The Magnificent Goldberg

Second installment These two are more conventional Mbalax albums from the latest Senegalese sweetheart of Mbalax. Now on to Djeliya material from Guinea & Senegal This is slightly disappointing compred to her first album, but it’s a good average. Djeuor is the son of the great classical kora player Soundioulou Cissokho and plays a slightly Mbalax-influenced kind of Djeliya. Ibro Diabate is another of my firm favourites – a very soulful voice. This is the Guinean Fode Kouyate (as opposed to the Malian one of that name, who’s dead). Sekouba is, I think, the son of Guinea’s great tenor Kouyate Sory Kandia. He, too, has a great voice. And now some Serahule Blues from Mali. Ganda Fadiga is the nearet I ever get to buying rural blues! MG

Don't know what you mean by "market cassettes" Clem. I have about 600 albums on cassette - almost all are African. Some of them, I bought in Newark, NJ! And I saw a few guys flogging African cassettes (and books & etc) on 125 St. These are the cassette I got in Paris the other week. Now on to the K7s, at 3 Euro each! (Hit the thumbnail for a bigger image.) First the Senegalese Mbalax material. Fatou has a fabulous voice. Mamadou was one of the original lead singers of Super Diamono, and I think the best of them. Ablaye was featured a lot in the 90s with Youssou Ndour. This is his fourth album and the best – it’s one of the most beautiful Mbalax albums I’ve heard. Assane Ndiaye began his career with Thione Seck but is now one of the most popular young singers in Senegal. He sings like an angel. Alioune Mbaye, dit Nder, began his career with Lemzo Diamono. He’s never made a bad album. I think this is the original issue of Youssou’s East/West album “Egypt”, on his own label Jololi. An interesting album from Ouza – the first on which he’s incorporated a rapper. Very intereting accoustic stuff. Most interesting album Super Diamono has made in 15 years. To be continued MG

New albums on cassette sell for 5 or 6 times the West African price in Southern Africa. That's near what they'd cost in the US, if anyone made cassettes in the US any more. And gives a profit level that's commensurate with that in the West. MG

Right. Ever heard Criss behind Esther Phillips on her Atlantic Confessin' the Blues? luca Ah yes - at my age, you can't remember everything! MG

And a couple of Fathead's LPs MG

That Harris is another I'd forgotten about. A great one. And this - with another great hat! MG

Skeets McDonald McDonnell-Douglas Uncle Mac

Yes, that's a really nice one, too. Though the tracks are all of moderate length. "Blue hour" has lots of space. MG

Eddie Harris was THE man! I recall he did funny things with trumpet, or trumpet mouthpieces on a sax or something. Though the Sonny Stitt Left Bank album is one of my all time most favourite albums. That really shows you why a sax player needed the electric stuff; playing in front of Don Patterson blaring his brains out, a standard mike & amp surely wouldn't have coped. Did Rahsaan ever play electric sax? MG

Yeah! I like all the Prestiges, both Muses, the Xanadu and "Jazz USA" (Imperial) and all the Polydor sessions. Among early recordings, I love "Intermission riff" - a JATP job that came out on Pablo, with Jaws, Bennie Green, Joe Newman, Bobby Tucker, Tommy Potter & Klook. Lonehill has recently reissued it on CD, together with a 1956 set which is OK. Hamp Hawes had Sonny and Teddy Edwards n a TV show he did that was recorded, live at Memory Lane. Joe Turner guested on a couple of tracks and you should hear Sonny WAILIN' behind him on "Shake, rattle & roll". If he'd wanted to, Sonny could have been the greatest R&R sax player ever - King Curtis? Bosh! Oh, and I love "Warm & sonny", his first disco album for Impulse. Beautiful arrangements and Sonny's playing is out of this world! MG

You hit it there, Clem. I can only think of one - Lloyd Wilson - and I can't be sure of his age. I saw him in 1990 and I guess he was in his early thirties then. And even then, I was astounded to come across a young black organist! MG

The past is another country. If you didn't live it, it requires as much effort to understand as does another country (and its music). MG

Phil Spector Inspector Morse Inspector Clousseau

And what could possibly be better? Kenny Burrell, Midnight Blue Grant Green, Idle Moments Different, but no better. MG Burrell is close; the Green isn't. Nothing touches Blue Hour. They're all wonderful. The Green was the one I thought of when I saw the original comment. It's actually too easy picking a classic Blue Note for AOTW, so I always make myself go farther afield whenever my turn to pick comes around! The argument here right now is "which classic is most classic"! Not quite - the argument is which is best for late night listening. Personally, none of the three are, from that point of view, a patch on "I hear voices" by Screaming Jay Hawkins. MG

That Monk cover made me think of this one Dunno why... MG

That's perfectly true. But a lot are rather similar. I have 75, and I know that's perfectly true. Do you have them all Dan? MG Slow thinking day yesterday. The reason Sonny made all those albums (and he didn't have a recording contract most of his life) was because the companies were pretty sure they would make money. And weren't disappointed. So they made more. Whenever Sonny wanted to. Hence the similarities between many. If you had gone around the country, following Sonny to one gig after another, in towns that rarely ever got to see a top flight jazzman, I'm sure you'd have seen the same phenomenon. The differences would have been in the competence of the local rhythm section (and maybe there'd be a local sax player who wanted lessons on stage). MG

Actually, thinking abut this a bit more, it seems to me that the point is not in the music itself, which is what I guess you're talking about, but in the environment to which it allows itself to conform. There's little doubt in my mind that some at least of this music could be successful in Africa, were it on sale there. But I've never seen any of it on sale, either in Africa or the African quarter of Paris (perhaps a more likely place). I think this is a matter of price and profits. As with AIDS medications, the manufacturers are quite willing to sell their product in Africa but, if you think they're going to take a cent less in profit than they can make in the West, you're nuts. In West Africa, the normal price of a new album is $2. Western companies CAN make a profit - the same tiny levels as indigenous firms - at that price. And sales are small; normal initial runs of an album in Senegal are about 30,000; an album that sells 250,000 is the equivalent of a ten million seller in the US. EMI, regrettably, was the only firm that seems to have been particularly active out there, and those subsidiaries are almost certain to get the boot now. But, if you were to ask Louis Vega and his competitors if they'd be happy to make the tiny profits available, were they to make the effort, they'd tell you either that they hadn't thought of it, or to fuck off. In other words, this product is only for Westerners, no matter their ethnic origins. MG

And what could possibly be better? Kenny Burrell, Midnight Blue Grant Green, Idle Moments Different, but no better. MG

Pam Ayres John Peel The Singing Postman

Arnold Palmer Matthew Arnold Dave Matthews

Can't understand why I forgot that one! MG

Alan Ladd Johnny Mann Boy Marone

That's perfectly true. But a lot are rather similar. I have 75, and I know that's perfectly true. Do you have them all Dan? MG

Johnny Paycheck Frankie Dettori Owen Money

I greatly welcome that insight, Clem. MG