The Magnificent Goldberg

Yes, but not just the US businesses - as Porcy noted, EU businesses are in it up to their necks, too. And after China? There's a pretty good string of other countries where the same scams can (and will) be tried, and work for a while. No end in sight. MG

WPCR 25094(New) Castro,Joe(p) Groove Funk Soul* 2310 This is a brilliant session, with Teddy Edwards, Leroy Vinnegar and Billy Higgins, same band as "Teddy's ready" on Contemporary. It's available (or was) on Collectables, coupled most eccentrically with Ross/Ganley "Jazzmakers". Much better, in my view, to get it by itself MG

Nor I. I'm glad I have never been tested. MG

I have Big boy pts 1 & 2 on the Skylark label. Bootin! MG

I'm afraid I have to agree with you, Alexander. It's been shown that, even when people DO consider their charges to be human, they are still prepared to treat them with complete callousness. (I'm thinking of the experiment conducted with students playing roles in, I think, a California university.) Oh, and I don't think this is political; it's more like what it is to be human. MG

Specs played drums on two tracks of Shirley Scott's "Soul song" with Stanley Turrentine & Eric Gale - "Think", the lead track on the LP, which wasn't the Aretha song but the Lowman Pauling song originally recorded by the "5" Royales, is one of the greatest examples I've heard of a drummer pushing a soloist (Stanley) over the cliff into screaming hysteria (after the track was SUPPOSED to finish and the band was winding down through the out). For that alone, Specs will always be a revered drummer in my opinion. RIP, Specs. Stanley's waiting for another push. MG

Now that's one I have yet to hear. Me too - I passed on a second hand copy many years ago in favour of her "Oasis" (Muse) with Houston Person & Charles Davis, which was in the shop as well - couldn't afford both. Harold Vick is on the Strata East. Some days, the decisions are just too hard, aren't they? MG

PayPal has been copy-catted by phishers wherein they send false e-mails asking for payment in order to get your personal and financial information. I don't trust them to keep this from happening....use your credit card or pay by money order whenever possible. That's only a problem if you take notice of what they send you. (My bank say the same thing.) MG

Milt was a great organist - in the pre-Jimmy Smith vein, of course. Applied his "locked hands" method of playing piano to the organ. Was so short, his feet couldn't reach the bass pedals when he was sitting on the stool. Two heavily recommended examples of Milt from here are Illinois Jacquet - Go power (live trio, Jacquet, Buckner & Alan Dawson - play very loud) - Cadet, not too hard to get I imagine. Milt Buckner - Green onions - Black & Blue (with Roy Gaines - blues guitarist from Texas) MG

More important? Hmmmm....not so sure I can agree with that, especially "poor" artitsts, especially not in quantity... "Average", I could go with, though... But as important, yeah, definitely, because, "regular" gives "genius" more properer, more fullerer context, and vice-versa. And knowledge with out context isn't really as much knowledge as you want out of the deal, I should think. Otoh, the syndrome of certain music fans knowing the minutae of every "Funky 45" collection ever issued and knowing only the hig(est) points of James Brown, Stax, etc. (or even claiming some "superiority" for the former group over the latter) is the type of phenomenon you get when "context" becomes an end unto itself rather than a tool to understand everything about a particular set of circumstances, from the lowest to the highest. Balance. You gotta have balance... Yes; I'm happy to go with average, if you like that word better. Though, if you put average in the context of jazz, or even just Texas saxmen, who's average? Clifford Scott? Curtis Amy? Don Wilkerson? King Curtis? Al Abreu? Shelley Carroll? Harold Land? Booker Ervin? John Manning? Fathead? Buddy Tate? Budd Johnson? Big Jay McNeely? Wilton Felder? Arnett Cobb? Illinois Jacquet? Hershel Evans? etc etc (I was going to add, You? but we'll leave that to one side ) What I meant by poor was people who simply didn't perform at the genius level, who I think are probably more representative. I don't think there's anyone who came out of that South Western tradition one would say performed at that level except Prez, who wasn't from that region, but came up as part of it, and Ornette, who was in some ways so far away from that tradition that comparisons are silly. The point is that anyone can hear the Texas approach/style in ALL those musicians, including Prez and Ornette. But if you just listened to those two, without all those others, I doubt that you'd get a clear idea of what it was/is. There's a level at which competence is acceptable (or better), originality is personal and vision is representative, rather than groundbreaking/transcendent. Now, you'll know that that area is my target in my own collection But, the converse of what you said about genius needing context is also true - the representative also needs the context of genius (so I do have Prez, Ornette and others in my collection - happy for people to say not enough; donations acceptable). Similarly, the example you used of obscure funk 45 nerds. MG

