The Magnificent Goldberg

Yes, welcome. How about restarting your Brazilian music thread here? Yes please! Clave/seeline has done more than anyone to broaden my listening in recent years. Hello Bev! Nice to see you back here again! MG

I think the blue label Delmarks must have continued until at least 1972 - my copy of George Freeman's "Birth sign" (albeit a UK edition by Esquire) has the blue label and is dated 1972 (not the recording date but the release date). So a white label of a 1970 album is probably not original. But I still wonder what difference it makes in these cases. MG

What's mid-period for a label that's been issuing albums for fifty years - 1982? MG

Yes - unless some fade endings had been edited to squeeze them on. MG

I didn't know this had come out on a twofer (though I could have looked it up). I wonder if the other two LPs might have made it onto another twofer if more people had bought that one? MG

Al Jolson Neil Diamond Rayful Neal

Oh yes, of course... Well, that's true, as well. It's unavoidable unless one is truly obtuse. But while I may recognise, say, "Scrapple from the Apple" when I hear it, I may not always be able to identify it as "Scrapple from the Apple"; is it necessary for me to get any closer than "an early Charlie Parker tune he recorded for Dial", since in most cases I can look it up if I want to? For me, the answer's "no", so I make no effort to remember things like that. And as for remembering someone's solos... again, sometimes you can't help it but I try not to do that, since I don't have a positive reason to do so, in the way that you obviously must. The things I want to remember are not the music itself but the things around it, in particular, the way it feels. I don't have any trouble with that MG

This was one of my all time favourite classical couplings, back in the day. I never heard the Juillard version, but I heard a few and the one I went for was by the Vlach Quartet, on Supraphon. That version completely swept me away. I just looked to see if it was still about. A reissue on Archiv in 2000 is deleted and two copies are being offered on Amazon UK for £140.98 and £144.98. Wonder what the original LP is fetching, then? MG

Oh yes, thanks for reminding me about that, Chuck. Delmark is one of the ten companies dealt with in "Little labels - big sound" by Rick Kennedy & Randy McNutt, who deal with that early bit of history. (You get an honourable mention in there, too.) MG

Apparently not, but I can't identify an LP by him called "African moods". The only ones listed in the Ruppli Prestige discography are The music of A A-M NJ8266 (23 May 1961) Sounds of Africa NJ8282 (23 May 1961 (1 track) & 22 Aug 1962 (rest)) Eastern moods PR16003 (13 Jun 1963) Spellbound NJ8303 (12 Mar 1964) In addition, there were a couple of sideman dates. MG

Yes, they have a lot of episodes (123): ISIRTA. I don't know if that is the complete run or not. Wow! That is really interesting. And you get a hell of a lot for your money. What is an mp3 CD? Can I play it in my normal CD player (which doesn't accept SACDs)? Or is it only playable on computers? MG

Oh, hang on; Amazon don't charge tax to anyone, because they don't have a retail operation in a building open to the public. So, firms like Concord and Mosaic are in the same situation and don't charge tax to anyone? MG

If the business cycle is an inevitable part of most economies, it isn't inevitable, yes? Softening the sharper edges of a recession is a worthwhile endeavour; however it's one which usually turns out to make things worse in some unforseen way. That's because everyone's problem is some other bugger's opportunity. MG

So up comes the first guy. "I want a pair of those shoes, please." "What size?" "Six." "Sorry, we only have eight through ten." First guy fucks off, not best pleased. Next. "What size?" "Nine in a wide fitting." "Sorry, we only have them in a narrow fitting." Another one fucks off. And so on. Eventually, someone comes in who has feet the right size. Nineteen disgruntled potential customers are getting drunk in the "Misfits Bar" across the road. They see the guy come out of Walters and beat shit out of him. This is what Walter thinks "Nike knows how to market" means. MG

No flames here. But Valerie's insights into and knowledge of the jazz musicians she's known are some of the most valuable things on this board. My wife would agree with you. She says women have much better things to do with their lives than bother about music of any kind. I won't argue. Would you? MG

