The Magnificent Goldberg

Well, it is, and it isn't. Sanborn was a master at "fitting the message to the medium" on those cameos he did on all the hits of the 70s. Eight bars or so, say what you got to say within the context, and then get out. If you listen to what he does in those few bars, it's actually quite musical, usually. Not at all unlike the soloists in the big bands in the 78 era, if you can entertain that notion. Absolutely. Jazzmen I used to know in the '60s used to say, "if you can't say something in 4 bars, you can't say anythin in 17 choruses." With Sanborn, I'm afraid, he CAN say something in 4 bars, but not in two or three choruses, far less 17. He may be one of my favourites, but that's a bit true of Hank Crawford, Sanborn's big inspiration, as well; a big soul and sound to die for, but not big on improvisation - at least on alto; he can play anyone under the table on bari. MG

Lytle was a player of such charm. Not a word one hears enough. I don't doubt that Cannon was a very interesting person. And he did co-lead a great band. But, more than any other sax player in jazz, I think, he had those Gospel patterns which kill me. (Though I could wish that he had a slightly bigger, rounder, sound.) MG

Such bold, throwaway, assertions, Clem! So you don't like Johnny Lytle? MG

Nice title. What's on that SS1? MG

Outside of the cave, if there's more of them than us (and more people wanting to hear them than us), does it really matter what we think? I don't know whether this is aposite to this bit of conversation. A friend was taken, by her husband, to NYC for the weekend for her birthday a year or so ago. Part of the package was a night at the Vanguard. Neither of them are jazz fans. The band was Jeff "Tain" Watts'. Now I've only got one album with Watts playing - a Mark Whitfield, which I don't suppose is typical of his work with his own band - so I don't know what the music was like. But I suspect it's pretty much what you're talking about. They came back and said that it was great! So somehow, Watts is putting on a good show that can get through to pop/rock listeners. So, good. MG

Riverside/Jazzland was a good label, with lots of goodies for me. Label by label, there's Battle Mongo Santamaria live at the Village Gate Jazzland Wild Bill Moore - Bottom groove Sonny Stitt - Low flame Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis & Johnny Griffin - Blues up & down Johnny Lytle - Blue vibes Johnny Lytle - Happy ground Riverside David Newman & James Clay - Sound of the wide open spaces Nat Adderley - Work song (first one I bought - still love it!) Wes Montgomery - Boss guitar Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco Cannonball Adderley Quintet - Them dirtyblues Johnny Griffin & the Big Soul Band Johnny Griffin - Grab this Johnny "Hammond" Smith - Black coffee Blue Mitchell - Blues moods Blue Mitchell - Smooth as the wind Thelonious Monk - Plays Duke Ellington MG

Due to the DIRE influence of this forum and AAJ, I've bought comparatively few non-jazz new releases this year. Of what I HAVE got of this year's crop, these have impresed me. New recordings Ursula Rucker - Ma'at mama Africando - Ketakuba reissues Big Jay McNeely live at Cisco's Harlem River Drive - Harlem River Drive Big Joe Turner - Shout rattle & roll New Orleans guitar featuring Smiley Lewis, Guitar Slim, Pee Wee Crayton & T-Bone Walker Hope to do better next year MG

John Coltrane - A love supreme MG

I'm pretty much of an outsider when it comes to this particular aspect of this whole big topic, but I ask in all innocence about "If you really want/need to play instrumental popjazz..." -- "need" I think I get, but give me a recent notable example of "want" in this realm? And how do you yourself make that distinction between "need" and "want" here and/or assume that other music-makers are making it? Not sure what you mean by notable example, Larry. Gerald Albright? Someone who CAN play his guts out but doesn't. He's making a choice but I don't know what his motivations are. MG

