The Magnificent Goldberg

Raining MG

Indeed. That was the point of my using Don drummond as an example. Hm... MG

NEVER heard of that one! MG

Looks like a triple date to me - which is why I said "if it's printable" MG

Arthur Blythe Noel Coward Father Christmas

Yes to all that, Bev. But it's not just "the fullest human potential" in my view. It's "their fullest human potential". Not everyone can be an Ellington. But everyone can give their honest best of themselves. Which is where I run into trouble over the "extra-curricular" stuff. Is a nasty character who can make sublime music being wholly honest? MG

My other story selection is George benson's "Giblet gravy" You can let your imagination run wild with this. But I think George isn't with the girl; he just happens to be sitting beside her at the counter. And he's obviously NOT interested in giblet gravy! (Who can blame him?) MG

The recent discussion of the sleeve and title of the forthcoming Organissimo CD has made me think about this one. (And you all know what it looks like, so I'm going to show you again ) I think this is actually a classic album cover. There's a story behind this, I'm sure, and I'd love to hear it, if it's printable. There are lots of great album sleeves around, but relatively few seem to encapsulate a story. I can only think of one other, offhand, so I thought I'd see what story ideas sleeves generate in other members. MG

Yes, you might well. I don't think I had anything so pointed as that at school, though I can't be sure because I routinely ignored most of it. It was just a slow process for me, I think. MG

Adolphe Sax MG

Bloomin' 'eck! Why didn't I know this had been reissued before? MG

This is how I see it too. I wonder if there might be a cross-Atlantic divide here. Over the years I've noticed that it's American posters who are more likely to make statements about the importance of 'art', more likely to differentiate between art and not art. I wonder if this is because we've had centuries of it in Europe and have just got jaded. Whereas 'art' recognised internationally as distinctive is hardly a century old in the States. Or maybe it is just so associated with the upper classes in Europe (or at least Britain which has a deeply rooted suspicion of intellectualism outside those classes). The main promotional bodies here are still dominated by that social elite. There's a book by John Carey called 'The Intellectuals and the Masses, 1880-1939' that puts a very convincing case (to me at least) that much of modernism was a deliberate attempt to put a distance between the elite and the masses at a time when mass education threatened to see the masses catch up. By creating 'art' that was deliberately obscure they could still retain their sense of superiority. I've not read the book but the TV programme a year or so back certainly played to my prejudices. There's a synopsis here: http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2005/...and-masses.html Quite a few of the early 20thC literary giants come across as people with extremely unpleasant political and social ideas. D.H. Lawrence in a 1908 letter about the old, sick and suffering - ‘If I had my way, I would build a lethal chamber as big as the Crystal Palace’ (which returns to the main theme of the thread). Thanks Bev, that looks like a very interesting book. Must get the local library on to it. I used to go for all that stuff in the sixties (even Wyndham Lewis) but by the late sixties/early seventies I was definitely of the view that material produced for entertainment was of much greater value; in a different frame, that cowboy comedy films were more important to society than Ingmar Bergman's. (And yet, of course, we have also seen that the ruling classes can and, increasingly, do use popular culture as a tool for political repression. So it's not all one-sided.) MG

1 Good luck. 2 Post an address where us furriners can cop your programme, please. I would be most interested. MG

Yes, they're great. I found this site, in case anyone's interested: http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco94/literatu...goose/menu.html The Wiki entry on this rhyme claims that it's "about" the bubonic plague in London, but that sounds apocryphal to me. (Kinda like the Snopes entry on Sing a Song of Sixpence, which is their own nod and wink toward the creation of urban legends.) Wiki doesn't sound very convinced about that, however. The one that's generally believed to have originated with the Black Death is "Ring around the roses". MG

I do agree with much of what you say, Tom, but I think it's this bit that I don't agree with. It seems to treat all these things as being of equal weight. I think we place far too much emphasis on artistic beauty - much more than it's really worth in society. The social benefits that musicians are supposed to provide for society are important but, it seems to me, only in terms of supporting other, more vital, facets of society, such as community unity of purpose, catharsis etc. All this stuff like aesthetics has, I feel, been made up as a result of the dominance of societies almost everywhere in the world by ruling classes, in order to bolster their sense of self-importance and their superiority over those ruled. So I feel that people who are violent or criminal provide social disbenefits that are entirely disproportionate to any benefits their music might provide. MG

Wow! I've got three tracks from that LP on a Copeland sampler, but never looked at the personnel until just now. Yeah, you can't tell. MG

Thank you. Yes, it's very interesting. I never got Brel before. The translations are helpful; I'd have missed some points without them; particularly the tense change in Bonbons. Those songs are MEANT to be the way they are - a very bitter, intense and condensed satire on love and no song like that could be successful in America, or Britain I fancy. So translations always miss the boat. MG

Good grief! That is incredible! The backing seems as if it's entirely wrong and will be annoying, but it isn't a self-pitying song, which might be implied by the words (and the fact that McKuen wrote the English version) and by the time you're into it, you're into it. And the subtlety of the line about you'll have to take what train you can - shakes head in wonder. Cheery bitterness! Thank you very much! MG

Bye. MG

Freeman Lee Lee Morgan Morgan the Pirate (Henry Morgan of Llanrumney)

Alf Hall Ken Platt Archie Andrews

Well, I'd forgotten the rest. But we always say, here, myplate's empty. MG

My goodness! MG

Tate Lyle The Archies

Is he on the original recording, or Bill Laswell's overdubs? I don't have the originals of the two LPs included in "Black President" on Arista, but the sleeve notes of the British Arista release say nothing about Laswell, so I think we may take it that there are no Laswell overdubs on my copy. But Lester Bowie is on it. He doesn't solo, however, as far as I can tell. It is also not clear whether he was on the "Sorrow tears and blood" LP, originally issued in 1977 on Kalakuta, or "ITT: International thief thief" issued in 1979 on Kalakuta. These are the two LPs included in the Arista compilation (one LP on each side). Bowie also appeared on Fela Kuti's "Perambulator", Lagos International LIR6, recorded in 1983. Again, it's not clear to me that he solos on side 1, the title track. He may solo on side 2, "Frustration", but that is pressed so off-centre that it's more or less unplayable. So I more or less unplay it. MG