The Magnificent Goldberg

Oho! One to order next time I'm in the library. This is a fucking WONDERFUL place, isn't it? MG

By the way, Charles Kynard did a blindfold test in the early seventies sometime, which my mate told me was very interesting. Another that concentrated on organ recordings. Hint, hint... MG

Well, he got three out of seven, which is a lot better than I usually do! MG

Only another 31 posts and you'll be able to change your descriptor to "Mr Right Brain" yourself MG

Ike Isaacs Ike Turner Ike Quebec

Is that for real? I didn't think there was any difference in what she really looked like - or her feet. I thought it was all happening in my mind MG

I thought it was downloading... MG

Babe Ruth Ruth Etting Kurt Elling

Simple. It's about Beethoven meeting the millenium in Spain. I'n't we eh? MG

Ah! Thanks for reminding me Larry. I knew I'd come across those sort of quaintly indirect titles that Bill Heid loves before, but couldn't think of where. MG Fascinating pieces, too. Yes - always reminded me of Satie. MG

OK, you win - I've got to ask. Is that real? MG

Little Joe Blue Friendly Chap Little Pork Chops

Everytime i listen to "Green Street" i think that this is grant's masterpiece. I remember that i got myNM mono copy from a man who accepted to sell it to me ( for 250 FF in 1996) but at the moment we where about to conclude the transaction, he asked me that he wanted me to provide him a CD of this one. I ran (not exactly : i flew) to the Virgin Megastore at Champ Elysées, found a JapTOCJ, gave him right away with 250 FF. He was very happy of the transaction, and told me "i can get rid of this old vinyl" ... Oh Yes you can ! Nice story. I still have my mono copy from the sixties It's a great album but, actually, I prefer "Remembering", reissued as "Standards". I gave a friend who had a crying need to get to grips with Grant Green my GXF copy of "Remembering". Philanthropist MG

Yep. But also: the more service sector jobs move to poor countries, the greater the impact on middle and lower-middle classes, who may have different political leverage opportunities available; moving call centre support operations to places like the Indian sub-continent has, I think, non-economic repercussions - eg people get really pissed off when they can't understand the person to whom they're complaining that some of their groceries haven't turned up in the delivery. And this slides off into yet another reason to resist or revile immigrants. MG

Picked this up from the library last week. Lightweight on history, heavy on illustrations, but a decent overview, which is all I wanted. Now started reading this It's my wife's book. But she gave up on page 55, so I'm having a go. I suspect it's rather too full of foot by foot accounts of the battles and, if that's the case, I'll probably give up, too MG

Bob Dole Mole Ratty

And quite right, too. Berry Gordy hired a schoolgirl to do quality control for Motown in the early days. She got the engineer to make a record player that sounded like a car radio, so she could listen to stuff on that. And, of course, it worked a treat. So it's all HER fault MG

Sam "The Man" Taylor Jack Bruce Bruce Forsythe

Yeah OK - but it's what we're paying over here. The days of cheap CDs may have gone the way of cheap petrol CD Universe has it for $23.65 on 2 June and $32.85 on 27 May. And I'm sure it will come as a relief to know that Da Barstids © aren't selling it! MG

Yeah, it's a weak designation. On one hand I understand the inclination to attach it to some genre that is known, but on the other hand it sells a lot of people short who are interested in the actual roots and history of the music. But y'know, if i were a promoter, I'd more than likely be very tempted to use it... because I do think it works as a draw. Back when I was writing reviews, I avoided this kind of phrase, but it does go down easier than a semi-scholarly explanation of Tuareg and/or Wodaabe music might. (Hee - I think I just proved my own point about awkward wording. ) Depends on your audience, doesn't it? If you're writing (or were) for a publication that covers music from Africa or the whole world from a point of view of understanding what's going on, then the semi-scholarly explanation may be just what's wanted. But for the general reader, you've certainly got to try and convey something of what the music sounds like and, if it sounds like blues, why not say so? You don't have to say anything like "this is where the blues come from" or "this is blues", which I'm sure you wouldn't. MG

I have a Sam "The Man" Taylor 45 from 1956 on MGM. "Nightfall"/"A Sunday kind of love". Agree with all you say Jim. If you see "The bad and the beautiful" on Prestige Moodsville, don't hesitate. There's a bit more out in the open there - and I don't mean the girl on the cover in her undies. Not that it's exactly good, you know. MG

OK - this is coming out in Spain on 6 May. Don't know the price. In France and Germany, it's being issued on 21 May - Amazon.fr has it for Euro 15.76; Amazon.de for Euro 18.99 In Britain, the release date is 2 June. Amazon.uk has it for £11.99 In the US, it's 3 June. Amazon.com has it for $24.49. It's roughly the same price everywhere, except Germany. Don't forget to use the Organissimo links to buy it, wherever you are! MG

Ah! Thanks for reminding me Larry. I knew I'd come across those sort of quaintly indirect titles that Bill Heid loves before, but couldn't think of where. MG

Thought you meant Herbie Mann... MG

I'm not really familiar with the benefits of credit unions. What are they? Guy Two really, I think. First, they're run as co-operatives, so the profits (if any) can be returned to the investors (rather than a bank's shareholders) as dividends. I don't really see this as a plus (or a minus). Just different people collecting the profits. Indeed but it's poor people collecting the profits - and that has a poential impact on people's understanding. Obviously an empirical question - but given the typical effectiveness of most not-for-profit organizations, I am very hesitant to think that this is a sustainable model without any sort of explicit or implicit subsidy. Indeed. Much as I'm generally against subsidies, they were necessary in this case and, before I retired, one of the things I was doing was organising a training and organsation development subsidy for the movement here. Not evaluated before I left, so I don't know if it was any good, but training is a classic area of market failure where subsidies may be justified. We also thought that mentoring each local union by the manager of the local bank would be useful - part the bank's contribution to "corporate social responsibility", but I sem to recollecwe got a snotty response from the banks to that suggestion; in any case, local bank managers aren't like the old style any more, as I noted in the Moody's thread; they're more personnel managers than financial managers. What I really SHOULD have done is finagled myself a trip to the US, to see how it's done there. But frankly, it was only a tiny bit of what I was doing, and not as interesting as most of the other stuff. MG