The Magnificent Goldberg

MG

Somewhere in my collection (shrug smiley absent) I think there's a recording of a tune called "Lockett in the pocket". I thought it was Grover Washington Jr, but it ain't. MG

Didn't know this was out in Europe I was going to wait for the Concord issue (12 Feb). Anyone know what the European label is? MG

Reminds me I need to put another order in. MG

Phil Moore, the younger, is also on some of Gerald Wilson's albums for PJ in the mid sixties - "On stage", "Feelin' kinda blues", "Live & swingin'" and "Everywhere" - He's billed as Phil Moore III. He also made an album for Atlantic - "Right on". Haven't got that one. MG

Oh yes - JAW (I think it was - or maybe RDK) sent me FOUR PMs that didn't exist when I hit the link. MG

Paul Desmond is one of my favourites. He, and others, wrote this. "There was a boy of Italian parentage named Carbaggio, born in Germany. Feeling himself a misfit, with his dark curly hair among all those blond Nordic types, he tries to be even more German than the Germans. In late adolescence he flees to Paris, where he steals on of those brass miniatures of the Eiffel Tower. Arrested by the police, he is given a choice of going to jail or leaving the country. He boards the first outbound ship and arrives in New York. Thinking he would like a career in communications, he goes to the RCA building in Rockefeller Plaza, takes an elevator and walks into the office of General Sarnoff. Sarnoff tells him that the only job available is as a strikebreaker. The boy takes it. When the strike ends, he finds himself on a union blacklist. He goes to work making sonar equipment for a company owned by a man named Harris. After several years, his English has improved to the point where he gets a job as a disk jockey. His show is called Rock Time. He has fulfilled his destiny: he's a routine teuton, Eiffel-lootin', Sarnoff goon from Harris Sonar, Rock Time Carbaggio." Paul Desmond (and A N Other) 1954

Back on time now! MG

Leave 'im alone! He's all right where he is, Chuck! MG

Ronnie was full of them. Here's another. "The Russkis nuked Scunthorpe. Did £3 damage." MG

A lovely article - thanks Porcy! MG

Perishin! Wicked east wind! MG

I'm reading three little books by Patience Sonko-Godwin, a Gambian historian Ethnic groups of the Senegambia Social and political structures in the precolonial periods Leaders of the Senegambia region MG

The first album of the year - and the first of three I have on order of Lucky Millinder Listening to it now - very, very enjoyable indeed!! MG

If so, the most I can contribute is an illustrative image of Fiat. I never was too good with my gazintas. There's been a good bit of inflation since THAT Fiat! Look at those flares!!! MG

Seems to me that this is the KEY point in the world of money. Ideally, the quntity of money needs to change by about the same amount, and in the same direction, as the productive capacity of the economy. Thus maintaining approximately stable prices. Gold is the stuff that people like to think of in terms of money because it's not as ubiquitous as shit; in fact it's pretty limited in supply. If world money is tied to a commodity that is in limited supply, once the supply has been finished (ie all the gold in the world has been dug up), increases in production can only be made in a deflationary environment. But deflationary environments tend not to be conducive to the investments that increase productive capacity. Hence stagnation. And stagnation at a point at which a probably significant proportion of world population numbers itself among the have nots. What are they likely to do, seeing this is an absolutely permanent situation of a zero sum game? MG

Hi Hershey - great to have you with us. I'm moderately convinced (just through listening) that Al Jackson, the Stax drummer, got a lot of his stuff from down your way. Know anything about that? MG

MG

Von Bek Elric of Melnibone Corum of the Swords

Concerts I got nothing out of... There are some where the act I went to see was fine but the others were crummy Johnny Burnette, who was on with U S Bonds and Gene McDaniels. Burnette was as completely nothing as can be imagined. But Bonds was very good at what he did and McDaniels was heroic! I went to see Osibisa in 1971. They were great but the backup band, a Welsh rock group called Budgie was absolutely dire. We all (and I mean almost the entire audience) left the hall and smoked some stuff outside, then went back in for Osibisa, which was great! The only concert at which I got NOTHING but extreme boredom was a performance of one of Beethoven's string quartets. MG

Most played artists in my collection in 2007 were 1 Sonny Stitt (miles ahead due to buying the Mosaic box late last year) 2 Jimmy Smith 3 Grant Green 4 John Patton 5 Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis 6 Houston Person 7 Willis Jackson 8 Rev J M Gates 9 Lonnie Smith 10 Sekouba Bambino Most played reissue sets were 1 Sonny Stitt - Complete Roost Studio recordings - Mosaic 2 Rev J M Gates - Complete recordings vols 1-9 - Document 3 Jimmie Lunceford - Life is fine - Quadromania 4 Cab Calloway - The scat song - Quadromania 5 Various - What it is: Funk & rare grooves - Rhino 5 Johnny Dodds - Clarinet wobble - Quadromania Most played single/double albums were 1 Rhoda Scott - Very saxy - Ahead 2 Sekouba Bambino - Ambiance ballon - Super Selection (Syllart reissue) 3 Ganda Fadiga - Alah Kouya - CK7 4 Reuben Wilson, Grant Green Jr & Bernard Purdie - Godfathers of groove - 18th & Vine 5 Thierno Koite - Ubbite - JFC 5 Luisito Quintero - Percussion madness - Vega 5 Fred Anderson - Timeless: Live at the Velvet Lounge - Delmark A lot more exploration (via reissue sets) of older forms of music in 2007, likely to continue in 2008 But also I played a lot of Zouglou music, from Cote d'Ivoire. Something else I must find more of in 2008. MG

