The Magnificent Goldberg

That forecast must be serious; the milkman delivered two days worth of milk this evening. MG

Those are great Gators but, if you're loking for REAL Gator Tail Prestiges, the two to GET (that Fantasy reissued) are Thunderbird - with Freddie Roach replacing McDuff - this is on "Keep on a blowin'" PRCD24218 Loose - the follow-up, with Carl Wilson replacing Roach - this is on "After hours" (minus one explosive track) PRPRCD24294 - or you can look for the LP - the other LP on "After hours" isn't one of his good 'uns. Of the material not available on CD (and probably never more to be) Swivelhips - with Jackie Ivory on organ (though he's not as good on this as on his own LP) Star bag - with Trudi Pitts - Gator really makes her do what she normally doesn't - SWING like fuck! ANYTHING on Muse MG

7" of snow predicted here tomorrow. How they can be so precise, my missus and I can't imagine. Believe it when we see it. MG

Billy Sunday Rev J M Gates Rev Jasper Wiliams

I know, I know. (So is Pharoah.) I really must get back into Ayler sometime. So you know which I DID choose MG

I suspect the original news item has been changed since it was first posted. This is what it sez now. MG

Chill, chill MG

M C Hammer Jan Hammer John McLaughlin

Meant to post this part of my blues evening here Howlin' Wolf - two UK Chess double LP sets which cover: Moanin' in the moonlight Howlin' Wolf (the rocking chair LP) The real folk blues More real folk blues MG

Yes, I used to have it but it had to go when I was on the dole in 1970. A twofer of the two "Holiday soul" albums - by Timmons and Don Patterson - would be most welcome. Fat chance. MG

Tried to snow at 8AM - about 17 flakes. Well, that MIGHT be an exaggeration; while I was out having a cough and drag, I only counted ten, but some might have sneakily fallen behind me... Later it tried harder. Then gave up and went away. MG

Natalie Wood John Birch Oak Cliff T-Bone

Feels beautiful to me. But I never care much about the technicalities. MG

This is my favourite Timmons album. No idea why Fantasy didn't make "The Prestige trio sessions" (PRCD24277) into a double CD by adding this other trio session in. I think it's possible that Japanese Victor might have issued it on CD (simply because they've done so many other Prestige Soul Jazz albums that Fantasy never bothered with), but I've never seen or heard of it - and I'd have bought it like a shot. Time to dig it out and give it a spin. MG

Dre Big Boi Outkast

Not a very good disguise - "Eleanor Rigby". MG

Tiny Bradshaw Tiny Grimes Tiny Parham

The postman brought me these an hour ago MG

Small Sad Sam Big Bad John Big John Patton

-13 in this part of MN this morning. -15 is forecasted for tomorrow morning! Good Gawd! Are you talking fahrenheit or centigrade? MG Fahrenheit. It's already warmed up to -7 F from earlier this morning! I thought so. How did that part of the world ever get populated? MG

I like James Clay. I'd take some Clay to a desert island, if I could also take plenty of Newman, Moore, Jacquet, Cobb, Felder, Ervin, Manning, Scott, Amy, Theus, Tate, Johnson, Wilkerson, Carrol... MG

A friend just sent me this one. MG

-13 in this part of MN this morning. -15 is forecasted for tomorrow morning! Good Gawd! Are you talking fahrenheit or centigrade? MG

OK, I’ve read the whole of this now. I think Braxton and I part company starting from page 32 (the beginning of post #2). Perhaps these are matters of detail only, but they seem to me to underline the point I made the other day about his sample (and mine) both being biased. It must be clear that Braxton’s view has been unduly affected by such examples as the Dogon of West Africa – his mention of the Dogon earlier does show some familiarity with them and almost anyone who has been a tourist in West Africa will have been taken to “do” the Dogon. Many other societies (including ones living cheek by jowl with the Dogon, whose traditions claim cultural descent from the land of Do; specifically to my knowledge the Sonninke, who are now called Serahule, Sosso, who are now the Susu, and Mandinke) are not structured in that way. The Sonninke’s Empire of Ghana was first mentioned by Arab writers in 800AD, so it’s clear that (if their traditions are correct) cultural separation occurred quite a long time ago. What seems to have happened is that, while these other tribes moved on and developed other forms of society, and specifically gave musicians a different place in society, the Dogon didn’t. That certainly makes the Dogon a very valuable “historical” resource (and the same could be said – and is said by some Senegalese – of the Jola, in the southern part of Senegambia). But Braxton is not – or certainly SHOULD not be - talking simply about some “preserved” societies from which we can learn something of the past, but about the whole continuum of world society and its wide variety of creative thrusts. In the rest of the world, the musician is indeed in the position that people have to pay their tickets. Accepting that as a metaphor for society support for musical endeavour, it is difficult to see how else matters could generally be arranged. Few would dispute that building great musical expertise is a very labour intensive activity, during which musicians need some form of community support in order to survive. Thus music, including the training period, is an economic activity, as well as a cultural activity. Indeed, were it not culturally valuable, it would not be economically viable. I don’t really think Braxton is wrong, despite this disagreement. He is forming his views from a necessarily limited sample, as am I. But we both have the same approach, which is to view music not simply as a collection of notes someone has put together (ie a product) but as a procedure that has social value within the society in which it occurs. He sees this as ritual. Well, he’s probably right. The procedures of the Dogon seem to me, at bottom, similar in intent to the procedures of a honking sax man walking the bar; both are affirming cultural and social unity, within a context of catharsis. I also come apart with Braxton on the subject of improvisation. This is probably another sample error. But it may be more than that, given the type of music he plays; he may be predisposed to view it as of paramount importance. But I’ve talked to many African musicians, from a number of disciplines, and many have said that they do not improvise in real time. Many traditional Mandinke musicians make a point of saying they are playing exactly the same notes as were composed by, for example, Balla Fasseke in the Thirteenth Century. It is observable that there are very many different songs with the same music. When these musicians want to create something new, they work at it at home, learn what they want to play, then play it in public. And in so doing, they say, they are following long-standing tradition. I’m not denying that improvisation, as Braxton has set it out, exists. Of course it does. But it is not a rule; not even in Africa. So that what Braxton is looking for isn’t to be found there, I think. Improvisation is simply a means to an end that some people adopt at some times and in certain cultural/functional circumstances. The end, to which all forms of music are means, is what Braxton started out with – a focus on what music is FOR; what its social and cultural objectives are and how these develop into an aesthetic. He is clearly not looking for an analysis of what music sounds like, or what musicians do to make it come out that way. He’s looking to find, across the world, the common cultural building blocks of humanity’s aesthetic adventures; and not exclusively in music, though he does focus on it rather a lot, which I suppose is understandable in a musician. I suspect these ultimate answers are not to be found in music. If they are ultimate answers, one would find them in today’s commercial music of the Wolof as readily as in the music of the Dogon in 300AD or that of the Chinese in 2000BC. But we can’t find that stuff. What we can find are two definite, observable types of things: present day cultures in all their individual variety and complexity; including whatever extent US and European influence has exerted on them; and the material leavings of past cultures. What we can divine from present day cultures (and “present day” actually encompasses a fair time span in many cases, so that the impact of changes may also be observed) is that they are invariably integrated. They are like woven cloth, from which you can’t pull out a strand and say, “this is it, we’ll have that bit”. And we can use this information about now and apply it to cultures of the past and arrive at some general conclusions about how their cultural objectives were translated into aesthetic material form. In other words, we need anthropologists to look at the subject, not only in the past but in the present, and apply what they’ve learned to music. MG

Jane Birkin Serge Gainsbourg Serge Chaloff