The Magnificent Goldberg

Another comedy writer I like a lot is Thomas Love Peacock. He wrote satirical novels in the first half of the 19th C, but there are a few classic poems included. This one, "The war song of Dinas Vawr", is from his novel based on the Taliesyn legends, "The misfortunes of Elphin (1829). A friend in Brighton, an undertaker by profession, used to recite this as his party piece, putting on a brilliant imitation of the accent of Lord Montgomery of Alamein, to hilarious and highly satirical effect. WAR SONG OF DINAS VAWR The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter; We therefore deemed it meeter To carry off the latter. We made an expedition; We met a host, and quelled it; We forced a strong position, And killed the men who held it. On Dyfed’s richest valley, Where herds of kine were browsing, We made a mighty sally, To furnish our carousing. Fierce warriors rushed to meet us; We met them, and o’erthrew them: They struggled hard to beat us; But we conquered them, and slew them. As we drove our prize at leisure, The King marched forth to catch us: His rage surpassed all measure, But his people could not match us. He fled to his hall pillars; And ere our force we led off, Some sacked his house and cellars, While others cut his head off. We there, in strife bewild’ring, Spilt blood enough to swim in; We orphaned many children, And widowed many women. The eagles and the ravens We glutted with our foemen; The heroes and the cravens, The spearmen and the bowmen. We brought away from battle, And much their land bemoaned them, Two thousand head of cattle, And the head of him who owned them; Ednyfed, King of Dyfed, His head was borne before us; His wine and beasts supplied our feasts, And his overthrow, our chorus. MG

One of the most irritating things in the world (to me) is companies' penchant for putting you on hold and playing you crap music - my telephone company plays Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the air". In recent weeks I've twice had to phone a firm - I forget which - and instead of music, they've played a recording of someone reciting (his own?) poetry - light and amusing stuff mostly. This is a GIANT step forward; particularly since my preference is for comedy poetry. Ogden Nash is my favourite and this never fails to make me giggle. VERY LIKE A WHALE One thing that literature would be greatly the better for Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor. Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts, Can’t seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else. What does it mean when we are told That the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold? In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experience To know that it probably wasn’t just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians. However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity, We’ll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity. Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold? In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are a great many things, But I don’t imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings. No, no, Lord Byron, before I’ll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof; Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof woof woof? Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most, Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host. But that wasn’t fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them, With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they’re the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them. That’s the kind of thing that’s being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson; They’re always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison, And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm. Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I’ll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we’ll see which one keeps warm, And after that maybe you’ll begin to comprehend dimly What I mean by too much metaphor and simile. MG

I should think that's very nice. I quite like Earl Grant. I have a German Brunswick of "Nothin' but the blues", with Plas Johnson, which I like very much, though I think I need to do a serious cleaning job on it before I play it again. Now playing Georgia Mass Choir - Yes he can - Savoy MG

Oh, sorry Steve - I didn't look. Thanks. MG

Lubinsky interests me quite a lot, but I've read little about him. Where did you get your info from Allen? MG Whenever Savoy and Lubinsky are mentioned (mags, liner notes, books), the bottom line always is the same. Also, there is a pretty comprehensive chapter on the man in a book called "Newark Nightlife" dealing with black/jazz/jazz-related entertainment in the Newark area from the beginning up to the 50s. Fascinating reading and yours for the taking (and shelling out the bucks) on Amazon. Also, there is a bio/memoirs by Teddy Reig. I haven't been able to obtain it (yet) but I guess he'd have a handful to say about Lubinsky too. Thanks Allen. Is this the book you're referring to? And isn't that Lubinsky in the striped suit on the cover? MG

I think you misunderstand the urban black market in the US. When I worked at the JRM in the '60s, the vast majority of JOS sales (80%) were to working class blacks. The Sermon and House Party were at the top of the list. These were folks buying second and third copies because the others had been damaged at parties. This was primarily a white store. The singles business was a blues and r&b market at the time. Thanks Chuck - it's hard to get the right impression from over here. MG