Jeff - I'm grateful for your info on the Mercury box - and for all the PMs I've been sent advising me about this and that box Thanks, to all. It seems the one I'm more interested in is the one that DOES look like a radio. The OkeH box would probably be nice but not a must have for me. MG

How 'bout Sharon Jones (of the Dap Kings)? From the Daptone webpage: Sure, some of her detracters say that she's really just appropriating the style and trappings of having been a prison guard. After all, they protest, the prison system today is nothing like it was in the Golden Era of incarceration back in the '50s and '60s. There's no way she could guard those prisoners with the authenticity that can only come from having been there when it was really happening. But the way I see it is, as one of her former charges put it, "You know, when she used to crack me on the shoulder blades with her billy club, I could really feel it. And when something feels that real, then hey, how can it not be real?" You wicked bugger MG

Oh yes! Start with Youssou. The Wikipedia discography only covers material issued in the West. A discography that is as complete as we can make it is here. http://biochem.chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~endo/EAYoussou.html It was, of course, Youssou who introduced me to Mbalax getting on for twenty years ago. I have a helluva lot of his recordings. Generally, it's better to get the ones he issues on his own label, Jololi, which is now about the second biggest record label in Senegal, rather than those made specially for western markets. The Senegal-targeted music is much more exciting, the rhythms much more flexible (particularly up to the mid nineties) and rather more like the way jazz musicians bend time or play more than one rhythm/time signature simultaneously than conventional dance musicians. He said, of that music, that white people couldn't dance to it and I guess that's true for non-jazz fans. If you're used to hearing musicians playing with time, then you can dance to it. Youssou is absolutely ADORED by the Senegalese, to an extent to which I think no western popular singer would even think of aspiring in relation to their own countries. I saw him in 1997 in St Louis, Senegal. The army had roped off the town square in front of the Governor's mansion and erected a couple of stands for the rich folk to sit in - it cost about $3 to get in the stands, $1.50 to stand around in the square. So I was in one of the stands, directly behind a group of aging serignes, the aristocrats of lady traders, dripping with gold, swathed in tulle. They were between their late sixties and eighties. I thought they'd just come along because it was a charity gig but no, once Youssou got going, they were singing along with him and knew all the words to the songs on his latest album (Lii), which I'd bought only the week before. It goes without saying that the poor and the young go for him, too. And also, people of all the main tribes in Senegal love him - and all tribes play Mbalax, which Etoile de Dakar, the band with which Youssou came to prominence and took over, developed. Oh yes, in the early eighties, Youssou was as cutting edge in Senegalese music as Trane was in jazz. He's an object lesson that you don't need to be unpopular to be avant garde. But while Youssou definitely rules the roost, even after all these years, in Senegal, there are numerous other great bands and singers there. My favourite Mbalax bands/singers are: Ouza Lemzo Diamono Fallou Dieng & le D L C Alioune Mbaye Nder & le Setsima Kine Lam Souleymane Faye Moussa Ngom Ablaye Mbaye Ndiaga Mbaye Super Diamono (I prefer their work from before the time Omar Pene took them over) Thione Seck Assane Ndiaye Assane Mboup Alioune Kasse Soda Mama Fall Royal Band de Thies Fatou Laobe Fatou Guewel It may be hard for westerners to distinguish between these bands, all of whom play the same type of music. But it's no more difficult, really, than it was in the early sixties to distinguish between Jimmy Smith and the many other Soul Jazz organists who were around at the time - but many, nonetheless, said it was a field of Smith plus imitators. I guess I'm a fairly serious collector of Mbalax - I have 325 Mbalax albums, which is a fair proportion of all that have been made (though I only have about half of Youssou's own albums - 35). MG

I want to echo Bright Moments' thoughts about the way you've approached the board, Jeff. I'm interested in the Mercury R&B box, but I'm not sure. Is this the one with a disc each by Albert Ammons, Eddie Vinson, and Jay McShann, and sessions by Cootie Williams, Buddy Rich, Dr. Longhair, Rex Stewart, Helen Humes and others? I've no idea what this cost at the time. I've never heard of the Okeh R&B box. Could you let me know what that is, please? PM me, if you like. MG