The Magnificent Goldberg

We don’t have a general Earl Bostic thread! Only one in Recommendations, just headed Earl Bostic, and dealing with two of his albums. Earl was one of the most prominent jazz musicians of the two decades following WWII and no one here cares about him! Well, I do (and Jim Sangrey does). I think ‘Flamingo’ is a track that’s been with me since I was a kid, though I only started really getting it in the sixties. And bought my first Bostic LP – a 10” in Parlophone with five tracks per side - in 1971. And this year and last, I’ve got more and more interested having all his Chrono Classics CDs. He’s the second most played artist in my collection this year (after Jug). And, in any case, I don’t believe there’s no interest here in him, so here we go. I’ve spent a couple of enjoyable days assembling Earl’s first ten 10” LPs for King, from the Chronological Classics CDs, just to see how they played. Can’t say I’m in a position to comment terribly sensibly on that yet, on the strength of one listen, but three things are clear already. First, like all the other bosses of the indies labels, Syd Nathan didn’t really know how to put an album together when he started. And didn’t really NEED to know, in the beginning. Earl’s first three LPs – Earl Bostic & his alto sax vols 1-3 (295-64, 65 & 66) – all had only six tracks; three per side, just to rub the point in. All three were apparently released at the same time; in February 1953. By the end of 1953, Nathan had changed up to a four tracks per side model and vol 4 is more like an album with some thought, though little variety. Second, once Nathan began to put an act together on those longer Bostic LPs, he seems to have had the idea of a medium paced side 1 and an up tempo side 2. Third, Nathan was miserly about his album titles; why keep thinking up new ones when the old one would do for a dozen albums? 295-64 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 1 [2/53] (6 tracks) 295-65 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 2 [2/53] (6 tracks) 295-66 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 3 [2/53] (6 tracks) 295-72 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 4 [1953] (8 tracks) 295-76 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 1 [1954] (8 tracks) 295-77 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 2 [1954] (8 tracks) 295-78 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 3 [1954] (8 tracks) 295-79 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 4 [1954] (8 tracks) 295-95 – The artistry of Earl Bostic [1955] (8 tracks) How unusually profligate! 295-103 – Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, Volume 5 - Earl Bostic [1955] (8 tracks) The BSN site has two more volumes of Earl Bostic and His Alto Sax, but not full track listings, so it’s not clear that they were ever actually issued. By the way, 296-76/7/78 are not reissues of 64/5/6 with, as would now be said, a couple of bonus tracks added. Although the new vol 1 contains four of the original six, the new vol 2 only contains two from the original LP, as does vol 3. So it’s clear that Nathan had done a fair bit of thinking during 1952. Well, that’s enough of that very nice early material done for King, but he’d been a professional for about twenty years by the time they came along. Here’s a link to the very interesting Wiki page on him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Bostic There’s an odd bit in that Wiki piece. Earl couldn’t have joined Terence T Holder’s ‘Twelve Clouds of Joy’ in 1930 at 18, as that band kicked Holder out of the ‘Dark Clouds of Joy’ and voted for Andy Kirk, who changed the Dark to Twelve. So, when did he join Holder? Whether Holder started another band in KC then isn’t known. He may have done; his own rather sparse Wiki page says he worked in bands with the likes of Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson (both teenagers then) afterwards, so he may have employed them or merely worked alongside them. But also, Earl may have worked in Holder’s band before he was 18. Clearly, though, those wide open spaces territory bands were Earl’s training ground. Later he was with Fate Marable on the Mississippi steamboats going through the Midwest. Later, in 1938 and again in 1944, he ran the house band at Small’s Paradise and, in the same period was a regular at the Minton’s jam sessions. He first recorded with Lionel Hampton in 1939, following which he recorded with Hot Lips Page, Louis Prima, Buck Ram and Rex Stewart before forming his own big band late in 1945. By early 1946, he’d slimmed the band down to one trumpet, 3 saxes, 4 rhythm, and begun recording for Gotham. Possibly that was a mistake, viewed from the viewpoint of his reputation among jazz lovers – Gotham is not eminent as a jazz label but as a gospel label. But it was probably a decent way in for Earl to the black market. He had more success when he started recording for King in 1948. Although he only had two hit singles for King (and ‘Temptation’ for Gotham), his records sold consistently and always appeared on juke boxes. What we all tend to forget about Earl is that he was a musician with masterly chops. Here’s ‘Artistry by Bostic’, recorded in 1947 for Gotham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IBoqoWF34 It’s kind of unsurprising that, according to Lou Donaldson, Earl burned Charlie Parker. Here’s the quite from Wiki: The alto saxophonist Sweet Papa Lou Donaldson recalled seeing Parker get burned by Bostic during one such jam session at Minton's. Donaldson said that Bostic "was the greatest saxophone player I ever knew. Bostic was down at Minton's and Charlie Parker came in there. They played "Sweet Georgia Brown" or something and he gave Charlie Parker a saxophone lesson. Now you'd see him, we'd run up there and think that we're going to blow him out, and he'd make you look like a fool. Cause he'd play three octaves, louder, stronger and faster." If that was in 1944, Lou would have been about eighteen. He’d refocused his style a bit during the Musicians Union strike of 1948. Not a radical change; his Gotham hit, ‘Temptation’, from 1947, featured essentially the Bostic style as he’d worked on it and continued to work it until the end of his life. Here it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygIodxF1QW0 The sound is more or less the one he’d been using for years. By the time he started recording for King, he’d modified his sound a good deal; the same sound, but now as if he’d shoved a fist full of road grit in with his reed, or had it in his mouth, or somewhere. And the beat was heavier Here’s a cut from his first King session in January 1949; ‘Blip boogie’ quite a honker and screamer. The beat is noticeably heavier. We’re now deep into the honkers and screamers era and Earl was by no means a hanger-on at the feast of naughty noises. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab_i0iawcfI Count Hastings is the tenor player, Jaki Byard is on piano and Shep Shepherd is on drums. And late in 1951, he had his blockbuster single, which spent five months on the R&B chart, a month of it at #1. Although that was his LAST hit, it was a good way to leave the charts. Well, here it is, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, as Earl Bostic, heavily disguised as Bullmoose Jackson (I love those YouTube posters who don’t know what the hell they’re doing), plays ‘Flamingo’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcxBLiKpRm0&list=PL4F28C4EEBAC43170 What more can you say? Well, you can say it again and again and again. And Earl did. My favourite of all these reiterations is ‘You go to my head’ from April 1952, the personnel for which was Bostic, Blue Mitchell (tp), Pinky Williams (as, bar), John Coltrane (ts), Gene Redd (vib), Joe Knight (p), Jimmy Shirley (g), Ike Isaacs (b) and Specs Wright (d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcCgY4IBvGc That’s all, folks! MG

