The Magnificent Goldberg

Battling Siki Thione Seck Ouza (St Louis)

The Department of Redundancy and Repetition Department awards you a Gold Star, along with an emblem with five points, star-shaped, gilded. But the key word in TTK's post is "now". Wasn't it ALWAYS this way for Hefner? MG

(Still not Welsh) Virgil Jones Bobby Ellis Cootie Williams

The Ramsey Lewis and Sam "The Man" Taylor both look interesting. MG

Very interesting piece. Thanks. MG

Don't confuse the percussion feature with "key-click", which is the sound of the contacts under each key connecting when the key is pressed. It's almost a "static-y" sound. It was a part of the organ that Hammond himself considered a fault and the engineers tried all sorts of electronic solutions to mask it. A lot of the the jazz guys modified their organs so they would have more of that key-click. But I know what you're saying about Groove; he sometimes used the 2nd harmonic percussion and it was very pronounced. Jimmy McGriff modified his B3 somehow to make the percussion really thick and, for lack of a better term, nasty (and get more key-click, too). His tone on those Solid State LPs is ridiculous. Ah, thanks Jim. I remember talking to an organ salesman in the early eighties about the Hammond B3000 and he was saying that Hammond had artificially put that click into the solid state version because organists liked it in the B3. (Then he sat down and played "Misty" with a damn fine groove!) MG

Rev J W Evans Rev Jasper Williams Rev W L Jones (not Welsh, but black preachers)

Thanks for putting up that logo, Fer. Was there ever a better one for a shop? Someone should make a smiley out of it. MG

I'm not sure that's so, but perhaps it depends what you mean by "classic era jazz". I have only about a hundred albums by Swing era musicians and big bands and a couple of dozen by New Orleans bands. This is an area fertile for delightful exploration. I suspect many people on the board are in a similar position. And, as you say, that's limiting consideration to jazz. There's lots of other exciting music out there - and I know you like House. Where do you go to get your insights into fresh stuff? Discos? MG

Damn right! I've had my Philips for seven or eight years and I make the bugger work! About 4,000 hours a year, so that's around 30,000 hours of use. And it was only about a hundred quid. MG

Houston Person - Blue odyssey - Prestige (blue label) Houston Person - The big horn - Muse MG

Those black plastic bags were GREAT! Very sturdy. You could get a lot of LPs in them and the handles wouldn't break before you got them home. MG

Has StereoJack seen what the BBC say about Mole? MG

Ah, including Epic, OkeH and the Columbia Record Club? MG

Jim Conkling was president of Columbia Records in the 50s. Ricky Riccardi dippermouth.blogspot.com Thanks Rick - I thought Lieberson was the president of Columbia. What was his job, then? MG

Yes, I'd forgotten that they operated a mail order business. I started buying from them by mail order in about 1977, because expenses-paid trips to London in those days were most infrequent. They did good business in Muse Soul Jazz LPs with me. MG

That's an interesting memo, Chris. I assume the handwritten note at the bottom is the response by Conklin, throwing the ball back to Avakian. Concklin's name's slightly familiar, but I can't place it. Who was he at Columbia those days? MG

Mole was a very nice shop. There was ALWAYS too much to buy there. And also it was only a short walk up the Euston Road to Sterns. And there was ALWAYS too much to buy there, too! My trips to London, fortunately reasonably frequent and paid for by the office, always ended up with me carrying a huge weight of LPs, K7s and CDs back on the train. Amazing how quickly you can look through a couple of shops when you've got a train to catch I was served by Leni on a few occasions (well, I think it must have been she) and she seemed to know a good bit about Soul Jazz. Now THAT'S unusual! MG

A Blue Note stockholder? Never in my wildest dreams - well, particularly not my wildest dreams, I should say... MG

Oh, thou good and faithful servant! MG

Art Rupe kept the whole of his catalogue alive for years this way. He'd repress anything - mostly 45s, because Specialty didn't issue many LPs until the late sixties - if he got an order for 500 copies. But 500 copies... He did get orders, though. MG

MG

Joe Cool Lucy Linus

This afternoon Blue Mitchell - Blue Mitchell - Mainstream Paul Bryant - Groove time - Fantasy Willis Jackson - Funky Reggae - Trip James Brown - Ain't it funky - King (Polydor recent pressing) MG

Coo! Cheeky! MG