Cover your eyes MIDNIGHT SLOWS SLEEVES Volume 1 Buddy Tate & Milt Buckner B&B 33026 Volume 2 Wild Bill Davis & Buddy Tate B&B 33045 Volume 3 Milt Buckner, Arnett Cobb & Candy Johnson B&B 33055 Volume 4 Milt Buckner & Buddy Tate B&B 33068 Volume 5 Milt Buckner & Buddy Tate B&B 33075 Volume 6 Milt Buckner, Arnett Cobb & Eddie Chamblee B&B 33093 Volume 7 Milt Buckner & Guy Lafitte B&B 33115 Volume 8 Illinois Jacquet B&B 33135 Volume 9 Bill Doggett B&B 33145 Vol 10 Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis & Bill Doggett B&B 33160 These albums were recorded in France between December 1967 and July 1978. Some have been reissued on CD – often in compilation form, with all of one LP and part of another on one CD. MG

It's OK, thanks. And I think this could go either way. I'm not in the business because I would find it hard to decide whether I'd do better marketing through CD Baby or licensing to some interested company. I would LIKE there to be enough prospective business for a "commercial" issue. But I've got to say that lots of prospective buyers who never heard the LP, seeing Grachan's name on the sleeve, might be turned off. MG

Definitely smart. I wonder, sometimes, how much jazz development has been affected by musicians' reliance for income on those who eschew its commercial angle. MG

Opposition to culturally-relativistic aesthetics need not rest on Platonic metaphysical assumptions , as it can arise among those sharing the desire to naturalize aesthetics . Many wishing to naturalize aesthetic values stop at the cultural level instead of continuing down to the level of human nature , largely out of antagonism ( rooted in political commitments ) to what they see as the essentialism of such a concept . Evolutionary psychology has helped provide an explanatory framework for studies demonstrating cross-cultural , trans-historical standards of beauty ( both of persons and of landscapes ) , so why are we to suppose that something similar could not be possible with musical aesthetic values ? If we accept the psychological nativism of Chomsky's linguistic universals , aren't we obliged to be open to the possibility of aesthetic universals ? Strictly speaking such an aestheticism would not be universalist or absolutist , since it would still be relativistic in the sense that it would be relative to human beings and the contingency of their evolutionary development . This is a particularly difficult post for me, Chas, because I don't understand what you mean by "naturalize aesthetics", which seems to me to have two related, but opposing, meanings. The ordinary meaning of the word "naturalisation" is a process by which a person becomes a citizen of another country. An alternative meaning is to make natural and since you mention human nature and Chomsky later on, I'm going to guess that what you're talking about is internationalisation. Chomsky is of the view that humans are "hard wired" for language and that all human languages have the same deep roots in this wiring. And you go on to say that there may be similar hard wirings in relation to aesthetics. OK, I'm not going to argue with either of those views, because I think they're probably right, too. The point I think I want to make is that, despite this universal hard wiring, languages are still mutually incomprehensible, their common roots buried so deep they are of little practical use in day to day circumstances. You have to study long and hard to grasp a foreign language. Just so, you have to study long and hard to grasp what Braxton called the "cultural aesthetic thrust" of a foreign culture, even a bit. And, while it's clear that there are common roots, the weight of the particular culture completely overwhelms them. I think that this is perhaps less so in music than in other aesthetic areas, though I don't know. What I feel pretty strongly is that, unless you can develop a feel for the particular, you're unlikely to be able to penetrate to the universal. Have you read Taine's "History of English literature"? Most literary critics and historians rubbish it because they say Taine left out personal genius and thus treated Shakespeare and Skelton the same. But Taine's avowed intention in writing was to find out, through a study of the literature, what it was like to be English; not to make critical assessments and put writers into a league table. Thus, studying poor writers was, to Taine, every bit as important as studying the great writers. I would personally go further and say that poor artists of any discipline are more important to study from the point of view of gaining an understanding of a foreign cultural aesthetic thrust, because they are more representative of the culture than the geniuses. In my view, too many people (and I'm not pointing the finger at you, Chas) limit themselves to the geniuses and I believe this limits their ability to judge. MG

