The Magnificent Goldberg

Sonny Stitt Mosaic Box disc 9 MG

Mark Anthony Julius Caesar Cleopatra (Great fight between the first two guys, not tonight.)

There was a Japanese book specialising in sleeves of Soul Jazz albums. I can't remember the title; I spent a happy hour or so looking through it in the British Library. MG

Mine were cheaper than e-bay Where did you get the images, Rod? Post them yourself? MG

Got three cheapo swing band CDs in Ponty today The other two were in the same series by Count Basie and Chick Webb (no pix on the web). Nice stuff, generally not many of the bands’ best known singles, it seems. Which gives me scope for more compilations in due course. MG

Jeez - yer right! I'm getting too old for this myself. MG

Ollie & the Nightingales Manning Sherwin Eric Maschwitz

Playing earlier "Blues on Broadway". A great album from a great singer and person. Sometimes, even very great albums like this get Grammies. MG

Galbraith is still around at about 100, and still writing beautiful, truculent, prose. MG Sorry to break the news, but John Kenneth Galbraith died last April 29. I was once just a dozen feet away from him but being about 9 years old I didn't know what an economist was. Missed that. Thanks Q. This must have been about the last thing he wrote. MG

I haven't read Keynes. Can you summarize his argument? I'm guessing that he argued that the pressure of reparations would cause Germany to print money and reach hyperinflation. Guy That's about it. Galbraith did a good summary of MK's and MF's positions in "Money: whence it came and where it went" - a very easy read. MG

I wonder if the arranger is Ernie Fields Jr. His father ran an important territory band in the '30s and had a big hit with "In the mood" in 1960. Ernie Jr has been doing some work with Fred Wesley in Europe. MG

Thanks for that Harold. I'll keep looking around. MG

Wow! Gee thanks. Alistair Campbell Patrick Campbell Gilbert Harding

According to most bio info on Willis Jackson, Ruth and he actually married; they didn't just have a romance. MG

I'm thinking of getting a CD recorder (or having a few days in Paris to buy some African music!). I've got my eye on a Philips I've seen in Richer Sounds (cheapo hifi chain in UK) for £200. Dunno what model it is. Anyone use Philips? MG

Friedman wasn't entirely wrong; but he wasn't entirely right, either. Nor was Keynes. You need to consider the money supply. But you also need to make adjustments to your fiscal policy, too. Doing either without thought to the other is a recipe for some kind of problem. Particularly if you do it for an extended period; if a bit is good, more must be better is the view of fools or those who have a particular financial interest in a specific problem - who expect, therefore, to profit from it. Friedman fell into the single recipe trap, which Keynes never did; he was always very aware of the need to control money supply in the medium term. (See, "The economic consequences of the peace", in which he foresaw what would happen to Germany under the pressure of reparations.) But he was working against a background in which Britain, as a result of Churchill's failure to understand even the most basic of economic principles, had returned to the gold standard. So the most urgent need, at the time he was writing, was for the Government to borrow and spend (and get off the gold standard). MG

Galbraith is still around at about 100, and still writing beautiful, truculent, prose. MG

Yes, slightly more than a year, I think. It was first televised about a year ago. She was terrific in it, too. She made you really feel what she was saying about the conditions under which the old R&B singers worked. Wonderful singer! Great sense of humour - "If I can't sell it, I'll keep sittin' on it". I'll listen to "Blues on Broadway" tomorrow. MG

Interesting. Let's go a bit wider. There's a little intro bit on the Lonnie Smith/Crash album "The Doctor is in" in which Lonnie says something to the effect that you make a record and leave the studio and the producer names the new tunes afterwards. So when someonehas a request at a gig, you don't know what they're askking for. Tommy McCook also had something to say, approximately the same, that whe producers of the Skatalites singles used to pick provocative titles, like "Christine Keeler" (a prossie who caused the resignation of a UK Cabinet Minister) or "Lee Harvey Oswald" because the records used to sell on the titles. There seems to be a long tradition of producers naming jazz tunes. What I think this might mean is that the title is divorced from the meaning of the music as the composer saw it. Personally, I suspect this has a lot to do with being unable to recognise (in the sense of attach a title to) tunes with which we're very familiar. There are all sorts of odd things on the Internet; does anyone know of a site in which the responsibility for titling jazz tunes is discussed and in which the "titlers" are identified? MG

Well, the postman came today and brought me some goodies from Amazon France. The two I ordered were: Amazon also sent me a freebie: This compilation was issued by UNICEF earlier this year, to support efforts to demobilise child solders in Africa. Damn good album! Not sure about the value of giving it away free, though. MG

Rod recommended me this, SS1. Just playing it now. Think you'd like it. MG

You made them up! (Where's the smiley with an accusing finger gone?) Gaspard de la nuit Aloysius Bertrand Bertrand Russell

Oh, my mono copy of "Along came John" has one of those. MG

Yah - I've got a Liberty Stereo one that sounds fine. (And now the RVG) MG

Kool & the Gang The Fatback Band Brass Construction