The Magnificent Goldberg

Was Not Was War Eric Burden

Charlemagne Charles the Bald Pippin the Hunchback

Mother Henry Mancini Peter Gunn

Fred Jackson Fred Jackson Jr Freddie Jackson

Mann-Hugg Blues Band (who used to play at the Green Man, Southall) The Yardbirds (who used to play at the Eel Pie Island, Richmond) Screaming Lord Sutch (who used to play at The Boathouse, Kew)

There's no doubt this is an excellent album. But I prefer his work for Prestige. "Chicken & dumplings", "Soul food", "Chun-king" and "Little barefoot soul" are all great albums. "This here" sounds to me like it's Orrin Keepnews' idea of cashing in on Bobby's three classic compositions, with a few standards thrown in to make up the numbers. The Prestige LPs sound like thought out programmes and I find them most satisfying. MG

Edward, the Black Prince Jean de Grailly John II

I think perhaps she isn't being coddled if she's compelled to stay in a boarding school. MG

Pretty much the same as it helped me to have hope and inspiration during hard times growing up. I would say that's true of me, too. BUT if you want to save yourself, you'll find a way of doing so and it doesn't necessarily have to involve music - it's whatever you can find to help. MG

Ours didn't usually last long. They weren't exotic ones like yours - just fairground goldfish. Our cat sat in front of the tank a lot and may have hypnotised a couple to early deaths. MG

I find this a bit confusing, probably because the system's a bit different here. My daughter had to have home tuition for her last two years at secondary school (13-15) - which was arranged for by the education authority (the equivalent, I think, of your school boards) - because she couldn't walk (eventually she got over it). But the education thus provided wasn't really all that one would have wished for - she only got about five or six subjects, though she did well in all but one. But of course, she wasn't school phobic. Now I would have been regarded as school phobic - hated five of the six schools I went to and kept absconding. But I loved the third one I went to. So I guess I wasn't really school phobic; I just hated most of the schools I was sent to, to the point of punch-ups with the teachers. But I still learned to read and write and add (and History, French and German) and learned to learn. Psychological help? Just get on with your life! And so I did. I suspect this woman may well be doing the best for her daughter in sending her to a boarding school, which will keep tabs on her full time. It doesn't matter if she hates it. Education is something that people really have to be forced into, even if they're most unwilling. MG

You're spending horrendous amounts of dosh on that, SS1. But they don't seem to last too long. MG

Yes, it's hard. You agonise over each one you have to ditch. And for what? It's only a list MG It's not "just a list". This is one of the most useful written items I have come across in 35+ years of reading the major jazz magazines and many jazz books. It took most of the day but it was a spur of the moment job. If I did it again next month - I SHAN'T - I guess a very significant proportion would be different. So it's nothing approaching definitive. If it's useful to some, well that's fine. MG

Larry - I'm terribly sorry to hear of your wife's death. What others have said - that your lack of interest in recordings may relate to that - may well be perfectly true. But it may also be only part of the story. Jim said he'd had the same thing without the grief. Me too; i couldn't be bothered to order anything from the latest Concord sale a couple of months ago. And there is a bunch of stuff by people like Houston Person and David Newman - musicians I NEVER pass by - that I haven't got (yet). And it's not just jazz. I'm getting similar feelings about Mbalax and Djeliya (though I'm not off buying that stuff, quite). But I'm finding it exciting getting into kinds music I'm not familiar with - Zouglou from Cote d'Ivoire, Hiplife from Ghana, and of course, Concha Buika's albums. Even when the stuff isn't perhaps all that great, it's exciting me in a way that is reminiscent of the late fifties, when I was discovering Soul music and Soul Jazz. So I really agree with the recipe Jim, Paul and others have recommended - get into something else; it doesn't really matter what, so long as it's unfamiliar. The more unfamiliar the better - I know you like to analyse what you're listening to and I respect that approach enormously, even though I don't share it. But REALLY unfamiliar music will demand a non-analytic approach, at least initially, and that gut-approach may help. Everything does change. MG

Happy Birthday, Chuck - and many more of them. MG

It's not just listing; it's grading the buggers. MG Agree, and you'd need some experienced guy about different pressings, etc. Also agree. And the really technical part is smearing them with salmon mousse. MG

Just checked on the detail of Herbie Mann's album "Right now". This apears to be a bossa nova LP, at least in part. Tracks include "Meditation", "Desafinado", "Borquino" and "Carnival". But the musicians aren't Brazilian - but there's the usual suspects doing Latin percussion: Bobo, Pacheco, Rodriguez, Valdes. This LP was recorded in March and April 1962, so it's a little bit later than "Jazz samba". It got onto the Billboard chart about six weeks after "Jazz samba". I've done a little digging on Charlie Byrd. His first bossa nova LP for Riverside was "Latin impressions" RLP427. I don't have an accurate date for this - just 1962, but it was probably before April, when part of his next LP was recorded. MG

The movie Orfeo Negro was released in 1959 - the first Bossa Nova records in Brazil by Joao Gilberto were from 1958. Luiz Bonfa, who did the music for the movie, was part of the early development of the music. I don't know if the movie helped popularize the music - it was around for a while, as were the first bossa nova meets jazz LPs by Herbie Mann, Cannonball Adderley and Charlie Byrd when Getz hit it big - Getz' sax may have been the crucial ingredient for the mass audience. I don't know about the Charlie Byrd albums you're talking about Mike, but "Cannonball's bossa nova" was recorded in December 1962, by which time Getz' album had been on the charts two/three months. In October 1962, Herbie Mann made several albums for Atlantic in Brazil - "Do the bossa nova", "Recorded in Rio" and part of "Latin fever". His earlier album in this vein, which I haven't heard so I don't know what it's like, was for UA and I think was called "Brazil bossa and blues" - recorded late 1961/early 1962. So maybe it was slightly earlier than the Getz or maybe about contemporaneous. It appears to have been originally issued on UA 14009/15009 but I don't know the release date, because it had been deleted by June 1967, the date of my earliest Schwann catalog. MG

Thanks very much Jostein! That looks to be exactly what she wants; I'll check when she's got a minute. It's so cheap on Amazon UK, it's better to buy the CD than get downloads and have all the bother of writing a fresh CD MG

EMI seems to own Bethlehem now. The Chris Connor Bethlehem CDs I have are Toshiba-EMI. MG

L Ron Hubbard Sun Myung Moon Jesus Christ

Wales? Have you ever got out of a tent at dawn, high in the Virungas? MG

Merlin Guinevere Morgan Le Fay

No, it wasn't him. I wouldn't have asked him to play DARTS! What do you take me for? MG

Still waiting for mine from Amazon UK. (Grrrrr) MG