The Magnificent Goldberg

You said you didn't like anything that required more hands than players. And I'm trying to find out what that does/doesn't include. Or what the hell you mean! MG

Me - I just sed sew. OK, I WILL tolerate him when he's playing with someone I love - like Gene Ammons - or like - like Tina Brooks, or Sonny Clark. So I have 'Jackie's bag' and 'Tippin' the scales'. But I might just as well not have, for the times I've played 'em. I suspect it's more like him, not his music - he comes over to me as a mean bastard. MG

Complete incomprehension. The only instrument I can think of that doesn't require two hands is Lionel Hampton's piano Or do you mean you like 'em all least - ie they're all your favourites? MG

But not EXCLUDING piano and sax? MG

Yes, sorry, I wrote it wrong, because the board insisted I put it in the quote box and I always get befuddled when it buggers me about. I don't know about Ecaroh Music, either and have wondered about it for years. Historians don't talk about this kind of stuff, but how musicians get their money really is as important as the music they make, because they couldn't keep on if they didn't. And if the record companies are scamming by twisted legalities or downright illegalities like keeping three sets of books - one for the taxman, one for the artists and one for real, it's in the public interest to know. MG

Like a piano? Or saxophone? MG

Ha! 1 I don't know what standards to use, even in my own mind, that I could feel I actually had a good reason for such a judgement.. Of course, as a joke, I'd say 'Kind of blue'. 2 It's surely a matter of taste. One's view of the most pretty awful is probably inevitably going to be by someone you don't like. Looking at Felser;s few a few posts back, I'd say that I dislike Jackie McLean a very great deal so I'd be prepared to accept 'Monument' as a pretty awful album - but I haven't heard it. I suspect his view is almost certainly coloured by the fact that it seems overly commercial. And I don't mind that a bit; I like it when jazz musicians make outright commercial albums, so I MIGHT like that (if I didn't know it was McLean). I don't know Brother Ah, though I'm kinda interested in his name. I used to have 'Om' and hated it, but probably wouldn't say it was rubbish. And I've got the Donald Byrd, don't think it's a bad album, though it's not a favourite - but that's another where someone attempted to get another hit and it didn't come off as well as 'his A new perspective' hit. But I bet Byrd got well paid for it. He went to Verve, I dare say, because he'd asked Blue Note for royalties on his hit album and was, as Francis Wolf said in an interview I heard on the BBC, told to fuck off, as were Jimmy Smith, Lou Donaldson and others, because it wasn't in their agreement; Blue Note paid cash over the odds on sessions and rehearsals so they didn't have to bother with royalties.. MG

If I get you right, that film was so amateurish and badly put together it became a classic - a classic of crapness. I don't think there CAN be such a thing as a jazz equivalent, because without exception jazz musicians can play - even Kenny G can play. If I were to make a jazz album, it would be Plan 9 stuff, because I can't play thou, like the director of the film, I've got terrific hackneyed ideas. But if you don't really mean that, a couple of albums I really love, that are by bands that are not generally thought of, even by me, as being much better than about eighth class are Jackie Ivory - Soul discovery and MG

Yes - he made all those albums for Venus with the usual moderately rude sleeves. Never heard those. I'm buying more pianists lately (maybe I have all the interesting organ things). Am I missing something rather nice never having heard Higgins? MG

Sam 'The Man' Taylor made some lovely albums in Japan. Best lounge jazz ever! MG

That's a strange thing to say. It implies (perhaps unintentionally) that you try only to listen to records you think are great. I think one joy of collecting music is to collect a lot of the rubbish people do, as well as their good stuff. You get a balanced view of their work then. But, to me, the other joy is to deliberately seek out and find among the not terribly good, or even the pretty awful, albums I greatly love. But I don't feel it would be honest of me to think that, because they're favourites, they're good. They hit the spot for me, for reasons I frequently can't be bothered to explain to myself, and keep on doing so for years and years. Good VFM, is all I can say. Yes. Well, maybe. Er, probably no. You have to have an objective for making any kind of judgement. That objective is the one YOU set, or the one you're TOLD to use (if for example you're a judge in a court).. But with the objective in mind, you can construct objective criteria. Then you set what you're judging up against those criteria. Well, that's OK if you earn your living doing that, or get paid on the side for it. For just plain guys, it's all a bit bothersome. As others have done, I think this list is greatly overloaded towards Blue Note. I have a lot more Prestige albums (483) than Blue Note (333) ones. Also it's a bit light on Atlantic, Argo/Cadet and Muse - don't think I saw even ONE Muse album in there. Those are the five biggest jazz labels in my collection. I'm definitely not saying they're better than Blue Notes, but you need criteria. Read the sleeve notes for Gene Ammons' 'The happy blues' for an insight into what Bob Weinstock was trying to do as compared with what Alfred Lion and Francis Wolf were up to. In particular, you know that Lion used Ike Quebec to supervise rehearsals then, after Ike's death, Duke Pearson. Prestige didn't have rehearsals. There are relatively few alternative takes for Prestige sessions. If a take was OK, Bob wouldn't get them to redo it perfectly; he wanted to capture moments of inspiration. You DON'T get that with Blue Note - you get remembered music, and remembered inspiration. But you get perfect stuff. OK, if that's what you want... MG