Is your Hank Levine, THIS Hank Levine? I got this in about 1961. Haven't got it any more. But the music sticks in your head. MG

Ed Smalls Wicked Weasel Wicked Witch of the East

Awesome Welles The Magnificent Goldberg The Mighty Diamonds

May I have a bunch of MP3's please? MG

Your Big Butter and Egg Man Mr Eggnog http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMi0xNDI5Y2NjMDM2OGNkYTUy.png Noggin The Nog

I've GOT to ask. What's so interesting about dual exhaust on cars, that you have to put your Missus under pressure? MG

Canaan Banana Israel Crosby Katie Price

Retired from being a jazz fan? Well, maybe that's me MG

Faded denim is somewhat the same colour. Just... faded MG

And he was never retired; apparently the Governor let him practice for hours every day. So when he was released, he was 'gig-ready'. MG

Very best wishes, Guy! MG

Ha ha! Me, too. I did, but It's actually Joe Newman!!!! MG

Henry Cow Concrete Cows Pierre Schaeffer

They may not be grey We've got a grey car, bought it new in 2009. But it's colour is said to be 'faded denim'. No one in the sales office knew what that was supposed to mean. MG

'Pyramid' was my third MJQ album and I still think it, and 'The sheriff' are their best. MG

I don't know what happened to Boo Yeah, full name is Sonny Landon Cox. I don't know what happened to Boogaloo Joe Jones but there's no references to him performing since the late seventies. He's still alive, probably in NJ. MG

Modest Mussorgsky Champion Jack Dupree The Boastful Turtle

She hasn't changed her hairstyle, though I don't know whether he qualifies, but Johnny 'Hammond' Smith retired and went into investing his savings - yeah, a jazz musician who saved his ackers! - into real estate. But he did make the occasional gig and took on one or two private music pupils. Freddie McCoy retired and went to Africa and did other stuff. Now THAT'S an interesting thing. The above two are both dead, of course. But the following are, as far as I know, still alive. Leon Spencer retired and bought a farm in Martha's Vineyard. Don't know if he's still alive. Chicago alto player Sonny Cox left music and went into baseball or some other American sport as a trainer or something. New York tenor player Nat Dixon retired from the business (he ran his own label, Sax Rack) and went into religion - now runs his own church. Still plays tenor but doesn't do gigs. After a long illness in 1980, Sonny Phillips went into semi-retirement and moved to LA. He performs and teaches occasionally. MG

The Porter The Waiter The Upstairs Maid

Yeah, that, I think, was the second Trane I bought. If I'd heard it first, I'd have got it first. Instant and wild communication. MG

Nor me. Now I come to think of it, I think my Old Man took me to see 'The Five Pennies' and revealed that he bloody well KNEW Danny Kaye. I was well impressed. But he knew a hell of a lot of people socially, including the Queen & Prince Philip. MG

George Brace founder of: Bread The Newbeats

Yeah! Bobby Bland died the same year as Inez - 2013. Robey died in 1975. MG

Is this a jazz album? I got it in 1959, because I'd just seen the film. I can still sing Respighi's 'Carnival of Venice' the way Danny Kaye did. It was my third LP. Ditched in about '62 Honest to God jazz albums; the seventh and eighth I bought, on the same day, in 1960, because they were on Atlantic, the label that to me was God I've still got 'One never knows' - but on a CD, coupled with 'Fontessa'. MG