Jimmy Smith didn't popularise the organ in the black community. He did popularise it in the white community, of course. Wild Bill Davis was the man in the black community. His recordings for OkeH were the real start of the organ movement. He was followed quickly by Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner (though I've never been sure of how popular in the black community Buckner really was). Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis started the tenor/organ concept in 1951, but those recordings for Roost never sold, though they're interesting. But from 1956, his recordings with Shirley Scott on King, Roulette and then Prestige, leading up to the classic Cookbooks of 1958 were another very important factor in the spreading popularity of organ jazz in the black community. And I should also have mentioned Doc Bagby, who was A&R director for Gotham, producing many gospel sessions and playing organ on some in the late forties/early fifties, then joining with Jaws to produce the first regular working tenor/organ combo (as opposed to a pickup studio group). Check out Jaws' 1954 Birdland gig on Roost, also featuring Sonny Stitt, for some nice Bagby. MG

Lubinsky interests me quite a lot, but I've read little about him. Where did you get your info from Allen? MG

Eugene Williams & Sister Lee Ida Brown - Somebody bigger than I - Songbird (ABC/Dunhill orig) Savannah Community Choir - He cares for me - Atlanta International Salem Travelers - Everything is gonna be alright - Checker (GRT orig) MG

The only person who might know is Cuscuna. "Blue Note" the company, just went through a rather large workforce reduction. I don't know if anyone is even technically working for Blue Note any more. Ah well. What happens to stuff like correspondence and accounts material when a record company gets taken over? I'd have thought it would be kept somewhere. MG

Thanks Soul Stream. I saw that band in Brighton on that tour (actually I thought it was a one-gig tour) and my feelings were pretty well what everyone else's have been seeing the video. It was great to see John in person but the band didn't serve him as I'd have liked. You've got to remember that that band (including John) was hired to please a very basic Acid Jazz dance crowd; average age twenty it seemed to me. They did that. There were about three thousand people there, the dance floor was shoulder to shoulder, and the entry tickets priced high for those days (much higher than Ronnies; it was certainly the most expensive gig I'd ever been to; I wouldn't have been able to afford it had Brighton not been my home town and I could stay at my mother's). As I recollect, they played very little of John's more adventurous material - and possibly Toussaint would have been more at home had they done so. My recollection is that this was about 1993, but I can't be sure. MG

Jimmy Smith didn't popularise the organ in the black community. He did popularise it in the white community, of course. Wild Bill Davis was the man in the black community. His recordings for OkeH were the real start of the organ movement. He was followed quickly by Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner (though I've never been sure of how popular in the black community Buckner really was). Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis started the tenor/organ concept in 1951, but those recordings for Roost never sold, though they're interesting. But from 1956, his recordings with Shirley Scott on King, Roulette and then Prestige, leading up to the classic Cookbooks of 1958 were another very important factor in the spreading popularity of organ jazz in the black community. It seems to me that JOS didn't get into targeting the black audience until the sessions, which I think were intended to produce juke box 45s, rather than an album, of 1958 and 1959, which eventually made up "Home cookin'", then in 1960, "Open house" & "Plain talk" (neither of which was issued at the time), and a month later "Midnight special" & "Back at the Chicken Shack". That's my impression; I know you know people at Blue Note, Kevin. Is there any knowledge there (now) of what market Lion and Wolff were aiming at with different recordings? (correspondence and stuff - or someone as long in acquaintance as Chris Albertson, who could come in here?" MG

If we're talking about young(er) guitarists with a "classic" feel, there are a few I rather like. Randy Johnston - has mainly recorded for Muse and HighNote, plus a couple for J-Curve. First heard him on a McDuff album and I was immediately taken by the enthusiasm of his approach, which reminded me of Grant Green's - though he doesn't sound like Green at all; he has the same kind of spirit in his playing. Peter Bernstein - actually I think he sounds too much like Grant Green. If I want to hear someone sounding like Grant Green, I can listen to all of GG's recordings, thanks. But on someone else's albums, PB is most acceptable. Ximo Tebar - a guitarist from Spain who has made a few very interesting organ trio albums with such luminaries as Lou Bennett and Dr Lonnie Smith. He has also made a bunch of pretty interesting albums in other veins. "Son Mediterraneo" is fairly easily obtainable and has a nice version of the Rodgrigo concerto adagio. Russell Malone - lovely guitarist; apparently a nice guy. Met him at Brecon in 2000, where he turned in a great set. Bob DeVos - Bob is a bit older than the others. Worked with Groove Holmes and other organists in the seventies. He has a liking for playing ballads in 6/8 and it's remarkably effective. Er, and no one's mentioned Pat Martino. I can't say I like his own recordings much - too much like proper modern jazz for my taste - but his stuff with Jack McDuff and Willis Jackson in the sixties is right up my alley. (And also the couple of albums he made with Willis in the seventies.) MG

