The Magnificent Goldberg

From a record company point of view, isn't there some advantage to issuing new material (whether alternative takes or previously unreleased tunes) from a copyright angle? The previously unreleased material will be copyrighted not from the date of the original release but from the reissue date. This makes it impossible for European companies to issue legally "complete" anythings before 50 years after the reissue date. MG

I'm not a great one for alternative takes, but they have their place. And sometimes they're essential for an understanding of what's going on or the way a musician approaches material. Reading, for example, the sleeve notes of Grant Green's "Idle moments", you've just got to wonder what the original take of "Jean de fleur" was like, and then, years later, to actually have all that material on one CD - and to find that it wasn't just "Jean de fleur" that had to be redone because of the length of the title track, but "Django" as well - is simply great. I've just bought the complete Keynote recordings of Lester Young. I usually find it quite difficult to identify differences between alternative takes in recordings I don't already know very well (and I try to avoid memorising music), but in this case the differences in some of Prez' solos was so great that they just hit me on the first listen. Effectively, these are not different tries at the same performance but completely newly created performances. MG

(Also Mongo Santamaria and Milt Jackson) (And it was a lot more than three years ago - 2002 and 2003) I don't agree, but do agree. I GREATLY prefer "On Basie's bandstand" to "Livin' soul". I don't know the Tjader or Byard albums, but Mongo's "Montreux heat" is just marginlly better than "Summertime" and Milt's "Centerpiece at the Kosei Nenkin" is every bit as good as the original double LP. So I am also greatly in favour of releasing it. MG

It looks awful. But I've GOT to ask What happened to the seven hills we read so much about in Virgil and history books? MG

No time for a sensible post - fish & chips on the way. Nan sang with Teddy Wilson; suffers by comparison with Billie. On her own terms, she's a lovely singer in the Lou Donaldson mould - but twenty years earlier. She was Pinup of the month in "Yank" 11 June 1943. QRT MG

The Vicar of Bray James Galway The Dubliners

that River runs thru Cleveland and as with most greasy soul jazz ... ... can catch fire if not careful! Cleveland... Columbus... Oh well. Nice pic. V greasy. MG

Jolly good, I say! Back in the day, I could buy Soul Jazz albums very cheaply in the London shops, because my mate and I were the only people in the country who wanted to buy them (or so it seemed). When the Acid Jazz thing came around in the eighties, prices skyrocketed, pissing me off severely. Now they're coming down again, I've got most of what I want MG

Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis & Bill Doggett - Midnight slows vol 10 - Black & Blue Illinois Jacquet - Midnight slows vol 8 - Black & Blue MG

Buddy Tate - Hard blowin live at Sandy's - Muse Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - Hold it right there - Muse MG

Benny Morton The Benny who might have had a penny Hank Crawford

No - my wildest dreams are MUCH more enjoyable than that MG

Leslie Welsh Jimmy Edwards Joy Nicholls

in fact When was that guy around? (Oh, and do the Americans know "turf accountant" is the posh name for a bookie?) MG Commercial Road London c. 1970 Whitechapel, I guess, not Tottenham. Great slogan. MG

There should be plenty of stuff around by Mahlathini, the African Queens, or Mahlathini and the African Queens. This is a decent place to get South African music. This page is the index to their South African music catalogue. http://kalahari.net/music/southafrican/default.aspx Postage is high from SA to the US, BUT it's charged on a per parcel basis, so the more CDs you get, the postage remains the same and the unit cost goes down. I've bought a few times from them. And the prices of many CDs are very low indeed! Oh, I think the keyword search takes you to funny places; use the search at the top to look for specific artists. (Or maybe it's the other way round.) MG

Don Cockell Rocky Marciano Rocky

If it's on Pablo Live, I've never seen a Pablo Live LP that wasn't on red vinyl. Pablo and Pablo Today seem all to have used the standard black vinyl. My Coltrane European Tour 2LP set is on the black stuff. As are JJ Johnson 'Yokohama Concert' and the Milt Jackson 'Kosei Negin'. The red vinyl seems to have been fairly common around 1980 (e.g Hubbard at North Sea). Ah, right - most, maybe all, of my Pablo Live LPs are from that period. Playing Inez Andrews - This is not the first time I've been last - Peacock (ABC) MG

