The Magnificent Goldberg

Hi. Gotta keep up with this developing story... MG

How do you do that, Jim? Anyway, I just tried Charles Tolliver out and got Charles Tolliver Charles Williams Charlie Floyd The Mighty Clouds of Joy - WTF? Sideshow Ray Charles Del Shannon doesn't appear until halfway down the page. Sure is an odd algorhythm AMG uses. Must be in 7/6.3 MH

Clap when you want, moan when you want, scream when you want. Otherwise, keep schtum. MG

John De Lorean Karl Benz Henry Royce

Foo Fighters Muhammad Ali Idris Muhammad

Grand Papa Diabate Pape Fall Aminata Fall

Little Willie John Millie Small Big Bill Broonzy

Thanks Chris. OK. MG

Odell Brown - Odell Brown - Paula Billy Larkin & the Delegates - Hole in the wall - World Pacific MG

Blue Mink Mink DeVille Satan

No; "Charles III" had a couple of tracks from the "Intensity sessions" that weren't on the original LP plus new material. The "Intensity" tracks originally issued on "Charles III" were issued on CD on the "Intensity" CD OJC. "Funk fantastique" has the original mix of "Morgan" (ie "Morgan" is a slightly shorter remix of "Funk fantastique"), an alternative take of "Speedball" and a previously unissued cut "Grab hole a dis" all from the "Morgan" session; two previously unissued cuts from "Soul story" (which could have augmented a CD issue of that LP - so it's clear that won't come out); and the other (non "Intensity") material originally issued on "Charles III". That means that everything Charles recorded for Prestige has come out on CD except for what was on the LP "Soul story", and the tracks from "Kharma" and "Leaving this planet", which were shortened to make the albums fit onto 1 CD. MG

"Funk fantastique"="Morgan" MG

Do I need to hurry to get these ESP CDs? MG

Except for 1970 & 1971, I was pretty poor during the '70s - married, child, where's the money gone? - so I bought pretty conservatively - mostly people I knew I liked, and didn't care who was with them much, if at all. But in terms of buying people I didn't know, I'd be more guided by the artwork than by the personnel list. If an album had what I considered "over-elaborate" artwork, I wouldn't even pick it up in the shop, equating this with hype and over-production. I'd prefer, and still do, a sleeve with a pic of the musician, or perhaps a lightly clad young lady (as per Muse - but I'd have bought all those Muses anyway, whatever was on the sleeve), and a bit of lettering. But this attitude, and short pockets, meant I missed the joys of George Clinton in the '70s. MG

Indeed - but the operative word is "entire". That's something we WON'T see. (Or hear) MG

I await with interest the appearance on this site of the complete Atlantic recordings of: Jackie Ivory, Clarence Wheeler, Les McCann, Eddie Harris, David Newman and Hank Crawford. MG

Unidisc of Canada is having a nice programme of reissuing Groove Merchant stuff. 'bout time, too! MG

Info on those particular prints was sent out in an email a couple days ago.....here http://www.mosaicrecords.com/photosearch.asp?search=52 is a link to the other photos on the Mosaic site. m~ And nary a Jackson, Wilkerson or Willette among them - just those commercial people MG

A complete tangent -- MG, where did you read/hear this story? I've never heard it mentioned before. It's generally stated that George Avakian signed Miles to Columbia after the latter's performance on "Round Midnight" (and the crowd response) at the 1955 Newport Festival. (Which also fits the timeline.) Guy In conversation with Bob Porter. MG Hmm... was Porter working for Prestige in 1955? Guy No - but I rather think that would have been a story he would have heard from an authoritative source when he did work for Prestige. I'm inclined to credit it. MG

