The Magnificent Goldberg

You could ask him who they got to do their pressings or if they did them all themselves - a Bihari on each press I read an interview with Leroy Hurte, who had one of the first indie labels in LA (Flash, 1939, then Bronze, 1944) and he said there was so much other business to take care of, he could only press 1,000 records a week, so eventually he had to employ someone to run his press. I'd really be interested to know how many people the firm employed. MG

Does that mean I don't need to pay you the ten bux? (Too late, done already.) MG

I bet we've all got some stuff that NO ONE else in Organissimo would even consider getting. I've got a bunch of full length sermons, some of which I was listening to earlier and I thought (as I posted them in the what are you listening thread) they'd be of absolutely NO interest whatever to anyone reading the thread. So I thought, well, see what everyone else has got. Here are my sermons (so far - I'm still collecting them) REV TED CUVESTON – IT’S CHEAPER TO SEEK HER REV LEO DANIELS - QUIT TALKIN’ TO YOURSELF REV LEO DANIELS - IT’S COMIN’ UP AGAIN REV LEO DANIELS – LOOKIN’ FOR A BARGAIN REV LEO DANIELS - WHAT IN HELL DO YOU WANT REV ROY EASLEY – THE WORLD SERIES REV ROY EASLEY – THE NEW MAN REV J W EVANS - LIFE BEYOND THE ASHES REV C L FRANKLIN – THE EAGLE STIRRETH HER NEST REV C L FRANKLIN – THE WILD MAN MEETS JESUS REV C L FRANKLIN – THE RICH YOUNG RULER REV C L FRANKLIN – THE LORD’S PRAYER REV C L FRANKLIN - SATAN GOES TO A PRAYER MEETING REV J HERBERT HINKLE - I’M IN DEBT AND I CAN'T PAY REV ISAAC JENKINS – A FOUNTAIN FILLED WITH BLOOD REV JOHNNY LEE JONES - I CAME TO PREACH A SERMON REV JOHNNY LEE JONES - JESUS IS IN TOWN REV W L JONES – IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN GOOD NOT TO TOUCH REV W L JONES - LOVE & HAPPINESS REV J W LUMPKIN - SATAN IS USING HIS SIFTER REV B W SMITH - DRY BONES IN THE VALLEY REV B W SMITH – THE HANDS OF GOD REV JASPER WILLIAMS - CLEAR SHINING AFTER RAIN REV JASPER WILLIAMS – I’M BLACK & I’M PROUD REV JASPER WILLIAMS – THE FAITHLESS DISCIPLE REV JASPER WILLIAMS – I FELL IN LOVE WITH A PROSTITUTE REV L W WILLIAMS – DOING OUR BEST IN SERVICE TO THE LORD In addition, I have quite a lot of albums of short sermons from the 78 era. MG

Well, the connection's held up very well this afternoon/evening! Thanks for all your good wishes. MG

You mean Sam "The Person" Taylor? Damn! You got me! MG

I have a 5X5 Expedit unit, which is full of books. It's OK but I don't have to move it about (couldn't!!) Sounds like the real solution is to get someone to build a set of sheves in the closet so you don't have to move it. MG

I always liked patronising a record shop on a regular basis. You get to know the people behind the counter; they get to know you and to appreciate that you're a serious buyer; and I was a serious buyer from the very beginning The first shop I patronised regularly was when I was in school around the corner from Buckingham Palace. I used to go home to Ealing by tube from Victoria Station. Opposite the railway station, behind the bus station, there's a very seedy little row of shops - an all night cafe for prossies, a dirty bookshop, a deli - and at the end, there was a little record shop, just through a doorway onto the street and up the stairs. I was there two or three times a week and the lady who ran that was very, very helpful. It was there I bought my first real jazz LPs - to by the MJQ. Another interesting shop I recall from those days was in Goodge Street. I had a holiday job at Christmas 1959 with a silk merchant in Luton Street and found this place a short way up the road. It was a second hand shop with LOTS of interesting stuff. Can't remember what a lot of these places were called. Anyone remember this one? Sterns original shop was near there, but I didn't find it until a lot later. Then they moved to Camden. MG