Ah! Now we're getting at it! Because each State in the EU is a sovereign state, each can tax more or less whatever they want in whatever way they want (though there are harmonisation moves - and VAT is broadly payable on the same goods, with similar exemptions and at similar rates throughout). Because the US States are NOT sovereign states, they CAN BE, and HAVE BEEN, prevented from taxing as they wish. That is really very interesting. Thanks very much. MG

No specific problem. There is a lot of knowledge about how to tell if you have a BN or PR or Riv original (and a few other labels), but Delmark is in many ways every bit as valuable a label as those others (and the only one of the first generation of post-Depression indies still independent) and I wondered if there was a similar bank of knowledge around. As far as I know, the early Delmark LPs had the (blue) label divided about a third of the way down. The familiar trademark was in the same place as the later versions, but was in a dark blue section, divided from the light blue section with the tracklist, by an even darker blue line. The British pressings made by Esquire used the same design. I don't know when this design changed to the mainly white label; sometime in the seventies, I think. Nor do I know what, if any, difference there is between an original and a repressing - perhaps none. MG

You may be misreading some of the earlier posts. MG and I were comparing Nat to those artists from the point of view of doing a lot with the beauty of tone from their instruments. That is not to say that he is at the same level as they are. Some people, and I'm one, hear music first as SOUND; not melody, harmony or rhythm. They come (fractionally) later with me. So people like Nat, Blue and Art (and others like Jug, Pharoah, Jaws, John Wright, Grant Green, Sonny Cox and Sonny Criss) make the most impact on me because of their sound. But hang on a tick; what's all this about X being superior to Y? Or A not being at the same level as B? Are we drawing up league tables for jazz musicians? My understanding is that this is a medium in which personal expression is key. So are you saying that X (Nat, in this case, but it doesn't matter) is not capable of expressing himself as well as Y? And how do you know that? I don't think you do. In my view, Nat was as good at playing Nat as Blue was at playing Blue. So what you seem to be saying is there's something intrinsically less worthwhile about being Nat than about being Blue. Now, I don't think you want to be saying that. I think the most you want to say is that you value most about jazz different things from those I value most. MG

I put this question earlier, but no one's bitten... MG

Yes, I've got a Saba copy of "Soul happening". I used to have an original of "Satisfaction" and you're right - it leaps off the turntable and eats your slippers. My copy of "Satisfaction", a brand new mono import in the late sixties, was actually broken in the lead in area, so I had to put the stylus on with extreme caution. I eventually got rid of it, because playing it used to make me so nervous, and have a UK Transatlantic copy, which is a bit like the Saba of "Soul happening" (but not quite so tame). MG

This is kind of interesting, because what you're all saying is that you should actually try to remember these things and, OK, you might fail sometimes, but this is what's good. I try NOT to remember things. It's not QUITE like listening for the first time, but I get a lot more surprises than you all do, I bet MG

Absolutely! It's totally iniquitous that the Post Office should charge five quid ($10 +) to collect one. MG

In fact, there were customs barriers between most or all of the Italian city states. There are none in the US, so it's NOT quite that bad And the EU is twenty-odd different states... And the rivalry, even enmity, between some has lasted many hundreds of years. MG

Another point occurs to me. How does a person know where Amazon.com or CDUniverse etc are located? Because the calculation of which retailer is cheaper on a specific item, and therefore which to buy from, obviously depends on knowing that? And, what's the position with Amazon sellers? If Dan buys something from Amazon (who I assume don't live in Florida) which is actually coming from Caiman down the road from him, does he pay tax or not? MG

Remember that MG never studied US history. "Federalism" has no meaning to him. Not quite right, Dan. To me, consistency would have been that tax was collected from everyone or no one. Now it's been explained (and thanks all), I can see it's NOT like trying to collect a French tax on a sale by Amazon.fr from a British resident. Amazon.fr charges VAT (our equivalent of sales tax) on sales to customers in other EU countries. So, when I buy an album from them, I'm paying a tax to the French Government. Ditto for Amazon.de, or Zweitausend; part of my payment goes to the German Government. The reverse is true if a French person buys from Amazon.co.uk. So, if different countries over here can manage it, why can't US States? MG