Ah, a valuable lesson in internetiquette - ta, Dan. MG

You probably have discussed this somewhere else, but can you be more specific? What jazz does he have a poor appreciation for? MG: which original Mosaic promise are you referring to? I wasn't referring to a specific promise. It was more like such a thing shows promise, y'know? I thought it did. And I have bought several boxes and selects. But so many things that I would have liked to have seen out as complete sets have been passed by that, overall, I'm disappointed with Mosaic's 25 year career so far. I expect someone will ask what I would have liked to have come out, so I'll just mention Billy Larkin & the Delegates Aura/WP, Les McCann PJs, Reuben Wilson BNs, Groove Holmes PJs, JAM, a proper Patton set, a complete Blue Mitchell BNs etc etc. Basically, MC has a poor appreciation of music that is aimed at wide audiences; ie that's commercial. So, even when he does pay attention to someone I'm interested in, he cuts out what he appears to think of as commercial trash, which is often what I like best. And he does it for commercial reasons... because the rest of the people on this board wouldn't buy a Mosaic if it had a couple of extra discs full of "commercial trot", would you? MG

Huh? I know "vig," but never've heard of PITA(except the bread). 'Splain, por favor. PITA is, as Lon explained on p1, "pain in the arse" (or "ass", west of Ireland). Someone saying "pain in the arse" is trying to be rude to or about someone/thing. Reducing it to a set of initials takes away the rudeness. So it's a euphemism. I don't usually do euphemism. I'm much more likely to call it a fucking shovel. Which is why it didn't immediately occur to me that PITA meant "pain in the arse". See? MG

here we had a list of these universal reissues... http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...amp;hl=jazzecho Ah, my PC was in the menders at the time, so I didn't see it. Thanks Niko. MG

Indeed - I have four or five "Midnight slows" and luv 'em! So I guess "Lavender sax" goes higher in the priority list. MG

Another OJC turned up today; "Soul call" by Kenny Burrell Another one I wish I'd bought four decades ago! The title track is particularly wonderful; Ray Barretto was devastating! MG

If I remember correctly, this one is the more "late night" mood album. Big Hits at least had "Sack O' Woe" and a couple of other decent tunes on it ... I agree. Gave a listen to Lavender Sax and was not that impressed, "mood music" is correct. How would either of you compare "Lavender sax" to the Black & Blue "Midnight slows" series? MG Um, I'll say "fine what they are but not all that special". You mean the "Midnight slows" aren't all that special? And "Lavender sax" is like that, too? MG

(po-faced) hell yes. MG

I dare say Alvin went through the tapes of his and Jr Mance's sessions for their M&I release. Who else could do that? M&I would have been interested because they'd just signed Mance. I shouldn't be surprised if some company like Explore weren't interested enough in Patton to try persuading Alvin to license the session. It doesn't necessarily follow that he'd reactivate Nilva and try to market through CD Baby, or whatever. Nothing necessarily follows. That's why I asked. MG

Perhaps "vig"=vigorish was the problem... Thanks both. I much prefer to write out things like "pain in the arse" because they have more impact than an abbreviation ever can. AFAIK is shorthand; PITA is euphemism. Which is why I didn't get it. Never heard of vigorish, which may seem strange, because my father was a top bookie in the thirties and forties. But he never talked to me about the business. MG

Good site that, thanks Jim. MG