Big Mama Thornton Ma Rainey Mama Cass

in fact When was that guy around? (Oh, and do the Americans know "turf accountant" is the posh name for a bookie?) MG

Emperor Rosko Askia Muhammad I Askia Modibo Kone (Askia was the title of the Emperor in Songhai)

Gilbert Harding Buster Harding The Rochdale Cowboy

I met Ben Webster in there. My friend was astonished when I went up to him and talked to him. And even more thast Ben responded in a gentlemanly way. MG

Rusty Bryant - Rusty rides again - Phoenix Jazz Stanley Turrentine & Shirley Scott - Common touch - BN Liberty Ronnie Cuber - Cuber libre - Xanadu MG

Stanley Dance Sidney Mincing Alvin Cash & the Crawlers

We're about the same age and came up in a lot of the same ways, so I know what you're saying, and I know how all that makes you feel, because it has made me feel the same way (or worse, not for nothing did Galio & I get along so well...). But, and I say this after no small amount of wrestling, maybe, maybe it's less important for a 20 year old drummer in 2008 to get inside this shit like we did then because it's less important for them to be/play like those guys now. I mean, ok, we're talking a style that for the sake of broad argument is,,,40 years old. Now, when we were glomming it all in, say, 1978, were we really getting into players from 1938? I mean, I had a reputation at NT for having more Lester Young & Coleman Hawkins sides than anybody (as well as Ayler, AEC, etc, but that was my personal eccentricity, or so it was said...), but to put it in context, one of my buddies one day said, "hey, you're the only guy with any Lester Young sides..." And so I was, and truthfully, at that time, in that place, as evil as it seemed then, it was probably not that evil a scenario, that cats were not too keen on going so far back. They had things to do now, and although the ones who really went on to matter eventually went back, it was because they felt the pull to connect to family, not because they felt that it was..."required" or something. What I do remember was checking out Sid Catlett the first time, because of Max Roach, who adovocated for Big Sid. Well, hey, if you dig Max, you got to dig Big Sid, and then one thing leads to another. But a lot of cats didn't really dig Max all that much, they thought he was a "bebop" drummer (an easy enough fallacy to swallow in the pre-CD Hear It ALL At Once Golden Age...), and all they wanted to know was Elvin/Tony/Billy/Joe etc. They had no time for Max, or Philly, or AT, or Klook, never mind a cat like Denzil Best or Shadow Wilson. And forget about anybody earlier than that, save Buddy Rich. That had all kinda gotten lumped into one compressed "style" thing that you learned if you wanted/needed to, but it was definitely "then", and not readily apparent to have anything to do with right now, which when you're young and on fire is really the only place that matters. And truthfully, as a place to be at a certain time, if you got that going good for you, hey, don't waste it. you got the rest of your life to be old, right? And if the point gets made that there's no more right now left relative to the spiritual continuum as it intersects with the musical, then whoa, that's a whole 'nother point to ponder tight there, if it comes to that. Like I said, this whole historical myopia really used to bug me, but everything coming full circle now, and with so much of what I thought to be hip and badass in my youth falling into the "established tradition" for today's youth, I can't say that if cats can't look backward because they're too busy looking forward, hey, go ahead on, c'est la vie. Eventually the call to family will beckon to those for whom it should. Seems like shit always works out that way. And for those who won't look back (or ahead) just because they're too lazy or stupid or plain ol' ignunt, hey...there's a niche for everybody, and when there's not, consider the herd thinned. Back in the day, you came out of the family, because the family was healthy and self-sustaining. The family was there to help you find yourself. Now, you gotta find yourself and then go looking for the family. And truthfully, I don't know that finding them before you've more or less found yourself is such a good thing... But that's just me. I think this is one of the essential points to grasp about black music in general. People don't go back; they don't hang around, either; they march on ('til victory is won). I see it happening in different kinds of music in Africa and in different kinds of music in America. I think I see it (though I'm not a great observer of it) in Jamaica, too. But they always look back to know how far they've come; usually not explicitly, but explicitly with Hip Hop. MG