The Magnificent Goldberg

Oh, I got another one right! 'Just a closer walk'. Must find that Floating Festival album. MG

Part 2 Well, here we are on today. 1 I feel I know this one a bit, but… the tune has some odd twists and turns so I’m not sure. An organ combo, with someone like McGriff on organ, and a nice tenor player with more than a touch of Houston Person about him. But NOT Houston. I don’t think I’ve heard him before, though I’ll have to think about that. Oh, it’s a live job… well… the guitarist doesn’t really have that much of an individual sound. I’d guess someone like Bob DeVos. And the organist… a newish guy, I fancy, someone of Joey DeFrancesco’s generation. I don’t think I know any of these guys, but they’re pretty good at this. But for a live gig by a grooving organ combo, the audience is a bit too polite. 2 Ah, ‘Moanin’’ by Gene Ludwig, from the LP ‘Organ out loud’. Everyone should have lots of Gene Ludwig. 3 Another organist. And another tune I somewhat recognise, a bop tune. I can never remember the titles of those bop tunes. ‘Well, you needn’t’? The drummer sounds like the leader on this; someone like Cecil Brooks III. Well, a nice piece by a recent band, but nothing too invigorating. 4 OK, away from the organ combos. Another recent band with a tune with an exciting head. And a tenor player who’s off from the word go. I like his hard sound. I like the pianist playing Jerry Lee Lewis stuff behind him, too. Another live recording, but again, before an audience that is too polite. Good trumpet player, too; ideas just pouring out of him. I like him better than the tenor player who’s very good but kind of one-dimensional. Here comes the pianist. Another enthusiast whom I like a lot with another good flow of ideas. I don’t know any of these guys, but I’d like to hear more of them, particularly on ballads or medium-up tempos. 5 An interesting, peaceful start which has something of the feeling of some Freddie Hubbard recordings. After a couple of minutes, it starts meandering, though. I’ve got my volume right up, and it’s a bit too quiet to hear and follow well. There were horns playing quietly behind the piano, but I couldn’t really make out what they were playing. Here comes the trumpet player. He does sound a good bit like Hubbard. Now a tenor man. Well, it sounds like he’s not going to solo, just take us out with the trumpet player. OK. An interesting piece, with some resemblance to ‘Maiden voyage’ in the feeling it generates. I must confess that I’m not at all certain what hard bop combos are trying to convey in this kind of number. That’s one of the reasons hard bop really isn’t my kind of thing. 6 Well, after a break while I get the washing in, here we are on #6. This one sounds like a variation on Stan Turrentine’s ‘Sugar’ with another Freddie Hubbard clone on trumpet. It sounds like the band that made ‘Sweet sister funk’ with Ramon Morris with Al Dailey (p) and Cecil Bridgewater (tp). I’m sure this isn’t them, but it’s so like them on the track ‘Lord sideways’. 7 Must be your favourite pianist talking, Gene Harris. Interesting. 8 And this is him playing ‘Summertime’ now. Never heard him play unaccompanied before. Blooming ‘eck, Tucker, this is the best and most impactful I’ve ever heard him. If I’d heard him doing this back in the day, I’d have been a fan long, long ago. Brill! ‘Course, if it isn’t Harris, then I’m wrong, ain’t I? 9 ‘Balling the jack’. Or is it ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’? Or ‘Sister Sadie’? No, it’s Jack being balled. And on to a Coal Porter’s ‘I love you’, a tune seldom done by jazz musicians. I don’t understand why these two songs are associated in this way. Somewhat damaged 45 you’ve ripped that from, Dan. Is it one of those rare Gene Harris singles on Jubilee you got from somewhere? Well, I don’t think this IS Gene Harris; this doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing he’d do. 10 ‘Smack dab in the middle’ – a tune mostly associated with Ray Charles, though it goes back to the mid-fifties; a C&W song, if memory serves. Perhaps this is Gene Harris again. I have his recording with Curtis Stigers singing, so I doubt that he’d record it again. So, I dunno Guv. Just looked at the composer credits for the song and see it was written by Charles A Calhoun, whose name I remember as writer of ‘Blue suede shoes’. 11 ‘Just a closer walk with thee’, played by a lovely booting tenor with band to fit accordingly. Oh, I want this album! Must be one of those Floating Jazz Festival albums, with Red Holloway on tenor. And Sweets. And Gene Harris. Didn’t know Harris had been on one, but I’m nowhere near an expert on him (the only one I know lives the other side of the Atlantic). Pretty interesting compilation, Dan. I’ve got to admit that I’m still slightly miffed that you put the Upchurch on, and without part 2. Still, it was a good BFT, with several things I OUGHT to know. And a few things I SHOULDN’T know, but which are pretty interesting, all the same. I didn't get too many of them, I think. I expect Jeff would do better than me. Wham, bam, thank you, Dan! MG

