The Magnificent Goldberg

Oh, it's OK. I have the Percy France. As soon as you mentioned Sir Charles, I thought, then read what you said. I didn't send Allen a PM, anyway. Too late at night for me to do stuff like that. I think Percy only appeared twice on BN; once each with Freddie Roach and Jimmy Smiff. But he's another great sideman. MG

I've not heard 'Satin doll' either. And 'Workin'' isn't ALL Shirley Scott. There's a Don Patterson cut in there, but the discographers got snarled up and forgot to notice it. When I told him, Mike Weil managed to acquire a copy and said he'd rip it for me one day. It's a real shame that not all the Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis material he did for King, a lot of it with Shirley, hasn't been reissued. MG

He's only wrong if you take a purist view of jazz, Larry. Nat King Cole, who I think is a jazzman, had a hit with this And Sammy Kaye had one with this OK, lots of people would call this sweet jazz, then ignore it. Gopnik didn't. MG

Thanks Larry. Not an urgent requirement, then. MG

MY GOODNESS!!!!! Thank you. MG

Nope. Very few albums with his name on them. Offhand, I can think of Jimmy McGriff's 'Main squeeze' - he plays alto on that - and Joe Carroll's 'Man with a happy sound' on Charlie Parker Records. Oh, there MUST be some more... Oh yes, he's on Freddie Roach's 'Soul people', too. MG

Oh, if it's a compilation, I doubt you could resolve the socks enigma, but do tell more when you've had another listen. MG Never out on CD, apparently (though yours is probably a CD) and expensive from discogs.

I'm just listening to Jimmy Forrest's 'Heart of the Forrest'; a trio session on Palo Alto, with Shirley and the one and only Randy Marsh - NO BASS PLAYER! A damn fine album! And another is the Al Grey-Jimmy Forrest Quintet. Live at Rick's - on Aviva. This also features Shirley. Bits of the session have come out as 'Night train revisited' (Storyville) and as 'Truly wonderful' (Stash). I don't have the Stash. They're both from 1978, which shows: a) how old Randy has to be and b) that people HADN'T gone off organ even by the end of the seventies. And they're really playing all the time on these. MG

Yeah, but she did later, on 'A walkin' thing' - yeah, the Bennie Carter tune. It was her last album. By the way, has anyone heard this album, by Joe Newman, featuring Shirley? It's from January 1958, before she started working for Jaws. I never have, either MG And - is Joe only wearing socks? Oh, very subliminal for '58!

Yeah, that's a very nice one. MG

Fine thanks, Bill. MG

Yes, quite a surprise as it's not a Shirley Scott album. Must be out of copyright. I think the only CD version was from Japan, so few would have bought it, even though it was available from Dec 1993 to Dec 1995. MG

I've got a BFT nearly ready now, soI could go in when you've got a spare month, Bill. I can't do July, though, but I see that's taken. MG

I could only be bothered to buy five. Of them, I like the ones by Curtis Amy, Bennie Green and John Patton best. The Bechet and Matthews not so much. MG

As would be expected, I come at this from a rather different angle. I've tried to limit my eleven (!) to people who made only one or two albums at most as a leader for Blue Note. But most of this lot NEVER had a leader date for the label. Claude Bartee Marvin Cabell The one and only Herman Foster! Fred Jackson Conrad Lester Idris Muhammad Sonny Red Shirley Scott Melvin Sparks Leon Spencer Harold Vick Only Jackson, Red and Vick made albums for BN as leaders. MG

My favourite of the organ/bass/drums LPs on Prestige is 'Drag 'em out'. That one still HASN'T been reissued on CD, to my knowledge. Title track takes up all of side one and is V greasy. Major Holley is the bass player and does a very long, funky, bowed solo. Roy Brooks on drums. Prestige PR7305. Don't miss! MG

Maxwell Davis was on the following T-Bone Imperial sessions: 15 Aug 1951; 20 Aug 1951; c Dec 1951; 10 Mar 1952; Mar 1952; and c Mar 1952. I don't know what's on that LP of Paul's. MG

Pooh gosh! MG

Well, I thought it did, but I couldn't understand (still can't) why none of the times on my copy matched the timing on this one. So I decided it had to be a different version of one of the tunes. I didn't try to identify the tune by listening to each track, because it seemed a fruitless exercise, given that it couldn't be one of those tracks. But I WOULD like to know why they're different. MG

Yeah. Didn't do too well with the rest, I think. Got the Abdullah Ibrahim, though none of us seem to know which album it comes from. MG

