The Magnificent Goldberg

Buddy Guy - L'age d'or de Chicago both discs - Chess, Vogue Chuck Berry - Berry is on top - Chess, Green Line Chuck Berry - After school session - Chess, Vogue MG

Indeed, and I wonder whether the project is looking at Gospel from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria or the West Indies? MG

It is a very interesting mix. By no means all to my taste (and some a long way off it) but so interesting that it doesn't matter. I think I see the rationale for the dating, now; something to do with when the station was playing those tracks a lot, I guess (though it really is quite hard to play things a lot before they come out - not impossible if the station was picked by the company to air stuff in advance - but this doesn't look like that kind of station). MG

Clifford Scott Clifford Coulter Ann Coulter

Thanks very much for posting that HBJ. I didn't find the radio programme, but I did find a link explaining the project and I registered on the basis that I could loan the project some materials. So we'll see if I can help. MG

I bet everybody's having the same thing for luch that we've just had Curried leftovers MG

Wow! Again the eccentric dating! Some that jump out at me: Last Poets - New York New York - 1969, not 1984 Les Ambassadeurs - Sidiki - 1979, not 1984 Fela Kuti - ITT - 1979, not 1982 Funkadelic - One nation under a groove - 1978 not 1985 Bembeya Jazz National - Doni doni - 1971 not 1985 Mory Kante - Ye ke ye ke - 1987, not 1986 (just to show they get it wrong in both directions ) Gil Scott-Heron - Your daddy loves you - 1980, not 1987 Again, a very interesting selection, but one still wonders why those particular items have been selected. MG

Albert Collins Ice-T L L Cool J

Means nowt to me. My wife has mentioned the name in the hearing of a friend, resulting in deeply acid scoffing. MG

Bill Leslie - Diggin' the chicks - Argo orig (Ultra high fidelity audio odyssey by Argo - I love that!) MG

Nice try. It's a great set! MG

I love the Curtis Amy Select! But there isn't anything else like "Katanga" on it. Matter of fact, there isn't anything else like "Katanga" most any place. "Katanga" and "Sunset eyes" were the two I got out of that specific series. At the same time, however, they issued one that seemed to match the others very well, but not in the series: Jimmy Witherspoon - Singin' the blues - with Gerald Wilson/Sweets Edison (tp), Teddy Edwards & Jimmy Allen (ts), Hamp Hawes/Henry McDode (who he?) (p), Herman Mitchell (g), Jimmy Hamilton (b) & Jimmy Miller (d). Recorded in May 1958. A very nice album; every bit as good as you'd hope it might be. MG

Yeah, a common problem! MG

Indeed It is a great pity that hype such as this gets such a wide reading, because it's clearly recognisable as such and generates its own resistance, where a more measured approach might generate interest. MG

That's very interesting. I was never sure about Sinatra. Back in the late fifties, I read interviews with him in which he was going on about quality - particularly that people looked for quality in buying LPs, rather than 45s. Implicit in this was that quality was a) what HE was providing; b) what Capitol was providing (and the company really was committed to quality from its earliest days); and that this derived from jazz - specifically the swing bands, whose members really knew what they were a-doing of (by contrast to R&R, the new thing of the time). I always thought that this was, at least in part, a statement of his own aims. But also that it was Capitol's aim as well. And that the combination of Sinatra and Capitol records was a good example of meeting of minds. But further, that Capitol had more influence in that meeting than Sinatra. From what you say, my guess was wrong: Capitol = Sinatra. The other interesting thing people say is that on the Peggy Lee album, "The man I love", Sinatra was doing nothing more than waving the baton at the orchestra (and getting a presumably large fee for doing so). In the light of what you've reported, Jim, it seems far more likely that he was making, and had presumably been hired to make, a signficant input. The session tapes for THAT one would indeed be interesting to hear. MG

Jimmy Smith Oscar the Grouch Oscar (the statue)

A great afternoon! James built his Lego Pirate Ship, then he and Lawrence played their new Wii Olympics game. I managed to only fall into a post-prandial sleep twice while listening to my son-in-law drone on about planning permission for their new house; but amazed everyone by carrying on a conversation at the time. We all ate too much, except the kids, of course, who had presents to deal with. I don't 'arf feel FAT! All gone on to Bernard's mother's now. Phew! MG

I agree with you utterly. Power, security and access (to education and healthcare, but also to an inner circle of enormously influential and powerful contacts) are enormously important differences which are NOT diminishing at all - in fact growing. MG

That is a REALLY strange list. Quite apart from the very eccentric dating of some of the tracks. A random sample that leap off the screen: Ray Charles - Lonely Avenue - 1962 (more like 1956) Chuck Berry - Havana moon - 1964 (also 1956) Ray Charles - I believe to my soul 1964 (1959) Charlie Parker - Lover man (1956) (but he was dead!) Louis Jordan - Let the good times roll (1956) (no, 1946) Elvis Presley - Good rockin' tonight (1956) (I thought that was one of the tracks he recorded earlier for Sun, but I'm no expert on him) And what's this Meter's record "Chicken strut"? Duh? But, if you were going to pick a Berry , would you pick "Havana moon"? Or why? Given a choice of all Parker's recordings, why "Lover man"? Ditto for Ray Charles, Louis Jordan and Elvis Presley. JB's "Please please please" is in there, but none of the groundbreaking stuff from the late sixties. But it IS interesting that they've got quite a few groundbreaking African recordings in there - but equally, missed Fela Kuti entirely, also Thomas Mapfumo - one of the main cultural driving forces behind Robert Mugabe's success in Zimbabwe in the seventies - and all of the important Highlife bands from Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. Some concentration on Francophone Africa by the looks of it. (But even within Francophone Africa, selecting Mory Kante rather than one of the much more important and much more enjoyable Guinean big bands of the Sekou Toure era seems perverse.) Please do tell us what you get out of this when it arrives. I must say it's piqued my interest, VBII. MG

What period to Americans regard as "the gilded age"? MG

Nuffink - but I got some money! MG

Peter Bernstein Mark Whitfield Randy Johnston

You mean you didn't keep "Sonny side up" with Diz, Stitt & Rollins? What what what what what!!!!! That's Ray Bryant, dude. Har Har Har! Yes it is! Ageing juvenile Binky Tupperware was advising me earlier! MG

J P R Williams Phil Bennett Barry John

Surely there's still a market for that somewhere! If there's still a market for Lawrence Welk, Luboff must be selling like hot cakes! MG