Back in the day - I mean really back in the day - when I was fifteen and starting to buy records, I lived in the West End and my local record shop was HMV's original shop in Oxford Street - the one with the Bauhaus type staircases. Later, when I moved to Ealing, there was a nice shop called Squires there. Once I'd started working, I was buying stuff at Harrods, then three places on Bond Street, when I moved office to that area: one was a little electrical shop with a little record department called Boyd's. A nice young girl ran that counter and I fancied her quite a bit. Anyway, she used to get a one sheet Cashbox top hundred every week and I'd order stuff from the lower half of that chart from her. The other shops I used a lot in Bond Street were Keith Prowse and Chappell & Co, the music publishers. Both of them had good jazz selections: I got Nat Adderley's "Work song" in Prowse pretty well as soon as it started to be imported over here. When I moved to West Hampstead, there was a tiny little record shop on a corner in West End Lane, with a very nice, fat lady running it, with a great selection of old Vogue EPs. The place was nearly opposite the record shop owned by Shirley Bassey and one heard all sorts of unrepeatable gossip about SB in the other shop Later on, after I'd moved to Brighton, Dobells became the Mecca on my trips to London. I met Ben Webster there one day. What a thing! Ben Fucking Webster!!!! MG

Yes, I did, maybe 3 or 4 times a week but my time of day was different. I used to catch the bus from Fleet Street after work to get to Picadilly Circus, looked around for an hour or so before going home with my purchases. Tower did have a wonderful selection but, on reflection, it was very expensive. (I bought a large number of Japanese Blue Notes there over the years) I always liked Mole but it never came to grips with CDs (IMO) and I stopped going there soon after I bought a CD player in 1984. I expect it was me in the business suit. In the nineties I frequently had to go up to London for meetings and usually managed to wangle time to visit a number of shops either before or afterwards. Tower was an invariable venue because, even if the meeting finished well into the evening, you could still go to Tower before you headed for your hotel. The other ones I used to hit on these occasions were Miracle Music in Brixton (Gospel only shop), Mole, Soul Jazz, Reckless and Sterns. Tower was a bit expensive - well, for jazz. But for Gospel music it had a completely different selection from Miracle Music Miracle was very good on the Atlanta International, Benson, Onyx International and Word labels; Tower had loads of Savoy/Malaco stuff. And it wasn't too expensive, as I recall. I visited Tower in Dublin once when I was over there for a few meetings and in one evening I got a huge load of Toshiba Blue Notes, including a couple of the 1600 series I'd never heard of, for some astoundingly small money. No one's mentioned Birmingham. I went there a few times on computer courses in the eighties and one time found a shop in a residential part of town, but not far from the place where our course was. It was somewhat expensive but I picked up the Stan Turrentine dots BN twofer, Groove Holmes' "The groover", Pharoah Sanders "live at the East" and a Tiny Bradshaw CD. The guy in the shop didn't know what to recommend for me It had a HUGE stock. Practically a whole wall of jazz lps all filed upright with just their spines showing, so you had to walk along the wall with your neck twisted sideways to see what they had. It was called The Diskery and was in Bromsgrove St. The big problem was, I could never find the place again! Every visit, I'd scour the neighbourhood and fail to find it. MG

"Come rain or come shine" by Betty Roche, from "Singin' and swingin'" (OJC) The whole song is a duet between Betty and Jimmy Forrest, with the very quietest support from Jack McDuff & co. One of the loveliest bits of tenor playing behind a singer I've ever heard. I have had the LP for years and years but it's never hit me before like this time. MG

Not heard that one but I've always wondered about it. I played Bette Roche's "Singin' and swingin'" the other night and her version of "Come rain or come shine", with a fabulous obligato from Jimmy Forrest running through the whole track, stopped me dead! Her other Prestige Album, "Lightly and politely" is another good 'un. Etta Jones is another great late night singer. Anything by her. Also, how could we forget the entire Black & Blue "Midnight slows" vols 1-10? And some remarkable albums on Moodsville, after which the "Midnight slows" series was modelled? In particular: Arnett Cobb - Ballads by Cobb Gene Ammons - Soulful moods Gene Ammons - Nice and' cool (these two are on the twofer "Gentle Jug") Willis Jackson - In my solitude Sam "The Man" Taylor - The bad and the beautiful Coleperson Hawkins - At ease Coleperson Hawkins - The Hawk relaxes and the first Moodsville Red Garland Trio + Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis MG

The BBC have always known this. MG

Today's been a day for Cab Calloway & his Orchestra Volume 1: 1930-1934 - JSP Volume 2: 1934-1940 - JSP Nine solid hours of total hipness! Oh, I just love this band more than any other, I think. MG

Virtually no rain all September here in rainy South Wales MG

I hope I'm back permanently. My system eventually degraded so much the I couldn't even get into my mailbox or my bank - or even Amazon!!!! But it enabled me to see that most of the problem was my wireless dongle. So I got a new one last week and, after five hours of phone calls to my phone company, it seems to be behaving properly - cross fingers. I hardly know where to start, now MG