Inside a NEW copy of Fela Kuti's "Authority stealing', on the Kalakuta llabel (Fela's own), I bought at HMV in 1983, there's a propaganda broadsheet called YAP News, which I think means Young African Pioneers. It's said to be the text of evidence given to the Irikefe Crude Oil Sales Tribunal by Fela. The LP has a fault at the end of side 2. Printed on the sleeve, as part of the artwork, is an apology for the slight technical fault "due to This recording under Economic and cultural stress in our country". Something else I've never seen elsewhere MG

Inside, I think, "Don't misunderstand" by Etta Jones & Houston Person - a NEW copy - I found a photo of an approximately contemporary Houston Person band, with Jimmy Lewis, Jimmy Ponder, a white drummer I don't recognise (though I may have done back in 2007). No sign of a pianist or organist - probably there but out of shot. It was done in a restaurant with the word 'lobster' in the outside of the glass window behind the band. The recording was made at "Salt peanuts" NY. Don't know if this matches that place. I got it from Amazon UK. Strange thing to find in a new CD. MG No, I just held the photo against the CD. It must have been inside an LP. Dunno which.

Oh right, I get you now on that. Belford Hendricks, I think, became kinda ubiquitous in the early sixties, doing all those arrangements for Brook Benton. He's not QUITE contemporary with this version of "Gee baby" but not quite non-contemporaneous. Anyway, it ain't him doing the arrangements. Actually, I'm kind of surprised you don't recognise the singer, because I'm sure his other stuff from this period is even now being heard on the radio. MG Yes, that's correct. I should have guessed you might have this. MG

OK, I think I'm getting it now. Yes #9 IS 'Way back home' with some lyrics added. The arrangements are not by Belford Hendricks, however, who, as far as I know, didn't work in Arkansas Frankly, getting anyone's name who had anything to do with this (apart from Joe Sample) is NOT for the amateur Gospel music of the 70's fan. So what's the significance of Julie London lying on her back. please? MG

Not certain I understand. Are you talking about this film, in which Patty Hearst appeared?

I don't think Jimmy Forrest went that way at all. I've certainly heard nothing that indicates that he did. Shirley did, but some of it was great and interesting, and she returned to the straight ahead on her Muse Albums later. MG

Yeah - does she LOOK like Patty Hearst? Dunno what PH looks like, to be frank. MG

Here's a list of Harold Ousley tunes that others have recorded. He made hardly any albums as a leader, so MOST of what he wrote was recorded by others. 1. And that I am so in love – Horace Parlan, Bennie Green 2. Haitian lady – Montego Joe, Jack Mcduff, Grassella Oliphant, Willie Bobo 3. Return of the Prodigal Son – Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Ray Bryant, lots more 4. Win lose or draw – Willis Jackson, Lou Donaldson 5. The latter days – Grassella Oliphant 6. One for the masses – Grassella Oliphant 7. The descendant – Grassella Oliphant 8. Uptown hours – Grassella Oliphant 9. Mrs O – Grassella Oliphant 10. Son of man – Houston Person 11. Pretty please – Houston Person 12. Hope I can love again – Houston Person 13. Sassie lassie – Lou Donaldson 14. The kid - Lou Donaldson 15. Dapper Dan - Lou Donaldson 16. The people’s choice – Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt, Ellery Eskelin 17. Pleasant moments – Jack McDuff 18. The regulars – Red Holloway 19. Minor truth – George Benson 20. Thunder walk – George Benson 21. Elation – Willie Bobo, Bobby Shew 22. Minor revelation –Bennie Green 23. Summer melody – Bernard Purdie 24. That’s when we thought of love - Jack McDuff 25 So never leave my love - Clarence Wheeler MG

So many perfect Gene Ammons solos, but this just GETS me, every time. MG

It's Hirt's SMILE that's the problem, I think, not his clothes. MG

Track 2: Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'". Major Holley humming with bowed bass. Yep; so far so good. Track 3: Guitarist has listened to Wes Montgomery, tho' it's not Wes. Some sort of 16 bar blues. I dare say every guitarist has listened to Wes, including those who started before anyone began to take notice of Wes. Track 4: Back to the blues with 12 bars. Wild guess: Al Harewood on drums? Nope. Track 5: "Makin' Whoopee". Probably not Ray Charles. Definitely NOT Ray Charles, who sang on his version as well as played pianner. Track 7: "Willow Weep for Me" Yup, which of the forty milllion versions is this? Track 8: Cal Tjader? YES!!!! First correct answer. So....? Track 10: Ellington? Nope. Track 12: Illinois Jacquet? Nope. MG

I think I'm supposed to do this tomorrow, after you've all got over the revelations about BFT 172, but here we go anyway. Fourteen goodies, almost all of them jazz Here's the link to Thom's page. http://thomkeith.net/index.php/blindfold-tests/ Enjoy! (Or else) MG