The Magnificent Goldberg

Damn! I must have looked through those lists with my eyes closed! Never saw "Undiluted"! Oh well, I've bought too much anyway MG

Pursuant to Jim's Madison thread - Al Brown & his Tunetoppers - The Madison pts 1 & 2 - Amy (Flashback reissue) The rhythm section on this wins. But the horn section on the Ray Bryant version wins. MG

Was Big Al sears living in Baltimore at this time? Listening to this version, it sounds like a pick up group of top whack pro jazz musicians, not a bunch of local guys. The rhythm section in particular is so loose and groovy it just swings the hell out of the Bryant version, which is fairly strict tempo. Maybe Brown DID form a band in Baltimore but it sounds like when they got to the New York studios, there were all these other guys who'd been assembled by a producer who knew what was what. MG

I danced the Madison. Sad to say, I didn't have the Ray Bryant version at the time (only got that when it was reissued on Collectables CD). I had the Al Brown & his Tunetoppers' Amy single (I'm on my second copy of that. Tell the truth, there ain't much to choose between the two versions except they're different tunes, slightly. Bryant has Buddy Tate on tenor; Brown has Big Al Sears. I'm listening to Al Brown's version as I write. Yes, it swings nice and hard! Side 2 is a little looser and slightly more invigorating for a jazz afficionado. Oh there's a good pianist on it but I forget who. Al Brown sings the calls. Oh the steps... Well, it was a kind of shuffle, where you crossed your legs over then back in a kind of square. A year or so later the Shadows (Cliff Richards' backing group) developed a kind of box shuffle based on it. It was much less energetic than the Twist, the Slop or the Bird or any of the thousand dances, so it greatly appealed to me. Well, I'm listening to Ray Bryant's version now. And, yeah, Buddy Tate wipes Sears. But Bryant's piano is too set into a medium boogie riff, compared to the pianist on the Brown version. And whoever that pianist is, he shreds Bryant. But Bryant's also has solos by Edison & Urbie, which make a difference, too. Anyway, they're both great! Oh, and the Brown version made #23, the Bryant #30, according to the article referenced earlier in the thread. So Amy took out Columbia! MG

Dixie Hummingbirds - Thanks to thee - Peacock (ABC orig) Dixie Hummingbirds - Dixie Hummingbirds live - Peacock (ABC orig) MG

I expect BFT 60 will be full of vinyl drops of Kenny G, Gerald Albright & Najee playing Tata Bambo Kouyate - Djeli moussa - Syllart next Thione Seck - Le pouvoir d'un coeur pur - Akan (Sterns) MG

? MG

Why is that? "Euro-centric" pitch is all about standardizing the octave (yeah, there's always "fudging" going on, but...). You think the piano/etc, where the octave is divided into 12 (theoretically) equal intervals is a non-European concept? No way, dude, no way. "African temperament" is a fact of life. Let's not even get into Indian/Asian temperament... Same thing w/rhythm - "Euro-centric" rhythm is all about equal divisions & placements of the beat (again, there's always "fudging" going on, but...). African rhythm is all about floating in and around the pulse, the "one". This is, I'm pretty sure what Allen is getting at with his "vertical" thing, but I myself think it's futile to look at multi-dimensionality through a lens of just two dimensions... Timbre? "Euro-centric" timbre is all about a focused tone, rigidly aligned to fit within pre-determined parameters. African timbre is a helluva lot more open, the overtones are quite frequently more "on top" than in "Euro-centric" musics. All these things point directly to fundamental differences in perception/consciousness, in the way that one's personal vibrational pattern interacts/intersects with one's environment. You can call it "measuring" if you like (it seems a little simplistic to me, but not really "wrong"...) but the bottom line is that there are differences, they are obvious, they are significant, and they are not accidental. It's not a matter of "not knowing", it's a matter of "differing needs". And to that end, "European" "folk" musics have a helluva lot more flexibility/openness in their personal vibrational pattern interactions than do "court" (i.e. - "classical") musics, and also to that end, the closer to Africa the Euro-folk musics are, the more...."intricate" they tend to be. So what does all this mean? Hell if I know, other than looking at music as just/purely music is something that is only good up to a point, and that the sooner one gets to, and then past, that point, the sooner one is likely to start finding what one is looking for. That, and that Johnny Hodges plays more notes than Coltrane, because Johny Hodges plays an infinite number, but Coltrane's can be counted. Anybody doesn't think that that means something, hey, we might be hearing the same sounds, but we sure ain't hearing the same musics. I think perhaps we didn't understand each other. When you said I got a message that you thought of the African approach as imprecise. But I see now that that isn't what you were saying. MG

