The Magnificent Goldberg

Chukkers Jack Frame Round John Virgin

I think this is a valid and interesting point. I probably put more what people may think of as obscure musicians in my BFTs than most - because I'm not shy about putting in stuff from West and South Africa and the Caribbean. (Though those people are not, generally obscure; they usually occupy heroic positions in their own kinds of music.) But my view is that people who like jazz a lot can easily get the music from those parts of the world, because it's as hugely influenced by jazz as US R&B; it just comes out as something else, as the prevailing culture strikes it - and as R&B does. But I also like putting in well known names doing different stuff or working in different contexts. But that's just me. What do you'all think, folks? MG

The Lockerbie Bombers The Bomb Squad The A Team

Dancers at the end of Time Michael Moorcock Jherek Carnelian

Of Cosby, Sills and Nsh, I assume. Thanks

Put me down for a BFT this year, but I did one not long ago, I think, so not too early. Oh, and I like having limits. I spend many a delightful hour toying with my scruples about which tracks to cut to keep within the limit. It makes you think about the audience a bit more - how does it play all together, kind of thing. It doesn't matter where you set the limit. MG

Who's that, Lon? MG

Giggle! Bruce Forsythe The Forsytes The Fosdykes

This is the inside part of the sleeve of Al Grey's CD 'Live at the Floating Jazz Festival' Chiaroscuro 313. I always assumed the reason the 'well-known percussionist/record producer' wasn't identified was because it was Hank O'Neal, owner of Chiaroscuro. Or Shelley M Shier, the other producer of the album. But no, O'Neal is white and Shelley is both white and female. So who is it? Anyone Know? MG

I had a listen to one of the two Fode Baro tracks in the archive. It was a track from his first Syllart album (issued on Sterns as 'Donsoke') and it WAS the Syllart recording, not a live performance. I need to read the intro by Janie someone, because it seems pretty unhelpful. Neither Fode Baro cut bore a title. But the Bembeya Jazz National listing includes several versions (which may or may not be the same) of a good number of titles. Maybe Janie explains stuff about sources or some other helpful stuff. Will report further. MG

My stereo copy has a pre-liberty sleeve, but a Liberty inner sleeve and it sez 'a division of Liberty Records' on the label. No ear, of course, but it has the crossed out A and B by the numbers, like Chewy's. There are probably loads of somewhat different combinations of stuff on most BN LPs. MG

The Blues Menn Manfred Mann Herbie Mann

I agree with that. One of the reasons I didn't take the last couple was because I haven't the time. But for the latest, I made time and glad I did. But it'd be a BAD MOVE to abandon it, in my view. MG

Ripping my Bembeya Jazz National CDs to my pc today, I went to Dr Graeme Counsel's Radio Africa page to find the news that the British Library project to archive the entire Syliphone catalogue, plus hundreds of tapes done for radio broadcasts, has now been completed and is available for interested listeners on line! This is an incredibly valuable piece of work. I haven't looked at it yet but here's the link to Dr Counsel's introduction to the archive, which includes a direct link into the archive. http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/endangeredarchives/2016/01/syliphone-collection-guinea-sounds.html There's YEARS of listening in this, folks. MG

I think Jubilee Records is now owned by Universal-EMI. Has anyone approached them to see if the session notes for the two albums are still around? MG

Little Pig Robinson Miss Piggy Lee Miss Peggy Lee

Chu Berry Chewy Dewey Jackson

Indeed, you did, about as haphazardly as I usually manage to get I did get Phineas positively (as Bill said), once I'd started really listening I'm pretty pleased with that, as I much prefer him doing material like 'Please send me someone to love' than those fast things that you can't smooch to, so I listen to those early albums much less than what I think of as the nicer stuff. MG

