The Magnificent Goldberg

The Nilva catalogue is still owned by Alvin Queen and I understand he has no plans to reisuue any on CD (though some Junior Mance did come out in Japan). MG

I love Mance! My favourites are Groovin' blues - M&I Japan - talk to Hiroshi Soul eyes - M&I ditto Blue Mance Holy mama - East Wind Japan - talk to Hiroshi Opus de Funk (with Frank Wess) - Absord Japan - talk to Hiroshi MG

I had a strong feeling that all these different kinds of entertainment were provided by the same firms - so it wouldn't matter that, as one branch declined, another forged ahead. And look at the money - for a 4% increase in time spent enjoying whatever, you get a 32% increase in cost. Oh ho! Someone's doing very well out of all this. MG

"Black miracle" isn't up to much as Disco-funk. But you should hear Joe on Johnny "Hammond" Smith's "Higher ground" - Kudu 16, never reissued. He flames! He leaps! He bounds! He jumps! MG

None are available at present. About 3hr28min playing time altogether. You'd think they'd make a good Mosaic select, wouldn't you? Particularly since MC fucked up the original CD reissues - forgot to include one track in the correct reissue and didn't discover another until later. MG

I could do without the T-Bone Walker as I have all but a couple of tracks. Will it be compulsory? MG

Perez Prado & his Orchestra : Al DeRisi, Fats Ford, Roger "King" Mozian, Mike Shain, Jack Mootz (tp) José Humberto Celaberto (tb) Joseph D'Addario (= Joe Dee), George Furman (as) Irv Greenberg (ts) Tony Ferina (bar) Perez Prado (p,arr) Mike Cardona (b) Luis Rivera (d) Chino Pozo (bgo) Mongo Santamaria (cga) PaquitoSosa (mar) Johnny Hartman (vcl) Dave Lambert Quartet : Dave Lambert, R. Wollter, E. Thomas, S. Jones)(vcl) New York, September 19, 1951 E1FB-3640 Savoy mambo (dlq vcl) RCA LPM3108 E1FB-3641 In a little Spanish town - , Vic 20-4319, BVCP-5047, Blue Moon BMCD-2006 E1FB-3642 C'est si bon (dlq vcl) Vic 20-4319, RCA LPM1196, LPM3108, VPM6066 E1FB-3643 Muchachita Vic 23-5806, Tumbao TCD-028 E1FB-3644 Wild (jh vcl) 20-4433, Cam CAL409 E1FB-3645 Safari (jh vcl)(unissued ?) Thank you Chuck. MG

This saddens me, not because I'm British but because EMI was the only major which continuously sought a worldwide span and a presence in minor markets like Mali, which no other major would ever bother about. But those minor markets constitute the majority of the world; and their populations don't rip burn and download - they still want physical discs/tapes. I remember in the early '60s Goddard Leiberson saying, contemptuously, of EMI, "they say they're the world's biggest record company because they've got a pressing plant in India". Yeah, right on.

Maida Vale has ALWAYS been a very, very, posh part of London. And even the cheap areas are hugely expensive. MG

I find it very interesting that, while the organ poll show the same huge disparity between Jimmy Smith and Shirley as the Down Beat poll, there isn't anywhere near the dominance of the trumpet, tenor and piano by the winners. Indeed, for all practical purposes, the piano is a dead heat. This bears ot what I was saying inrelation to the DB poll. Smith's name was probably the only one a lot of people knew. MG

Well, I think the position of as yet unreleased items is looking even gloomier than the currently available stuff, but these are my favourits among those I THINK are stil available (I tend to lose interest in availability once I've bought an album ) Grant Green - Alive Fred Jackson - Hootin' n' tootin' Grant Green - Born to be blue Grant Green - Standards Grant Green - Complete quartets with Sonny Clark Lonne Smith - Club Mozambique Stanley Turrentine - Blue hour T-Bone Walker - Complete Capitol/Black & White (available?) Grant Green - Street of dreams Grant Green - Talkin' about Jimmy Smith - Smalls' Paradise Jimmy Smith - Chicken shack Jimmy Smith - Midnight special John Patton - Accent on the bluues John Patton - Memphis to New York spirit Grant Green - Green street Lou Donaldson - Alligato bogaloo Art Blakey - Birdland Grant Green - Green is beautiful Fela Kuti - Gentleman Fela Kuti - Confusion Ike Quebec - Heavy soul Ike Quebec - It might as well be spring Stanley Turrentine - Rough n' tumble Ike Quebec - Complete 45 sessions That'l do. As for the not yet reisued, theres Jimmy McGriff - Black pearl Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker - Chicken fried soul Grant Green - Visions Grant Green - Shades of Green Grant Green - One unissued session Freddie Roach - One unissued session Les McCann - most of his PJ albums Sonny Stitt & Charles Kynard - My mother's eyes So there! MG