Well, I wrote this during the morning and it seems that Jim said it in two and a bit lines I understand what Jim has been saying is that developments in music arise out of cultural changes. Innovators are members of the audience; part of the same culture; subject to the same social, economic, cultural and political pressures. Whatever we think, we can’t hold back these developments but can only respond to them. But, if we’re to try to see how music will change, we need to get some kind of grip on how society is likely to change. If, as I do, we agree with Eric Hobsbawm’s analysis, in “The age of extremes” that the short twentieth century lasted from 1914 to 1991, we’re already a decade and a half into the twenty-first. And we can see what the great world issue, that has informed the whole period since 1991, is already. And we can see that it will not stop being the great issue for some considerable time. But we need to think of this issue, not as a military clash between “militant Islam” and “the West”, but in terms of its cultural aspects and impacts. The differences between the two cultural forces are very deep. We often forget that concepts such as freedom, which to us are so deeply ingrained as to seem universal, are by no means universal. I recently read that most of the world’s languages have no word for freedom; the concept is foreign to their cultures; the words used in these languages have all been borrowed from one European language or another. Individualism also has only a limited place in many cultures of the Middle East. The western attitude of “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again” in response to a reverse, even a dreadful one, also has no place there; instead there is the concept of unending vengeance. Though we may think that our world view is better, or perhaps more pragmatic, we are learning (some of us) that we cannot enforce it at the point of a gun. The future seems to me to hold a situation in which both cultures, rather than attempting to enforce their ways on the other, will have to persuade, and to learn from, each other. That, to me, implies the possibility of deeply significant cultural shifts on the part of the West, as well as on the part of the Middle East and other Islamic cultures. How might this affect music in the future? I think that the process of the Islamic cultures and those of the West moving towards a rapprochement will result in more, and better, collaborative efforts in music. We already have seen quite a few people like Ry Cooder, Toumani Diabate, Ketama, Ali Farka Toure and Robert Lahoud involving themselves in such collaborative efforts. In my view, not many have been successful so far, possibly because there is insufficient deep understanding on the part of he participants of each other’s culture for a new thing that is not one, not the other, nor something that sounds cobbled together, but something whole, to emerge. Or perhaps none of the participants is prepared to give up anything towards this end. The most successful of these collaborations, so far, seems to be Africando; an organisation of US Salsa musicians and African singers. Such artistic success as Africando has managed has probably been the result of Boncana Maiga’s education – a Malian, his musical studies were pursued in Cuba. But, despite the genuine excitement of Africando’s recordings, they are genuinely artificial – backing tracks are laid in America and the singers are recorded in Paris and different cities in Africa. (Though there is a live album, which I mean to get next year.) Is that four cents worth? (Dollar still declining.) MG

Ward Bond Gary (US) Bonds Gene Barge

Bu Pleasant Pleasant Joe Joe Fields

Didn't you ever make a Christmas album by, say, the AEC? MG

I agree with Jim. But... There is more to say and it's late. MG

This is a hard one. I think you need songs that will mean something to the congregation when they hear them out of context and out of style. So they have to be pretty well known. I think that takes care of any jazz tunes; though in abstract terms many would be good. "Sounds of silence" is a good one. I suggest "I concentrate on you" as a first pass, though even that may be a bit obscure for most people. "Watch what happens" has something of the right feeling of detachment about it. Needs more thought. MG

Here's a couple more: TKCV79053 Lonnie Smith - Foxy lady TKCV79055 Lonnie Smith - Purple haze MG

Deadeye Dick Grateful Dead The Great Gates

Jimmy Smith - Christmas '64 MG

Just back from Badger's Christmas Curry, feeling full of the Christmas Spirit, and Cobra lager, and Lamb Monipuri. You know how you feel when you've eaten so much your back aches? Oh, it's great! And........ I won a mini packet of corn flakes in the raffle!!!!!! MG

William Hope Hodgson Robert E Howard James Branch Cabell

Sonny Phillips - My black flower - Muse white label promo MG

While I'm sure that's right in ideal terms, Rod, with a record collection that's a very awkward thing to arrange. If you're getting new recordings nearly every day, then you need quick and easy access to both hard drives. How you do this when you have to drive across town to get at your second copy isn't perfectly clear. Would you update both discs monthly or what? MG

Yes, I'm honing my misspelling elsewhere, as well. Oh God! MG

Afroman Superman Beenie Man

I thought they'd never dry! MG