My connection has been awful for several weeks now. I'm writing this in the library. It used to be bad for a bit, then tolerable for a bit, but I'm not expecting any improvement, now. The phone company says it's the way the connection has been set up and the guys who set it up say that it's the phone company's fault. What can you do? Next March, the roll-out of digital TV reaches this area and we'll buy new TVs, a new computer (mine will be about 7 years old by then) and change our phone supplier to a firm that will bundle TV, phone and broadband into one package. I'm hoping things will be better then. But until then, I shan't be making appearances, I'm afraid. See you all next year. MG

Hey, that one looks interesting! What period does it cover? ... This should cover the period in the late 40's when the label was operative. I am not sure of the precise time frame(1946-1950?). This comes with 56 tracks, and a 36 page booklet. The tracks are here: http://www.play4me.com.au/product/roy_milt...56197_3974.html I ordered it from Red Lick Records: http://www.redlickrecords.co.uk/ Thanks Jostber. I thought Red Lick, from whom I used to buy a lot of stuff, had closed down. But your link revealed that they've moved from Portmadog to just down the road from me! MG

Yes, the original version came out on Virgin's budget subsidiary Caroline C1504. I was hanging out in the record shop one day and the Virgin rep came in with the next week's releases. Ralph, the shop owner was looking through them and saying, "yes" and "no". He said "no" to "In the townships" so I said "yes - get one for me". So I got it on the day of release! MG

An interesting remark, Nate. Do you mean "only A specific audience", or a number of different audiences, each of which is an audience specific to the particular musician/music? If the latter, that surely applies to most of the music most of us listen to most of the time - certainly me, but they're certainly very different "specific audiences". In fact, I don't know if there's such a thing as music intended for a "general" audience. MG

This guitarist isn't usually known for playing anything that resembles jazz, so the bits of 1930s swing here (not in 7/4, surely) are unusual, & I think effective. It's one of his more hard-to-find solo albums because the label is no longer around. Actually, it was a joke, Nate - not a time sig, but a ref to Organissimo's very own microtonal guitarist MG

Last night, inspired by Paul's thread about vocalists, I was knocked out by Jimmy Jones' bass lead on "Motherless child" by the Harmonizing Four (from a Charly comp of their Vee--Jay recordings). The greatest bass lead ever! And at breakfast this morning, by "Stardust" by Lionel Hampton's Just Jazz All Stars, from "The legendary Decca recordings of LH". This is with Charlie Shavers (tp), Willie Smith (as), Corky Corcoran (ts) - all three of whom are in top form on this; great solos. Live at Pasadena, 4 Aug 1947. MG

Missed out Assane Ndiaye from the Mbalax list MG

In no particular order (but within categories), except the first Concha Buika Mandinke singers Kouyate Sory Kandia Sekouba Bambino (Diabate) Alpha Demba Camara Ami Koita Tata Bambo Kouyate Kandia Kouyate Kante Manfila Mbalax singers Ouza Youssou Ndour Thione Seck Ablaye Mbaye Moussa Ngom Mamaou Maiga Fallou Dieng Alioune Mbaye Nder Kine Lam Souleymane Faye Ndiaga Mbaye Gospel Claude Jeter (Swan Silvertones) Silas Steele (Spirit of Memphis) Kylo Turner (Pilgrim Travelers) Keith Barber (Pilgrim Travelers) Archie Brownlee (Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi) Dorothy Love Coates (Gospel Harmonettes) Mildred Clark (Kansas City Melodyaires) Willie Banks (Willie Banks & the Messengers) Jimmy Jones (Southern Sons, Harmonizing Four) (greatest bass lead of all time) Benny Cummings Inez Andrews Rev James Moore LaShun Pace Dorothy Norwood Blues/R&B Percy Mayfield T-Bone Walker Lowell Fulson Bobby Bland Aretha Franklin Jimmy Witherspoon Ray Charles James Brown Randy Crawford Charles Brown Junior Parker Roy Milton Louis Jordan Joe Liggins Amos Milburn Albert Collins Otis Rush Little Milton Erykah Badu Fats Domino Etta James Other stuff Lucky Dube Cesaria Evora Alpha Blondy Labah Sosseh Pape Seck Pape Fall MG

I agree. There was a report yesterday that the UK drugs advisory body was coming out with a report recomending downgrading Ecstasy to a B class drug but that the government weren't likely to folow this advice. The theory everywhere seems to be that, if people like to do it, it must be even worse than sex. MG

Yes, the earlier PR RVGs were a bit interesting, with McDuff, Earland and Etta Jones in there. But I've got the earlier versions, so I didn't upgrade, since there was no extra music - and I guess Concord knew their best customer for Soul Jazz didn't bite MG