/publisher royalties or mechanicals (which in any case the radio/TV industry pays, not the record companies).

    He said that Blue Note paid cash - more cash than the leaders would have got from the standard union contracts - but not royalties. When some BN artists began to have hit records - Donald Byrd, Jimmy Smith and Lou Donaldson were the early ones, they came to him wanting to see their royalties. Woolf said, "we told them to fuck off, they were paid cash." Hardly a coincidence that Byrd, Smith and Donaldson soon went to other labels.

    Woolf then went on to say that when Horace Silver and Lee Morgan had hits, the same thing happened, but this time Lion and Woolf agreed to pay royalties and sold BN to Liberty.

    In effect, by paying more upfront cash than the other labels, BN was taking advantage of the fact that most of their musicians were junkies and more interested in where the money for the next cop was coming from than in the long term.

    MG

  11. Mosaics That Could Have Been, But Weren't

    in Mosaic and other box sets...

    Posted

    I'd like a complete set of the Caravans' sides for States, Vee-Jay and Savoy. One of the most important female gospel groups and hardly anything has ever come out on CD.

    Yes, I know Mosaic doesn't do gospel; they don't do blues either but have released a few.

    Oh, one of Julie London's LPs for Liberty was with the Gerald Wislon band - 'Feeling good'. It wasn't bad, but I didn't think it was quite good enough to keep.

    MG

  13. I've got some CDs to trade

    in Offering and Looking For...

    Posted

    I've got some stuff to trade. Here's a list:

    Jazz

    Gene Ammons - Hifi jam session (aka Jammin' with Gene) - Prestige (OJC)

    Ray Charles - Genius+soul=jazz/My kind of jazz Impulse/Tangerine (Rhino)

    Bennie Green - Soul stirrin' - BN (Conn)

    Grant Green - Alive - BN (UK) no bonus trax

    Grant Green - Easy - Versatile (Unidisc)

    Al Grey - Live at Floating Jazz Festival - Chiaroscuro

    Illinois Jacquet - Bosses of the ballad - Cadet (Univ Japan, mimi LP sleeve)

    Johnny Lytle - Happy ground - Muse [NOT a reissue of the Jazzland LP of the same title]

    John Patton - Along came John - BN (UK)

    John Patton - The way I feel - BN (TOCJ)

    John Patton - Oh baby - BN (TOCJ)

    Jimmy Smith - At Club Baby Grand - BN (Giants of Jazz 3/4 of 2 LP set)

    Johnny 'Hammond' Smith - That good feelin'/Talk that talk - New Jazz (Ace BGP twofer)

    Sonny Stitt - Kaleidoscope - Prestige (OJC)

    Sonny Stitt & Bunky Green - Soul in the night - Cadet (Univ Jap)

    Stanley Turrentine - Comin' your way - BN (McM)

    Stanley Turrentine - Jubilee shout - BN (McM)

    Dinah Washington - Mellow Mama - Apollo (Delmark)

    Gerald wilson - Portraits - PJ

    More world music from the USA

    Randy Crawford - The love songs - WB (Telstar TV comp)

    Slim Harpo - Best of - XLO (Rhino comp)

    Mississippi Mass Choir - Praise the Lord - Malaco (601 Music comp)

    And from africa

    Fatou Guewel - Fatou - KSF (Sterns comp) [Fatou is the greqatest traditional religious singer in Senegal)

    Ami Koita - Mamaya - Syllart [One of the greatest Mandinke voices]

    Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyate - Kairaba jabi - Rogue (reissue of Simbomba & part of Tanante) [Good authentic trad Mandinke music]

    Lemzo Diamono - Marimbalax - KSF (Sterns comp) [My favourite Mbalax band]

    Now, what I want is some stuff by The Kansas City Melodyaires, aka Mildred Clark & the Melodyaires, aka Mildred Clark

    Here's a list of their albums that I know about; only two are listed on AMG, tops for gospel again :) The ones I haven't got and would like to get are in bold

    Songbird SBLP-205 - Softy The Night Is Falling - Kansas City Melodyaires

    Peacock PLP-59206 - Joined Together - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires [1974]

    Peacock PLP-59218 - Change In The World - Mildred Clark [1975] LP reissue MCA 28094

    Peacock PLP-59225 - Lord, I've Really Been Trying - Mildred Clark And The Melody- Aires LP reissue MCA 28100

    Peacock PLP-59228 - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires [1976] LP reissue MCA 28102 I'VE GOT THIS ONE

    Peacock PLP-? - 2000 Years - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires - LP reissue MCA 28108

    Savoy SL14588 - Lord Help Me To Hold Out - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires [1983] I'VE GOT THIS ONE

    Savoy SL14607 - I Can't Give UP Now (aka My God can do it all) - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires & Queen Street Young Adult Choir [1981] I'VE GOT THIS ONE

    Savoy SL14639 - You've Got To Give An Account - Mildred Clark And Melody-Aires & Voices of Triedstone [1982] I'VE GOT THIS ONE

    Heat HT015 - Help me Jesus - Mildred Clark [1986] I'VE GOT THIS ONE

    If you happen to be in a shop that's got some gospel music, please have a quick shufti to see if there's any of the ones in bold there. If there are, decide what you want for it and send me a note. If you find something not on my list, terrific!

    MG

  16. Red Holloway Passes at 84

    in Artists

    Posted

    Another classic bit of Chicago music Red was on

    Otis Rush - I can't quit you baby - Cobra, 1956

    I think I've got all of Red's albums except 'Sax, strings and soul', on Prestige, which Fantasy never reissued.

    Well...

    A really booting tenor player, whom I love. But on alto, very different, very lyrical. I think I like him even more on alto.

    MG

  17. Spoke with John Wright This Morning!

    in Artists

    Posted

    It appears that South Side Soul and Mr. Soul were the only releases on CD of his '60s work. I'm a big fan of both and was wondering if there was anything else "in the can" from the 60's that wasn't released and will we ever see that or any of his other official '60s releases on CD? (Nice 'n' Tasty, Makin' Out, or The Last Amen)

    Nice n' tasty came out on CD in Japan. S'nice...

    and tasty.

    What I want to know is, apart from the Prestige recordings, are there any other John Wright albums? Or sideman appearances?

    MG

  19. What vinyl are you spinning right now??

    in The Vinyl Frontier

    Posted

    Art Blakey - Roots And Herbs

    51q7gzYBU3L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

    Possibly my favorite Messengers date.

    The Acid Jazz deejays in Britain in the eighties LURVED that one!

    This afternoon's been good for nice music on vinyl

    Johnny Lytle - Go that feelin' - Riverside (Orpheum)

    The Coasters - 20 great originals - Atco (Atlantic UK)

    Bill Doggett - Hot Doggett - King (Odeon France)

    Buddy Banks Sextet - Happy home blues 1945-49 - stuff from Specialty, Modern, Sterling, Melodisc etc(Official)

    Harmonizing Four - Where he leads me - Gotham (Hob)

    Now I'm downstairs, looking afer the dawg, so it's CDs until late.

    MG

×
×
  • Create New...