A complete tangent -- MG, where did you read/hear this story? I've never heard it mentioned before. It's generally stated that George Avakian signed Miles to Columbia after the latter's performance on "Round Midnight" (and the crowd response) at the 1955 Newport Festival. (Which also fits the timeline.) Guy In conversation with Bob Porter. MG

how the fuck so, Guy & respectfully, how well do you really know the history of the American record biz? we can name a handful of exceptions-- Dylan's evolution on Columbia, the Ramones on Sire (which had been indie)... & what else? distribution deals do NOT count!!! Prince? fine, keep going. (& don't tell me Duke on Victor or any such hogwash... the assimilation of the record biz into greater pop cult machine is the worst godamn thing that ever happened, then & now. edc knows it, you should know it too. MG's original statement (which you deleted) said: This is quite clearly false. As you stated yourself, Dylan on Columbia and Duke on Victor (and Columbia) are major exceptions. Sticking to jazz, two of the most important jazz innovators in the past half century (perhaps THE MOST IMPORTANT) did much of their most important work for major labels -- John Coltrane on Impulse!, Miles Davis on Columbia. I'm sure we can come up with other, less significant innovative recordings by other artists for major labels. (Was Decca a major label when they recorded the Basie band?) If we're going to talk about rock, besides Dylan (already mentioned) we have the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Santana, the Band, the Velvet Underground, and Frank Zappa. I'm sure there are other examples. Guy Impulse wasn't a major label. In the sixties, the criterion for major label status was that the firm had to own its own distribution network. ABC didn't. 1) This article on wikipedia suggests they DID have a distribution network -- they distributed Dunhill Records. Maybe I'm not clear on these terms. 2) Even if Impulse! didn't have their own distribution network, calling a record label owned by a large media corporation an "independent label" certainly stretches the meaning of the term. As other people have pointed out, Davis did most of his major innovations while on Columbia. He also recorded The Birth of the Cool for Capitol. Again, from wikipedia: My earlier comments on ABC/Impulse apply to Verve/MGM as well. Well, I didn't see this qualification in your claim about "innovation comes only from the indies". That said, I think even with this qualification the claim is incorrect -- major innovations by artists involved in "black music" did happen on major labels. Debating is fun! Guy First I've heard of MGM being a major. Obviously I was wrong there. I do know that ABC definitely didn't own its own distribution system, and the Wik article doesn't contradict that. What that meant, in practical terms, is that, to achieve distribution, a firm had to have lots of contracts with independent distributors. But a firm that was big enough could distribute, through that method, the product of a lot of other labels. Atlantic and Bell (before Arista was formed out of it) were particularly active in this area, as was ABC. As JL says, of course, I didn't mean the sentence in absolute terms. There are always exceptions and Louis Jordan is another who hasn't been mentioned yet. As a general principle, however, I still stand by what I said, and in particular, on the possible impact this has on today's music through the control the majors are much more capable of exercising than used to be the case. (This might be because the second tier has gone or been acquired by the majors over the years - Atlantic, Chess, Imperial, Motown, Mercury, King, Vee-Jay etc.) MG

I don't know exactly which GMs have been reissued. But for my money, Holmes' "American pie" has very hot playing; I think it's the hottest of Groove's GM albums. For McGriff, there's "The main squeeze" and "Fly dude", both of which concentrate on very straight ahead playing. "Stump juice" is very good, with more structured arrangements and a slightly larger band - but still not moving too far from straight up and down stuff. In addition, there is a splendid live album; "Friday the 13th". Half McGriff; Lucky Thompson playing soprano on the other half. Can't say I like Thompson much but others say his side is very good. I've been surprised, having got them in recent weeks, at how good O'Donel Levy's "Black velvet", "Simba" and "Breeding of mind" are. Charles Covington, who plays organ or keyboards on these, is also pretty interesting. You'll appreciate this is a judgement based on a couple of hearings, not three decades worth, as with the Holmes & McGriffs. MG

Edna Gallmon Cooke Sam Cooke Johnny Taylor

Chloe Tony Joe White Clifton Chenier

Got an e-mail from True Blue including details of some sales of Francis Wolff photos. (Should this be in the Mosaic forum or somewhere else?) Miles, Dex, Herbie go for $750 Hank for $500 Curtis Fuller, poor bugger, goes for $300. SO HOW MUCH FOR A FRED JACKSON PRINT!!!!!!! HOW MUCH FOR DON WILKERSON! HOW MUCH FOR BABY FACE??????? (Oh, we don't do those.....) MG