BFT144 Well, here we are again, with a bunch of great unknowns. 1 Nice old-time piano, along with a modern-sounding horn section, then settles down to a piano, bass & drums band. I could wish this were Jay McShann, because I know you like him, but I don’t think so. Tenor player isn’t as modern as I’d thought when he starts to solo. Nor is the trumpet player. No idea who the hornmen are. I like this; I think I’d like a lot of this. 2 This is nice in a kind of Duke Pearson way, but I don’t think it’s him; pianner player has a few too many chops, I think. Still, this is the kind of thing that, if it was on a Duke Pearson album, you’d listen to with relish or Branston Pickle. Can’t say Pearson’s my main man, but he stands interestingly exactly on the border between hard bop and soul jazz, as does this band here. 3 This is well onto the hard bop side of that line, but it’s still got a nice funky feel to it and no one’s trying to blind me with science (they usually succeed). I’ve got a feeling I’ve heard the sax player before but can’t really ID him – someone like Tim Warfield I think, but without any confidence. Bass player is a bit thin-toned; I’d rather hear a geezer with fewer chops but much more resonance (same as trombonists and sax players). 4 Oh I know this tune. Well, I thought I did. Guitarist’s fingertips are making too much noise, sliding up and down the strings, for me, I’m afraid, so I can’t really concentrate on what he’s playing, only what he’s doing. No, a bit too much guitar for me. 5 Live and, I’m almost sure from the first notes, Lionel Hampton. With a HARMONICA PLAYER???? Struth! OK, so it’s probably Toots, though it sounds a bit thrustful for him. Very forceful guitar player, and I’ll guess a European. After another thin-sounding bass player, here comes Toots again, and an exchange of fours. Good, hot jazz, but I’m doubting Hampton, maybe it’s Milt Jackson. 6 Another wing-ding track. Very mainstream. Don’t know these players; well, I expect I do but I’m enjoying this too much to be asked to actually IDENTIFY anyone. I don’t think it’s a Prestige Swingville session, so perhaps it’s Vanguard or Columbia. 7 Coo! Another Spitfire cut! Vroooom!!! Well, I suspect Oscar Peterson here. Oh no, Phineas! I’ve probably, though not possibly, got this. If I could recognise Bebop classics, I might be able to finger this. 8 ‘Willow weep for me’ played as if it were ‘All blues’. Well, it ain’t Sonny Stitt; too clever for it to be Stitt. And the sax solo doesn’t flow enough, anyway. And another chopsy bass player. What’s the matter with Leroy Vinnegar, Bill? J Well, these guys are all showing off their techniques but there’s still music to hear here. I’ll be interested to read who this is. Time for a cough and drag (ie, fag). Back soon. 9 Hm, somewhat abstract tune, trying hard not to be bop. Sounds old and, at three minutes, maybe it was done for a 78. But the sax player isn’t playing 78 era music, so I’ve no idea and can probably do without this, intriguing though it is. So anyway, NOT Gene Ammons. 10 Another tune I know, but can’t put my finger on instantly. ‘In your own sweet way’? Lovely title, I’ve always thought. Oh, no need for double timing, my lad; you were getting along fine without that. Sorry, minus fourteen for poor taste. 11 This is a nearly, but not quite, familiar tune. Being done very nicely with, so far, no exhibition of digital musculature. Well, after 2.5 minutes, the guy does reveal serious chops but, unlike the previous guy, resists the temptation to launch off into space. Good. I hope these two cuts aren’t the same player. 12 Shades of Debussy’s ‘La mer’. And I thought Les McCann was the only one who did that. Learn something every day. This guy ISN’T the same as the last couple. There’s a spark of insanity here, along with enormous capacity and ability, that indicates someone like Earl Hines. Oh, it cut off. Perhaps it was just a solo intro to something that the rest would have been a dead giveaway of. 13 Oh, movie magic! Ennio Morricone goes jazz! Rampant synthesisers! Because surely no one would have paid for a whole goddamn orchestra. Well, in the seventies, if this had a disco beat, Creed Taylor would have. So, if Grover Washington Jr comes on in the last five minutes, I’ll know, won’t I? So, we’re getting there, aren’t we? Isn’t that Mrs Hubbard’s little boy on trumpet? Well, whaddaya know? This is getting more and more to sound as if it’s a Don Sebesky album cut, even though it’s not Grover Washington Jr on sax. Though, there are bits of the sax solo that DO sound like Grover. And bits that DON’T. Well, even if the tenor player is Grover (and I’m not convinced it is), it’s NOT one of his own albums. No, I think it’s Don Sebesky. Damn nice BFT Bill, thank you. I didn’t guess much and it’s all wrong, I imagine, because my guesses were filled with non-conviction. But I did enjoy almost all of it and want to find out about quite a lot, in a few weeks’ time. MG Well, It's Phineas Newborn, Calvin's less popular brother This is from 'The great jazz piano of PN', his second Contemporary album. And, to my ETERNAL shame, I didn't recognise Leroy Vinnegar! And Milt Turner, later with the Ray Charles band, is the drummer. MG Recognizing the "Au Privave" theme and Toots Thielemans' playing, I tracked this one down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oscar_Peterson_Big_6_at_Montreux You got it. I was hoping to fool everyone for awhile with this one. But I suppose that there are not that many jazz harmonica soloists, so I should have expected that Toots would be identified. Oh well, I wasn't far off in the end. I'd never have thought of Oscar Peterson, but I listen to him as little as I can get away with. MG

Rock Hudson Stone Roses Flint

Well, DO read the Dempsey Travis book. MG

I suppose it's to be expected that a piece of web journalism should be so lightweight. I think you'd really appreciate 'The autobiography of black jazz' by Dempsey J Travis, Bev. It's unobtainable but you can get it ordered (like I did) from the local library. Travis, in the late thirties/early forties, ran a big band in Chicago. One of his sax players was Nat Jones, later the straw boss and arranger of the James Brown band and a major soloist on 'Grits and soul'. So Travis' band did good training. He gave up music in the late forties and became an estate agent, which led to him seeking to revitalize African American neighbourhoods in Chicago. Travis Realty Company, which he founded in 1949, and Sivart Mortgage Company, which he founded four years later, increased the availability of mortgages for African Americans. Together, the two companies worked to sell properties located in the Chicago area to African Americans who were being displaced by urban renewal projects.[2] In 1961, Travis founded the United Mortgage Bankers of America and served as its president until 1974. During the late sixties and early seventies, Travis served on President Richard Nixon’s Housing Task Force and President Gerald Ford’s Task Force on Urban Renewal. He also wrote a number of books on black history. As you'd expect of an estate agent, a lot of the focus of his black jazz book was on the actual locations and addresses where things were happening; dance halls, bars, churches, I think, as well as musicians' homes.

Shanty Boys La Dona Maria Elena Cantrell (if you remember the song) Matt Kingston

Diana Dors Pia Zadora Donald Piers

Thee Headcoats Eric Coates Russell Jacquet Lord! Must try to FIND that album!!!! MG