The Magnificent Goldberg

Conway Twitty Twit Conway Peter Sellers

Dunno about the concept of documentary genres. ALL records are commercial ventures into a not quite known/not quite unknown world. That means that EVERY recording manager wants to make records that will turn a profit. And this is true even of musicians making and issuing their own material. And the consequence of that is that no or few efforts will be spared to make that happen. Even the only avowedly documentary label Folkways STILL tried to get the best out of what was possible in the time and at the place. OK, Moe Asch wasn't Creed Taylor (though he did have several non-documentary labels which made big selling records and might have given CTI a run for his money a generation later) but the impulse to make (lots of) money serving a public need is identical. There's never been any kind of art or entertainment requiring skilled practitioners, who have to spend long years honing and practicing their work thus missing a great load of social life - playing ball in the park, kissing girls; you all know what it means - and those people want a return on that HUGE investment. Damn right, too. We shouldn't deprecate the commercial side in the slightest. MG

Alvin Simon Theodore (Sorry - couldn't resist )

Fanlight Fanny Clinton Ford George Formby

Dunno about 'Didn't we', which was a different generation of technology (except it just sounds effin' fantastic!) but 'My foolish heart' got it from the room - to be precise, the toilet in the next room. (I seem to remember Atlantic used a toilet, too.) I think it took Patti Page to show what could be done with tape. But imagine being forbidden to take a leak because Jug is playing You showed the photo of RVG's ceiling earlier, possibly not coincidentally, with the 3 Sounds/Turrentine playing. Stan is another who really benefited from reverb. I can imagine that, if you play tenor sax in certain ways, and maybe even STAND in certain ways so your sound is DIRECTED up there, that ceiling would do things for your sound that other toothbrushes can't reach. Not all technological advances are technical technological advances. But Rudy would have known what to tell both those guys to get it right. MG PS Actually, I DON'T love Alfred Lion - I love Ike Quebec, who I'm sure had a lot more to do with what music was played on records than Alfred did. MG Sorry, I don't understand what a documentary genre is. Could you give some examples, as well as an explanation, please? MG

The Wrecking Crew The Brady Bunch The Secret Seven

Do get hold of the book, Scott. I didn't talk about rock and punk because I know so little about those kinds of music, which I just don't like listening to, but he makes the same arguments about them. In a jazz context, however, I feel it right to wonder out loud the if impact on Gene Ammons of Bill Putnam's echo chamber effect on his wonderful recording of 'My foolish heart' (R&B #9 in 1950) caused Jug to concentrate more on that side of his playing and, eventually, persuaded Esmond Edwards, Rudy Van Gelder and Bob Weinstock to particularly facilitate that side from 1961. MG

Coxsone Dodd Scratch Crucial Bunny

In brief, as recording technologies have developed and new technologies have arisen, those developments have spurred the creation of new styles/kinds of music. He wasn't saying that, for example, rap developed because of recording and playback techniques, but that those techniques enabled what people were doing in the street to be recorded in a creative way, so stimulating the development of the music. And so on. Back in 1925, the development of electrical recording, and the resulting improvement in the fidelity of quietly sung songs, stimulated the success of singers like Bing Crosby - ie singers no longer had to deliver a song like Al Jolson or John McCormack to get a message through. (Previous instructions to singers from Edison were to sing with as little expression as possible.) You can never divorce the development of any kind of popular music from any part of the world from the development, and availability of the techniques used to record it. The book relates technological developments to musical ones quite well, though it doesn't reference jazz much. MG

I'd like October or November, please. September is too soon after my buying expeditions to Paris for me to have absorbed what groovy goodies I've got. MG

Sorry, I think you're mistaken about this. The recording industry has CONSISTENTLY throughout its life, presented different opportunities to musicians and singers (and engineers and producers of course) to make changes to their music. For a good read, which deals with this aspect quite clearly - in particular with reference to rock - get a look at this. (This is probably the British cover illustration, but it's an American book, so your local library should be able to get it for you.) MG

King Biscuit Los Conquistadores Chocolate Juan Garrido

Busby Berkeley Matt Busby The Mad Hatter

Robin Banks Chapman Pincher Bill Nicks

Lauren Hashian The Rock Sly Stone

Don't suppose Kylie would like it in there, much MG

William Manuel Johnson Manuel Manuel I Komnenos

My hard drive's not big enough to hold it all. About 52% on HD now but not much room left for other stuff so I only keep stuff I want to shove onto the iPod on the main drive; the rest is on externals. Anyway, iTunes suffers from the usual Apple complaint - anti-human assumptions shoved in there so it doesn't look like Microsoft - so I use it as little as possible. MG PS Every album I've ever had is on the database so I could export everything to a spreadsheet if I wanted, I just don't want to.

Tell it Bill! MG

Chuck Willis Billy Wright Fred Jackson

Vlastimil Železník‎ (https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlastimil_%C5%BDelezn%C3%ADk) Krzysztof Janik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzysztof_Janik) The Spotniks

Bloomin' 'eck! Random discographies! The mind boggles. What WILL they think of next? MG

Pipped at the post! James Monroe John Kerry Gene Kelly

The Herd Flock of Seagulls Mia Farrow

I've often wondered why the material seemed never to be getting bigger. How do you find this stuff? MG