The Magnificent Goldberg

I was fortunate enough to be at a rehearsal for a tv special London in the 70s. Sir Charles Thompson was the pianist and I sat right behind him. Throughout the rehearsal he was reading a golfing manual but managed to comp continually without taking his eyes off the book. What a GREAT little story, John! MG

Rev Cleophus Robinson - Christmas Carols and good gospel - Peacock Side 1 is carols; side 2 is everyday Gospel, including a great verson of "Why am I treated so bad". I like the conjunction of the two. MG

The window cleaner came around a couple of hours ago. Now THAT is a job I definitely wouldn't want in this weather (well, I wouldn't want it any time, but especially not now)! MG

So you don't know any more than I do MG

Geez ! I've put up with -55C in the frozen North and this feels colder ! Or maybe I've just turned into a Euro-wuss.. I expect we're getting old. Still seeing bright young things in miniskirts out shopping - and their legs AIN'T blue! MG

Thanks for posting this Chuck. Pete Fallico is doing some interesting things with organists on that label. They are available from CDBaby. There are also albums by Rhoda Scott and (on piano!) Bill Heid. MG

Lee Harvey Oswald The Skatalites Lester Stirling

Time for some R&B High heel sneakers I'm a hoochie coochie man Baby please don't go Gypsy woman and from Sierra Leone Dead men don't smoke marijuana MG

Glad to see so much respect for Harold in the Land of Jazz. IMHO it is slightly better than the Fox which is the one most people cite when referencing Harold Land. He is such a great player. I agree; despite the rare recorded appearance of Dupree Bolton, I have a slight preference for "Harold in the land of jazz". MG

Huh? My CD copy presents The Fox as a Harold Land album. Sorry -- you're right. And I reviewed "The Fox" for Down Beat when it first came out; you'd think I would know better. On the other hand, Al Hirt on trumpet there certainly sounds unusual. So THAT'S what happened to him!!!! MG

Yes, but from the cover photo it's clear that Manne has no clue. About Hawes and Mitchell, you can't be sure, though both are in (seemingly posed) positions that are potentially compatible with a decent swing if one did get to those places while actually swinging a club. Kessel is pretending to putt and looks awkward. Well, I HAD to dig out my copy of this. Yes, Kessel looks as if he's getting the umpire to give him middle and leg (cricket) only he's not holding his bat straight. I assume Manne is the one in the blue shirt but can detect no difference in his knowing what he's doing, and the others, because I don't play golf, or even watch it. Clearly, this photo was taken in the days before you had to dress like a black pimp in order to convincingly play golf. I'm sure they'd look fine were their clothes photoshopped into something more modern Oh, and how many "p"s are there in photoshopped? MG

I think this is an elephant. I think many would deny it, however. MG

Why not? Well, because we're hard wired for language. We're almost certainly hard wired for music, too, but I can't believe one is more basic than the other. Or that someone who's managed to learn a language is somehow "miswired". Like WD45, I can listen with great enjoyment to people singing in a language I don't understand and, like him, I'm focusing on the sounds and the feeling in the singer's voice, as well as on the rest of the band. But that isn't ALL the vocal music I can listen to with great enjoyment. That condition seems to me to be the result of a conscious decision - analogous to deciding that, even though your right hand isn't disabled, you won't use it for the rest of your life. I think it would be every bit as hard to ignore the language component of music as to avoid using your right hand more or less instinctively - unless you had tied it behind your back. And, if it can't be ignored, how to avoid assessing some as good, some bad and some indifferent? (I think we're hard wired for criticism, too ) MG

Er - the Daily Mash is somewhere between The Onion and Viz. It ain't real, but it IS funny. MG

Is it really a natural focus or something that's learned? I can't truly believe some people are born like that. MG

Indeed. A few weeks ago, I bought a cheapo comp of Walter's early recordings as a leader, 'cos I only had one LP of his stuff. Much injoyo! But particularly a track called "Lights out", which I've never heard before. I hadn't thought "Johnny Hodges!" before, but more like many of the more bluesy sax players around at the time. But I can see what you mean. Could Hodges sing? MG

Finished this last night. Slow going, but very good description of almost total disaster, with almost no signs of hope at the end. MG Have you read William Finnegan's brilliant Crossing the Line? I love that book. About a year he spent teaching in a "coloured" Capetown high school towards Apartheid's end. Insightful, full of heart and, as you'd expect from this NYer writer, at once personal and socio-historical in scope. No, I haven't. I'm waiting for two other boks on African history to turn up - one from library, the other from Amazon. But they're taking ages... So in the meantime, I'm rereading Mark Hudson - Music in my head - a kind of thriller set in the British and Senegalese music industries. Hudson is a "World Music" journalist, and lived in a Gambian village for about a year, so he does know his stuff when it comes to Senegal. But I didn't like his and the protagonist's attitude much when I read it several years ago. We'll see if I change my mind this time. MG

Thanks for posting that - very funny - the whole thing, not just that item. MG

The one I see most often is Arthur Smith's "Guitar Boogie" (1004), originally credited to The Rambler Trio. I suspect this may have been the label's biggest hit. Ah! Thanks for this ref. "Guitar boogie" was originally issued on Super Disc but apparently didn't get on the pop charts until after MGM had bought the company and reissued the single on MGM 10293. Of course, the Super Disc version may have been on the C&W chart before MGM bought the company. Me too. Galen Gart's ARLD "The American record label directory and dating guide 1940-1959" is an indispensible aid. But no individual records are listed - it would make the book impossibly huge. As it is, it's 259 pages with several thousand labels detailed (some better than others, of course). There's a handy index of individuals' names, too, so you can see which companies someone like Nesuhi Ertegun was involved in before Atlantic. MG

Sonny Stitt - My buddy; Sonny Stitt plays for Gene Ammons - Muse orig Sonny Stitt - In style - Muse WEA France Lou Donaldson - Sweet Poppa Lou - Muse WEA France Hampton Hawes - The green leaves of summer - Contemporary (Vogue UK) ever so mono MG

Excellent X 3!! MG

The boxed set of Dexter's Steeplechase (studio) recordings has him doing just that on- if memory serves- Polkadots & Moonbeams (Nods) So there! MG

Chuck, reading between the line, I sense you're an anti. Care to explain why? MG

And Dex, who used to recite the words when performing live. (Well, he might have done it in the studio, too...) MG

Yeah, but I see some people seem to dislike them all, good, bad or indifferent. And I just wonder why... MG