The Magnificent Goldberg

Oh, and the music wasn't 'supposedly' dance music in the forties. As you're so intent on history, I'm sure you know that Charlie Parker went on a tour of ballrooms with Willis 'Gator Tail' Jackson. And they played together. Gator knew Parker could outplay him (though Von Freeman didn't a good many years later) and, after a few choruses stepped back and just let Parker play - OK. But Gator was no mean player; he was just doing something different. Steve's wrong about the black public at large not giving a hoot about Parker. He's VERY well respected in that part of society; almost all soul jazz musicians included bebop tunes at gigs and on albums and it's clear the audience knew what was going on. But Parker was not LOVED by the black public the way Gene Ammons and Arthur Prysock were. I saw Arthur and his brother Red in 1990 in Newark, NJ. Three other white people (apart from me) in the ballroom and EVERYONE except a little old white lady who, with her Mum, had run one of those hotels black musicians were allowed to stay in when on tour and knew Arthur (and Parker and Bobby Bland) was dancing. And the feeling in the place! Best gig I've ever been to, even including Ouza in Dakar. I don't imagine you'd have liked it and I'm not trying to persuade you to like it. But your view of jazz history is definitely coloured white. Somewhere here, Jim Alfredson has written up some experience(s) with smooth jazz musicians in black ballrooms in Michigan. I couldn't find it again if I tried but I know Jim is carrying no torch for smooth jazz, but the main burden of what he wrote was that it's still out there for black youth and they're still dancing to it. History isn't what 'authority' believes; it's everything that happened. And no one knows it all because there's too much to know and too many societies in which different things happened. MG PS, for a different view, try to find a short story by Leroi Jones, called 'The Screamers' which deals with a gig of Lynn Hope in Newark in the early fifties. Apart from anything else, it explains WHY the honkers and screamers were necessary in black society. Also take note of Ornette Coleman's words on the sleeve of 'Ornette on tenor'.

Use of the word risible is in itself provocative and condescending. If you look it up in Roget's Thesaurus, you'll find it marshalled under ludicrousness. So I'm on Steve's side here. But I can't do part quotes to save my goddamn life. MG Depends what you mean by the focus of jazz. The focus of criticism was mainly on Charlie Parker; only contemptuous criticism was levelled at the likes of Paul Williams and Big Jay McNeely. But McNeely is (I think) still playing and blowing walls down. Steve IS being defensive. Me too. You weren't trying to buy soul jazz albums in the 1960s. I've no doubt you wanted stuff that every other 'proper' jazz fan wanted (assuming you were around in those days). But it DOES make one feel like the music one's always loved has been continually under attack for decades for no better reason than someone's opinion that it ain't as good as something else. And someone else's opinion is, actually, no better and no worse than mine. I don't mind you disagreeing with me, but I DO feel like being defensive to someone who treats the music as a laughing stock. MG

It's on CD, as a twofer with his previous LP 'The soulful rebel' which is more like the usual Johnny Lytle kind of thing. Here it is, on Amazon UK, for £9.21 new. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soulful-Rebel-Peace-Johnny-Lytle/dp/B00BLZDBBI MG PS If you want the vinyl, you can get it from Discogs. £21-41, which is cheap for the quality of music you get. But it depends where you live and where the sellers are. MG

That's generally right. But this one, 'People & love' on Milestone, DOES go deep. It's a brilliant album. Here's a track. MG

I don't think the jazz musicians who were playing in the brothels of New Orleans early in the century were aspiring to be a part of 'serious music'. I think they were just trying to play good dance music for the customers. And that idea has NEVER left jazz to this day; it's what inspires present day smooth jazz which I'll admit is pretty uncreative, but the idea's still there. Jazz ain't only one thing; it's lots of things because the audience has always been very varied. YOU may want 'serious' music from jazz; I want good dance music. Neither of us is wrong; neither of us is wholly right; neither approach is better than the other;. MG

That's right. Though if one had the energy to count 'em, on a really extremely boring day, one might find that hard bop issues slightly outnumbered soul jazz which outnumbered experimental. But they needed ALL those guys. MG

Haven't seen this thread before. When I spoke to Bob Porter in '96, he confirmed that the album was recorded at the Front Room in Newark, but the tape was screwed up in some way so they did it again, with the audience, in the studio. There are two versions of some tracks and I've occasionally wondered if those that appeared on other albums were actually surviving bits of what was really recorded at the Front Room. MG

I couldn't be asked to count them Fewer than two score, I'd guess. I looked in the Lord Jazz discography instead. 269. My edition is copyrighted 2011, so it's not bang up to date. But there are recordings from 2008 and 2009 listed, so the song's still somewhat current. And Wikipedia doesn't include MY favourite, either; George Freeperson's version from the LP 'Birth sign'. As far as I'm concerned the culture (oh, which one please???) has been busy deteriorating since 1959. I understand that, in those days, most UK A&R managers were professional musicians. Apparently they did some kind of deal with the BBC for the broadcast of Rock & Roll to cease, or be significant'y reduced. And that happened! I noticed, around April, that my record collection was mostly shit, so I had a sort through into good, OK and crap. The Rock & Roll and R&B was kept and I resolved to buy only R&B from then on. But it became hard. One had to start learning stuff that would help one identify good records without knowing anything about them other than title, artist, label and catalogue number. So I worked out how to identify records originating with Atlantic, Chess and Imperial, then got better at it. But I'm conscious that this ain't YOUR cultural deterioration. Or is it? MG

Perhaps. I don't take much notice of Stan Kenton, except when Chris Connor's singing with him. MG