I was listening to "Ray Charles at Newport" the other day and remembered the little unsolved problem about "In a little Spanish town". Wondered if anyone could resolve it. In the sleeve notes to David Newman's "Fathead", Gary Kramer referred to "goodnatured kidding of the Perez Prado orchestra", of which "Spanish town" was an example. I always assumed that the Ray Charles arrangement (or the Hank Crawford arrangement, maybe) was just a takeoff of the Prado style. But a few years ago I got a compilation of Prado, which includes "In a little Spanish town". And it has the same arrangement as the Ray Charles version. The trouble is, the publication info on the Prado sleeve gives a date of 1959, whereas "Ray Charles at Newport" was 1958. Surely it can't be that Prado lifted the Charles arrangement? But that's what it looks like. Does anyone have any info on when Prado recorded this tune? MG

This was probably on some humongo ranch where these feral guys run around and the proprietors feed them quite well. Shooting fish in a barrel, no? Maybe that Hogzilla movie will be directed by Peter Greenaway and them good old boys will get their due. Yes - they do that sort of thing in southern Africa, too; particularly Zimbabwe. The "hunters", mostly American, I understand, are put in front of the prey, all for the sake of foreign exchange. MG

Fuckin' obscene MG

er... YES! (Though my favourite Freddie is "All that's good".) MG

What the heck was "Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakamoto? First record I ever saw on Toshiba! It was the theme song of the Sapporo Winter Olympics and, consequently, a hit all over the world. MG Memory wrong on this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyu_Sakamoto MG

What the heck was "Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakamoto? First record I ever saw on Toshiba! It was the theme song of the Sapporo Winter Olympics and, consequently, a hit all over the world. MG

Well, you're obviously right. The strong impression I've receved over the years is that few jazz musicians outside Soul Jazz are interested in playing this material. I guess from your response that Strozier isn't an isolated case. MG

What??? I don't follow you at all. Are all jazz versions of those tunes vocal interpretations? Do they all use the original chord changes? No. As far as I remember, Frank Strozier didn't try to sing like Marvin Gaye when he recorded "What's Goin' On". I don't know Strozier's version of "What's going on". All the versions I've got sound to me like they use the original chord changes and the same rhythms. Some are vocals. That's also true of "Please send me someone to love". I don't have jazz vocal versions of the others I listed, which is not to say that they don't exist. Uh... they were written and performed by non-jazz musicians? I meant, apart from that. I don't know about a prejudice... I just know you live in your own little obsessed world. Seriously, though, it might be interesting to study your complaint... I suspect you're over-reacting a bit, but I'm too tired to do the research right now. I may well be over-reacting. But it seems to me that R&B, which developed during the war out of Swing, is in a different category to other kinds of music that don't have the same roots, as far as this issue is concerned. Of course, you could extend that comparison to a lot of Broadway type songs that were jazz influenced, but I think the points you and Mike made about those sorts of tunes are reasonable. The point about few jazz standards by jazz musicians making it into the mainstream also raises an interesting issue. If tunes like "Soul serenade", "Chitlins con carne", "Moanin'", "Work song" and "Sack o' woe", to mention a few off the top of my head, are well performed by R&B or Blues bands/singers, does that count as moving into the mainstream? ie within these terms, is the mainstream simply "not-jazz"? MG

No, I have a look at the new stuff - usually every day, sometimes more often. But I'm getting notifications from two other BBs as well, so I tend to "reside" on Yahoo. MG You're cheating on us? Yes ducky, I'm anybody's (where's the smiley for a slightly unclothed siren?) MG

No - though Lord isn't God MG

That is CERTAINLY true (some would say, more's the pity). MG

That old thread has died, so I'm commenting on this here. Mike - and others - seem to think that standard material for jazz improvisation either came from Broadway/Hollywood or from within the jazz community. The argument that jazz versions of Broadway tunes are different from the way they're performed outside jazz may be valid for those types of song. But it certainly isn't when considering songs like "Please send me someone to love", "I got a woman", "What's going on", "Drown in my own tears" or "High heel sneakers". But what's different about these songs from material by jazz musicians such as "After hours", "Please Mr Johnson", "Soul serenade", "Chitlins con carne" and "Way back home"? R&B as a source for jazz improvisation is rather overlooked - a prejudice I think. The same can be said for Gospel songs. It all smacks of trying to define jazz in a certain way in order to exclude the bits that are regarded as "lesser" in some way. Bollocks to that. MG

I don't want to defend this lot, because I think what they're doing may well be the result of a way of thinking that I detest. However, all that it claims to be is a list of the 1,000 most recorded songs (in jazz?). I think it's not entirely surprising that there would be more older songs than newer ones in the list. They don't say how many recordings each song has racked up, so it's impossible to say whether some other well recorded song ought to be in the list or not. However, I did a bit of checking against the Lord discography. According to Lord, there were 109 versions of "Please send me someone to love" - which is #322 on the standards list. And there were 121 versions of "Since I fell for you" - which is #197 on the standards list. And there were 180 versions of "Poinciana" - which is #334 on the list. Something appears not to add up. MG

No, I have a look at the new stuff - usually every day, sometimes more often. But I'm getting notifications from two other BBs as well, so I tend to "reside" on Yahoo. MG