The Magnificent Goldberg

Not Viz? MG

Tenor sax was Stitt's primary instrument after 1948. Really? I've never tried to work out what the balance was between tenor and alto on his records - so bloody many of 'em! MG

Five days of dry weather forecast! Longest dry spell here since Easter 2007! (Well, it feels like it.) MG

Mmmm. Will look into that. I have the 2007 Monk one. Very nice, particularly the original compositions. On those quadromania's, agree they're a great way to get a swift introduction to music you might not otherwise approach, but what are those symbols down the side of the covers meant to represent? They're Japanese Kanji symbols. They're phonetic, so they spell something out. If you grab a Japanese import with sleeve notes, you can probably work, out from looking at the personnel and track titles, what each letter is supposed to sound like (watch out for "L" & "R" - I seem to remember that they leary ah levuhssed ) You can do it while you're waiting for your Christmas dinner to digest MG

Vivian Westwood Clint Eastwood Northwood

So Grandson #2, James, was supposed to spend the day with us, but he's got a cold and so my missus had to go to my daughter's place in Cardiff and look after him. And the groceries were delivered and there were: no chickens; no profiteroles; no trifles; no mince pies - no kinds of puddin's for Christmas. So I phoned my wife and told her what was missing. She said she'd stop off on the way home and pick them up. She just got home and said that Grandson #1, Lawrence, who's 13, went to Sainsbury's and got all the missing stuff for her - and he was very good at getting the right "sell by" dates and everything. Walked a mile each way! For a 13 year old, I think that's brilliant! MG

Jimmy Owens - Jimmy Owens - Horizon Freddie McCoy - Soul yogi - Prestige Grassella Oliphant - The grass roots - Atlantic (UK Decca issue - stereo) now Leon Spencer - Where I'm comin' from - Prestige MG

The Tower in Austin had a whole ROOM devoted to jazz (& classical I believe, my memory is getting rusty). Those were the golden days, and we didn't even know it. Oh, I think we DID know it. On the first floor, Tower on Picadilly Circus had a whole Jazz room (with a tiny bit of World music at one end). And a huge room off the Jazz room, just for Blues and Gospel. There was more Gospel stuff there than in the Gospel specialist shop in Brixton! There was a huge R&B/Soul/Hip Hop/Reggae section in the basement - practically a whole floor! And always good bargains about, as well. Oh, and the guys behind the counter knew their stuff - whether it was about Jazz or Blues or Gospel. And in Britain, that was RARE! There was so much choice in London in the eighties/nineties. Sterns, Mole Jazz, Tower, Miracle Music, little holes in the wall in Brixton where you could buy Jamaican vinyl, a bunch of second hand places in Camden Town, and some places in Soho which had huge basements full of cutout LPs arranged according to no discernable criterion. Pooh gosh! I was decently well off in those days and making frequent trips to London for the office, so I got into these places reasonably often. MG

By Joe Turner MG

Well, it's certainly true that identity is, or can be, to some extent, a matter of choice. But I'm not sure that one can choose (if one chooses) an identity based on a reality that is invented or fantasised. Or at least, if one tried, one would constantly be faced with the claims of the real which contradicted one's supposed identity. Publicly, someone could possibly get away with that, if they could put on a convincing act, at least for a limited time. But in their own minds, they'd always know, and I think it would be impossible for them to sustain it. See J-K Huysmans, "Against nature". MG

Yes, a very happy Christmas to all. (And, as the picture was slowly revealed, milimetre by milimetre, I thought - "Aha! A trombone babe!" Oh well, can't have everything ) MG

Poached, boiled, coddled, scrambled, omelette or fried? MG

HELL YEAH! I can't believe Don was not the first to come to mind. I have many of his recordings and I have seen him play bass and piano and vibes. A former band mate of mine even bought a bass amp from him But maybe Don doesn't count - for the purposes of this thread - as "primary instrument" for him is hard to define. Don't know Don, but you're right in principle. I've kept away from mentioning people who are well known for doubling (trebling etc) on instruments, like David Newman, Plas Johnson, Red Holloway, Frank Wess, Rahsaan etc. MG

Hard to believe it was top of Jazz Jornal International's best seller list 30 years ago - ahead of Spyragyra and Chick C. etc. Indeed! Richard "Groove" Holmes - X77 - Pacific Jazz I think my antipathy to the sound of the Hammond X77 is lessening This came through this morning as a fine live session (with Thornel Schwartz) at the Lighthouse. MG

Well, you DO sound pessimistic It's not that you haven't got a point, but I know that, in the forties and fifties, record producers were taking exactly the same attitude to the singes they were doing of Clyde McPhatter, the Clovers, Ivory Joe Hunter, the Orioles, Joe Liggins etc etc - that this was music with a ten minute lifespan, as it were. But it turned out not to be - and not because of nostalgia; because it was good music; music that was the best those people could make at the time; and they were talented people. I think there is still talent around. And I think people are still trying to do the best they can at this time. What may be different is that so many of today's "pop idols" seem to be discovered through TV talent competitions. Now there's a role for such programmes and in the past some good people have come up through them (though the best were mostly comedians, I suspect - at least, over here). But it's a minor role, at best. But it seems to be the norm now. So there is less of a tendency to find people coming up through the same process of playing to local audiences first and honing whatever it is they've got to the needs of a real audience with whom they identify (and there's no doubt that the Beatles and Stones etc did that). MG

Simon Templar Leslie Charteris Sam Charters

Happy Birthday, young sir! Have a Pepsi Party! MG

MG

Two tenor players brought from relative obscurity by Jimmy McGriff Bill Easley - Wind inventions - Sunnyside Arnold Sterling - Here's Brother Sterling - JAM now Rev J W Evans - Life beyond the ashes (sermon) - Songbird (ABC) MG

I've actually seen an album or two where Ray Charles plays alto sax--I believe for the entire album. I can't track down the info though right now. Edit to add that it was a tribute to Charlie Parker, iirc That's "Soul brothers", with Milt Jackson. Ray plays piano on most, if not all, tracks, but gets in some alto playing, too. And Milt gets in some piano playing, when Ray's on alto, and guitar playing. But they're both on their main instrument most of the time. But you've reminded me about Ray Charles - Genius + Soul = Jazz - Impulse Ray Charles - Genius + Soul = Jazz Live - Golden Age of Jazz Ray plays organ throughout these two albums. MG That's the one, yep. Oh, I didn't realize it wasn't the whole album. How are the Ray Charles organ albums? -Jay If you're into Ray, the Impulse is very good. He's no Jimmy Smith, though. If you're into Don Wilkerson, the live one, done in Paris October 1961, has his most incredible solo of all time. MG

I can't take credit for that. I think MG id'd the album. I did in my mind, but couldn't bring the title to mind. I remember really liking about half this record, but it led me to the older Farmer stuff (like the Argo recordings) and that was pretty much the end of its tenure in my record collection (along with the pitiful Joe Henderson co-lab on CTI). No, I said it WASN'T "Gentle eyes" because I'd listened to samples of all the cuts and didn't recognise the BFT cut! MG

That's it, let's call it all off and start over. Or rather, maybe we should think about calling it off and starting over, if anyone wishes to discuss that. Too soon; Christmas just a few days away. Let's think about whether we need to go as far as discussing anything in the new year. MG

MG

I'm a bit busy; can we do this some other time? MG

Little Milton - Little Milton - Checker (Vogue France) MG