Yeah, it was a big hit worldwide. 'Somethin's comin'' is pretty good, too, I think. there's a nice version by Chris Connor with Maynard Ferguson. And I've always had a very soft spot for 'Gee, Officer Krupke'.- not for the music, but for the words and attitudes. MG

Yes, surprising. They're fine, but not my favourites. MG

I'm having an Erskine Hawkins day. I've got every one of his Chronological Classics CDs from 1936-1951 programmed into my computer. Almost 9 hours of one of my two favourite big bands. Might do the other - Buddy Johnson - tomorrow MG

It's better than bugger all. During the period when there were radio plays charts, and juke box plays charts, the three were remarkably alike. And the radio plays were an independent measure, I think, from BMI or some firm working for it. Not proof but the charts weren't totally science fiction; only sometimes. For example, I understand that, over here, 'Hoots mon' by Lord Rockingham's XI had been at #1 for two weeks already before it became available in the shops. Er... how else did records sell in 1959? And a nice young lady who used to sell me Howling Wolf singles in Ealing told me one day that she'd been phoned and asked when one of the music papers had had an accident with their data and were up against a publication deadline. She said the top seller was Petula Clark's French version of 'Ya ya', which got on the chart as a result. She didn't even stock it; Ealing was an R&B market, I'm pleased to have been able to say; I'd been playing R&B at the Lawn Tennis Club for long enough. But usually, people can't be bothered to invent stuff when it's easier to tell the truth. MG

No real point, just acknowledging that there's no real point in it. I don't like the show or, except for 'My favourite things', courtesy of JC, the songs, though O Hammerstein III (not Rodgers) was a greater songwriter than almost anyone when it came to grabbing the mainstream public by the balls. MG

Oh, and I'm seventy-four and I'd never heard of this geezer until I read this thread. Lucky me. But actually, as Jim has pointed out, and I'm just about to reiterate, it's pretty useless to look at any music chart except as I mostly do, as a measure of how well different record companies are doing. I just now compared the original cast and soundtracks of 'Mame' and 'The sound of music' - a cast iron hit show if there ever was one. Mame's original cast did quite well. In 1966 the OC got to #23 and was on the chart for 66 weeks. In 1974, the ST got to 197 and was on the chart for three weeks. And Mame's the only song you hear. Sound of music, in 1959, got to #1 for two weeks and was on the chart for 233 weeks. The ST in 1965 got to #1 for 16 weeks and was on the chart for 276 weeks. Is it possibly because it was Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel in the OC and Julie Andrews was in the ST? Or was it simply because more people went to the cinema than to the theatre? I dunno, guv. MG

Thank you, Larry; very interesting. In particular because it seems you're a good bit older than him and you were on the border of this sort of stuff just then. So thihs ain't a new phenomenon and... shouldn't you have got used to guys rewriting history by now? MG

Terrific! MG

Ah, I didn't know that as I haven't read the book on Impulse. Pity there's never been a book on Prestige. I'd buy that one like a shot. MG

And again true, without doubt. MG

There are demographic and economic sides to the change in the period, too. Speaking personally, I started buy records, mainly R&B singles, in 1958, when I got my first record player. But '65 was the first year I bought more than a couple of dozen LPs. I think that was true for a very large proportion of the public. LPs were expensive stuff for the well to do middle classes. But in the late fifties/early sixties, economic prosperity spread very widely and even the working class started buying them. There's not one lump called 'THE PUBLIC' there are dozens, scores even, of publics. And even what we in the west call pop music is only the music of the largest minority. To find a pop music that is actually the music of the majority, you have to go abroad - say to Senegal, where Mbalax is the universal music. MG

Yes, you're right - it was 'Stompin''. I have that Jaws/Scott compilation - it's Roulette material from 1958. There are also two nice Moodsville albums. 'Like cozy' and 'Shirley Scott Trio'. You can (could) get those two on 1 CD - Like cozy PRCD24258 MG

I think Gopnik missed a few hits here. Original cast albums that were top 20 hits from later years included: Drean girls - #11 in 1982; Fiddler on the roof - #7 in 1964; Hair - #1 in 1968; Hello Dolly - #1 in 1964; Rent - #19 in 1996; Though those are five exceptions in thirty years. And compared to the late fifties/early sixties, he wasn't wholly wrong there. But there were very many smaller hits against MUCH more competition. MG

Yeah, I think it was that signature that inclined me to buy it, as I think he'd produced Ray Charles' "Genius + soul = jazz". I didn't listen to it much and flogged it soonish. Following producers rather than musicians does sometimes lead you into hotels where the beds ain't too comfortable. But 99% of the time, it works. I don't think i'd attribute much to Taylor's name in 1965; it was several years after he'd left Impulse, which was into very different stuff - that's A77, A75, I recall, is "Fire Music". And so was Taylor - all those Wes and Getz hits. This LP was nothing like anything much of any kind, as I recollect. MG

Well, it was top of the JAZZ chart, which, in the fifties, certainly indicated better sales than it did in the eighties and nineties. And an album that makes the top 20 of the pop chart isn't a hit? OK for 1 week, but all those weeks when only 10 were published, something that made 11 wasn't a hit? MG

Oh, and the Contemporary LP you illustrated wasn't a hit at all. The hit was on Columbia, by the well known typo, Andre Preview. That's this. Doesn't he look like Bobby Darin? OK, details from Joel Whitburn's Billboard pop album chart book: Original cast - entered 28 Apr 56. 15 weeks at #1, over 9 years on chart. Andre Preview - entered 19 Dec 64. peaked at #147, 4 weeks on chart. Nat Cole - entered 26 Sep 64. Peaked at #74, 23 weeks on chart. Sammy Kaye - entered 4 Aug 56. Peaked at #20, 1 week on chart. (At the time LP chart was of variable length including between 10 and 30 albums.) MG