BFT133 Glad I got this, Dan. Many thanks to you and to Bill, for letting me know about it. After a morning of music from Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, I’m really ready for a bunch of soul jazz. So here we go: Part 1 1 Well, this starts off as a hard bop piece, but sounds as if it’s a long intro to some ultra-grooving. But nope, along comes a trumpet player who I MUST know. I’d like to say it’s Bill Hardman. Now a baritone player; a good baritone player, but not a flowing, grooving sort of guy. And a tenor solo; another good player, but again, one with little flow to his playing; it’s just this phrase, then that phrase, then another. The piano player’s another cut from the same cloth. Must go back to the trumpet solo… Hm yes, the trumpeter is that way, too, but he’s not so much so. Oh, and now the pianist is getting going, he’s pretty smooth with a flow from one idea to the next, so he’s the best of the bunch. (Well, I’ve gotta admit I’ve been listening to Sonny Stitt a good bit lately, so flow’s in my mind, at present.) 2 Nice enough guitarist, but his sound isn’t anything to write home about. Decent solo, I think I’d have applauded, too, when he finished it. If this trio was in a pub with no admission, I’d consider them an acceptable group. 3 Oh, drama! Well, it’s long enough that I keep expecting it to surprise me but, so far, after three minutes, it’s refusing to do so. OK, plenty of piano playing there. Sorry to say, however, that it ain’t moving me. Nearly nine minutes now and still two more to go; definitely not my cup of tea. I hope it isn’t Jerry Lee Lewis. 4 Ah! Wunnerful!!!! You know, I’ve got the feeling this pianist is the same guy. Why don’t tenor players play like this any more? Why do they all play like Joe Henderson and none like Arnett Cobb? Well, one of them does, it seems. I like this. Bet it’s someone like Scott Hamilton. 5 Very, very nice. I think it’s Harold Ashby. Or maybe Bubba Brooks, now the growling’s started. But this guy’s playing a bit too high in the horn for it to be Brooks, it seems to me. No, I’ll put my money on Ashby who’s a good bit more like Ben Webster than Brooks is . 6 Oh, I’ve got this one. Just got to think who it is. One of the late honkers. Oh yeah, it’s one I’ve had almost forever – got it in ’69 on a 10” LP. ‘Dungaree hop’ by Plas Johnson, from the LP ‘Bop me Daddy’ on Chewy’s second favourite label, Tampa. Done in 1956, quite a while after honking had stopped being a commercial thing. 7 Damn! I was going to put this in MY next BFT!!!!! This is one of the two records that got me into jazz organs, early ’61, followed (or maybe slightly preceded) by Ray Charles’ ‘One mint Julep’. Hope you’ve got part 2 next, cos Bubba Brooks is on that side, as well as a sensational solo from Mack Johnson (and what the hell EVER happened to Mack Johnson?) – Phil Upchurch, ‘You can’t sit down’. You’d have had BOTH sides from me. I bought it the day it came out – who could resist a record with a title like that? When I got it home and listened to it… WHEW!!! Well, while I’m here, let’s put the personnel up: Mack Johnson (tp) David "Bubba" Brooks (ts) Cornell Muldrow (org) Phil Upchurch (g,el-b) Joe Hadrick (d) Hadrick was later drummer in Willis Jackson’s combo, with Pat Martino and Carl Wilson, and later rejoined Gator for albums like ‘Single action’, by which time he was Yusef Ali. And whatever happened to Mack Johnson? (Oh Lord, I just looked up Mack Johnson in Lord. After some recordings with Upchurch, he moved on to the James Brown band in the Mid sixties and was on those Smash albums, then to the Johnny Otis organisation in the mid seventies and was still making gigs with Otis when ‘Spirit of the black territory bands’ was made in 1990. There’s even a PHOTO of him on the back of Otis’ 1977 LP ‘Back to jazz’! I think I’ve got nearly ALL his recordings and never knew, because no one else let him solo.) Since 1961, I’ve bought a few of Upchurch’s albums, but never found any of them satisfactory, by comparison to his first single and LP (I’ve never found his second, with essentially the same band, however). So I gave up on him. Good guitarist; good sideman; but not as exciting as you know he could be, so disappointing. 8 Oh, not part 2. ‘Real pretty mama blues’. NOT by Amos Milburn; by a modern white band. 9 ‘It shoulda been me’, but not Ray Charles. I suspect one of the recent retro black R&B bands. Very competent, but new material might have been better. 10 ‘Sister Sadie’ by a band that isn’t perfectly well rehearsed. Oh, it’s live. OK, I can live with live fluffs. Nice tenor player; nice entrance, then he went kind of ordinary. Well, an enjoyable band to have with your beer and steak. A VERY enjoyable band for that. Gonna quit for a bit and listen to part 2 tomorrow. Well, that was yesterday. I see today's tracks are in a different thread, so I could have posted this yesterday. MG