Sounds like you've got Vista. (Don't scratch the scabs or they'll never get any better) MG

No, it's that "colored people" were one market by and large and "white people" were another in 1951, and if you could corner a fair portion of the former (and such cornering was possible, or easier to envision as possible, for an independent label like Savoy), you could make a good living. Examples abound. Indeed. Lubinsky ran a radio parts store in Newark and records were part of his business; black buyers were his mainstay. Influenced by Eli Oberstein, he started making records - for the black public - in 1939. Having money is a relative kind of thing. What counts is finding enough people with spare cash to spend on luxuries like entertainment. The black population, a high proportion of them migrants from the rural south, felt a lot more prosperous in the industrial cities of the north where they wound up than they had been down south (and quite probably they really were). As a result, a much higher (than the equivalent earners among whites) percentage of their income went into luxury spending - processed hair, zoot suits, clubs etc and records. Inner city economies are much more volatile than rural ones. So for most people there was an up and down and up and down race. But rent parties only work when there are enough people who can contribute. So on average, things were sufficiently better for the migrants for record companies to be supported. A very high proportion of the independent record companies set up in the post-depression era, up to the early fifties, were firmly focused on black music and the best of them (including Savoy) were able to put the majors entirely out of the R&B charts by the mid fifties. The relative prosperity thing probably also applied to the white migrants into the midwest cities at the same period - Sid Nathan at King was catering to both sets of migrants - but I don't know much about that migration. MG

WOW MG!!! Up for air...never saw this post. Where did you get this information? Opal Nations comes from my home town, Brighton and, back in the sixties, wrote this in a letter to my best mate, who was at achool with him. He showed me the letter, I recall. MG

Ah, me too! I knew coming back would be expensive MG

Willis Jackson - Gator Tails - Verve (reissue as Willis Jackson) MG

Thanks Jim - makes good sense. Even I can understand it MG

Yes, this is the same as the German Blackhawk CD I mentioned earlier. But, looking at the track timings, they're different from the ones you've quoted. I've edited my earlier post to show what's on my CD. I checked these timings against what shows on the CD player when I put the disc in and those times are all a few seconds longer than what's quoted on the CD sleeve - allowing for space between tracks. So I don't know. It's odd. Perhaps the timings on the LP sleeve aren't accurate. MG

I felt the vibes Thanks all. MG

Yes, he's on the Jamal Epic/Okeh sessions reissue, too. Another thumbs up there. But I still think he's a kind of minor player who makes very interesting music. MG

Ah, well, that's a good thought. I do have databases in Access for which I need Windows and Microsoft Office. But I guess they could be run on a MAC. I've been told that if I get a machine running Vista - like my wife's new one - I'll have to buy a new version of Office because my current one won't run on it. A zillion curses on Microsoft!!!!! But I've also got to think about being able to relate in different ways to my wife's computer. So it's difficult. But I think it's supposed to be (life, that is). MG

Yes, Ray's another good 'un who's not made too many albums. Quite a bit of interesting sideman stuff, from Soul Jazz to Hard Bop and probably other styles. As a leader, he's made I knew Prez (orig title never issued - issued in 1987 on CD as "Smooth groove") prob hard to find - Candid (1961) (with J Coles (tp), Cecil Payne (bars) Jr Mance (p), Ben Tucker (b), Frankie Dunlop (d)) It's about time - Dobre (1977) (never reissued on CD, prob hard to find) (with Ronnell Bright (p), Herbie Lewis (b), Donald Dean (perc)) Both are very good albums, but not worth paying big money for, in my view. Ray is a very good player, but not one to be a big fan of, if you see what I mean. MG

There was a German (Bellaphon) CD issue, which I've got, on the Blackhawk label, which I think is the same as the original Ekapa issue. Tracks are Ekaya Sotho blue Ntyilo, ntyilo Bra timing from Phomolong Ek se ou Windhoek tou nou Cape Town This edition has a mainly red sleeve with a b/w drawing in the middle. MG MG