One of the companies - I guess either Victor, ARC or Columbia - was issuing 12" long playing albums in the thirties, but they weren't vinyl; I think they were shellac. And they were so unsuccessful to they gave it up as a bad job. I'll try to find the reference again. Mostly classical, but I think there were two Duke Ellingtons in there. MG Yes, it's part of the RCA preview pdf on the Both Sides Now site. Here's the quote: "RCA developed 33 1/3 RPM records in 1931 which were called program transcriptions. These records had the same grooves as a standard 78 RPM records of the days. These records were a failure during the depression and abandoned. RCA Victor did not produce 33 1/3 RPM records again until 1949 when they adopted the microgroove record developed by Columbia. When Columbia was developing the33 1/3 RPM long play records, RCA Victor developed the 45 RPM record, the 45 was 7 inch in diameter and had a large hole in the middle. The 45 was developed to play the same amount of music as the 78 RPM, 10 inch record. During the 50’s and 60’s the 45 RPM was dominate for singles and totally replaced the 78 RPM by 1960 in the United States. In the long run though, the 33 1/3 long play became the dominant format which lasted until it was replaced by the Compact Disc in the 1980s." MG There's supposed to be a listing on BSN but it's gone missing. You get a page not found error when you hit the link. MG

11 -- Illinois, or Arnett, orJug. Tenor with maybe three other horns in the back. The first half-chorus of the tenor solo could be textbook Dexter, but it's not him. Eagerly awaiting an answer to this one. None of those. It is from that era. This is the kind of thing that The Magnificent Goldberg can identify in about three seconds. Well, I damn well DIDN'T! I'll have another listen in a bit. MG Oh, it's 'On my own' by Gator Tail. Sorry to be so slow. MG

BFT168 Well, here we are; Missus getting Grandson #2 to karate but reporting an accident having blocked the road on the return, so she doesn’t know how late she’s gonna be. What an opportunity! 1 Ah, an audience; unrecognisable, I’m afraid. As for the band, sounds like someone playing Monk at a burlesque (music hall) show. Not something I’d willingly encounter even on a dark night. I know the tune well, but can’t be asked to call the title to mind. 2 An organist. Playing ‘Satin doll’. Happy to wind up the volume. I suspect this is a lady organist; she’s a bit well behaved. The tenor player has an awful sound; he probably sounds better in the bath. Someone playing with a sound like this doesn’t deserve to be listened to with any great attention. Sometimes the organist reminds me of Rhoda Scott, but not in her chorded chorus; I think Rhoda plays MUCH better than this. 3 Indian percussion going on here makes me think this is a fairly modern recording. Oh, in comes a sitar. Well, it’s not that it’s not nice and pleasant. It’s more that I don’t really care. 4 Pleasant-sounding guitarist playing a tune that sounds as if it’s something everyone knows except me. He sounds a bit amateur, with all those halts or slow-motion bits, like he hasn’t had the lesson on swing yet. 5 Something swinging a little bit funkily on ‘Dat dere’. It’s not a version I’ve heard before. Pretty nice, though he sounds like he’s playing a little fast for his ability. Must be someone I’ve heard of but haven’t got into properly. Drummer sounds a bit too much or too loud or something. But this sounds like someone I should look into. 6 I’m looking for the tune and ain’t finding one; just a bunch of bits for two minutes forty-two. Maybe the idea is to produce a tune full of quotes. Well, my wife was mistaken about traffic holdups on the way home. So I'm full of dinner now with the washing up done, too. 7 Oh, this is nice, shades of ‘I water the front cover’. I SHOULD know this tenor player. But I don’t. Sounds like Richard Wyands being ornate on piano. There’s a lot that’s very familiar about the tenor man; I think I’m going to howl when I find out who it is. 8 Flute player. I’m quite poor on flute players, but I’m sure it’s not David Newman. Or Herbie Mann, for that matter. He’s flowing quite nicely, though. Zounds! I KNOW this! I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere. Well, now I’m NOT sure. But NOW I think this is Abdullah Ibrahim. Something from the ‘Ekaya’ album, but none of the timings fit, so it must be one of the others. 9 Ah, go on, pull the other one. 10 Well, this COULD be a late Gerald Wislon cut. I think he lost his touch sometime in the seventies or eighties, though I haven’t heard a lot of it. But it’s a bit like his recent things that I don’t like nearly as much as his PJ work. Of course, it could be Bobby Bryant. The trumpet soloist sounds a bit like him. It’s all good but doesn’t seem to have a directed intention behind it. 11 Oh THIS I know, and have. It’s Illinois Jacquet. 12 ‘Take the A train’ by someone not too unfamiliar. Actually it’s by someone not too familiar to ME; Duke Ellington, I think. Nah, I know that tenor player better than I know Paul Gonsalves. You know, it could be ANOTHER Jacquet. 13 Don’t know the tune but the guitarist sounds like Freddie King got into a big band by mistake and didn’t leave quickly enough. 14 Noises pretending they’re music. 15 Nice stuff to start with. A bit reminiscent of some Abdullah Ibrahim stuff, but a bit too undirected for him. Well, quite a LOT too undirected for him, I say, as the band starts to give its impression of swinging movie music. Not for me, thanks. Off I go to listen to Lord Kitchener. HE swings! MG

Certainly true; but were they stuff that was deliberately recorded to be an album, like the Hawkins, or a bunch of old singles slammed together? (Like the Perez Prado I have.) MG

I dare say you're right, Chewy, about more live things being around. I don't mind waiting for a year or two, while I get used to these two huge albums. MG