Yes - the photo is fine, lettering OK, but the colour!!!! Henry Marquez was the genius who picked the colour. MG

And on Rick James and Prince. MG

Very sorry to hear this. No mention in the obit of her and Stokely being kicked out of the US and getting political asylum in Guinea. She wasn't just against apartheid, but for civil rights everywhere. Now playing the recordings she made in Guinea. RIP. MG

I get what you're saying, but it occurred to me, thinking about this earlier, that one of the basic things a musician, or instrument maker, of a stringed instrument, would absolutely know about is the relationship between the length of a tensed string and the pitch. And that any instrument maker of quality would standardise, partricularly since back in the day (and still now actually) musicians made their own instruments and wouldn't want to make micro adjustments when playing their Sunday best whatever for a special occasion. I have a slight feeling that the idea that African musicians didn't measure things as we do is part of the heritage of Euro-centricism that is so hard for us to ditch. MG

Thanks to all three of you. I get the general idea now. One thing that always interested me - well not always, really - but when I went to West Africa for the first time I found a guy making balas (balaphones) by hand in the traditional way. Now the bala is a very old instrument - a bit like a marimba - wood blocks with gourds hanging off them and you play like marimbas. It certainly goes back to the 13th C and probably a good deal earlier. Anyway, I asked the guy if I could have a go (well, you would, wouldn't you?) and, to my surprise, when I hit the keys successively, found I was playing an ordinary European style scale. The Mandinke musicians and instrument makers might have changed the tuning over the centuries but I can't see why, since they still sing in what you call a pre-tonal manner, with accompaniment by instruments that are tuned pretty much as ours are. I've never been able to get this. Sounds OK, though MG

Spanish Raymond Raymond Lefevre Ray Pounds (on the drums)

It's a beautiful album. It's not (quite) out of print: most of it's included in the Bennie Green Mosaic select. Only the 3 cuts without Stan and Bennie aren't in that. The 5 tracks with Stan and Bennie were initially issued as "Congo lament" on the BN LT series in '79 or '80. Then 3 of those, with the 3 ballads, came out on LP in 1987 as "Easy living". Then the CD you've borrowed came out with the whole session. Now only the "Congo lament" tracks are avaialble on the Mosaic (which is a fine box all the way through, by the way). I think that was a mistake: a select of Ike Quebec, with "Heavy soul", "It might as well be spring", "Soul samba"; "Blue & sentimental" and "Easy living" would have been superb. (Oh, maybe it wouldn't all have fitted onto 3 CDs? no, a trifle too long.) Oh well. Maybe we should all seek an RVG version of the whole session MG

Larry, Allen, could one of you explain what this stuff about tonality and pre-tonality is, please? It's like you're talking a foreign language to me. MG

I feel for you Paps. It's really hard to lose a dog. MG

Nice captions. MG

Yessir! Thanks Jim. A big fave with me is JGW. MG

I agree. I think that Mingus and Friends is a fine album. It is not one of Mingus' great creative statements, but it wasn't meant to be. It is a whole lot of great musicians getting together and paying tribute to Mingus through Mingus' music during the latter's own lifetime. The arrangements are mostly done by Sy Johnson, and I find them quite tasteful, myself. And yes, there is some very nice Jug on this one. Rather than pay a pretty penny for a CD version, you might consider downloading it from Amazon for under $17. Oh, interesting. I'll have a thought about that. Thanks John. MG

Some late forties/early fifties R&B Billy Wright, Prince of the Blues - Stacked deck - Route 66 (mostly Savoy recordings - Wright was a big Atlanta name and an influence on Little Richard & James Brown) Earl Bostic - & his alto sax no 2 - King (Parlophone UK 10") (What an alumni there is on this disc! Benny Golson, Blue Mitchell, Tommy & Stanley Turrentine, George Tucker, Keter Betts, Teddy Charles, Jimmy Shirley and the great Count Hastings!) Frank "Floorshow" Culley - Rock and roll - Atlantic (Official) (Great compilation of all his Atlantic sides by probably the most underrated honker of them all. With Van "Piano Man" Walls to make it even better!) next Preston Love - Strictly cash - Saxophonograph (Early recordings mostly done in association with Johnny Otis - including some Hampton Hawes!) MG

Superman Spider Man Green Lantern

Surely a geezer. Not many women could lift a man and swing him around. MG

This one really interested me, Chris. I have two recordings of Ray Charles from October 1961 - successive nights at the Paris Olympia - and the band was in superb shape. I also saw them at the Hammersmith Odeon on that tour. But doubly lovely for there to have been an after hours session with Messrs Davenport, Chambers and Powell. Did they ever get in touch with you? MG

Cab Calloway Blanche Calloway White Lightning