Oh, thank goodness Hot Ptah told me about this one, Dan, as I've been so busy I haven't come here. But I mustn't miss this one. Can I have a download, please? MG

Another one I've got is the Jelly Roll Morton! Tarnation!! MG

Tom & Louis Borders Booker T Washington White James Booker

I was brought up to tip at 10%, which was the norm. Americans were regarded as stupid and lavish tippers perpetually flashing their cash about. When I visited America for the first time, I booked myself on a domestic coach trip to Maine for a few days. I was the only English person on the trip, the others were all, I'd guess, lower middle class people; an interesting and nice bunch, who all thought I was the STINGIEST guy they'd EVER come across. Well, I guess I was MG

Surfaris The Butthole Surfers Smurfs

That's a very good recording. I don't have the CD with me but I think it's a different Sidiki (brother or cousin of Toumani). Ah, thanks Ken. Yes, that makes more sense than a posthumous recording Listened to it earlier. It IS a fine album. MG

Thanks for this. I had a quick shufti at the world music (yukk) nominations and found Toumani & Sidiki Diabate - Toumani & Sidiki - World Circuit I went straight onto Amazon and bought the download. No time to listen to it tonight, but tomorrow... Strange, I thought Sidiki (Toumani's father) was dead. Brilliant, classical, kora player, one of the greatest of his generation. MG

Never had a million dollar (or pound) idea, but I've probably had a million one dollar ideas. (Well, maybe they're not all worth as much as a dollar.) MG

Got a few downloads from Amazon today Djeli Moussa Kouyate (with Sekouba Bambimo & Camara Aboubacar) - Kankou Moussa - Bolibana Ami Koite - Tata sira - Bolibana Those two are old favourites I've had for decades on K7s. Mamou Sidibe - Bassemory - Disquekone A recent album by a lady with a lovely voice. Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis - Uptown - King (Nuff sed) Chris Connor sings the George & Ira Gershwin almanac of song - Atlantic Bought this in the sixties and flogged it when I was short of a bob or two. Listening to it now. Can NOT understand why I left it so long to get it again. MG

Claudio Monteverdi Mountainous Maurice Dennis Swim Mountain

CeCe Winans Dee Dee Sharp E E Nesbitt

Great pain. MG

Generation X X-men xXx

Bugger me, I'm posting to the wrong thread! MG

Bo Derek Bo Diddley Eddie Bo

The Olympic Runners The Mighty Beanz Coleperson Hawkins

Not flak Jeff, but one-dimensional was what it was supposed to be, and was what people needed and wanted in those days. From the point of view of customer satisfaction, this was, at the time, unbeatable because the point wasn't the swinging but the screaming and cursing and stamping your feet. That being said, it was done much better later; more screamingly, more cursingly, more stampingly, more everythingly. Well, but you gotta start from where you are. And wherever you are, that's where you begin and it's making a mark if it does what it's trying to do. This is music for people who don't want/need music so much as to scream, curse and stamp their feet. Yeah, and march out of the hall and hit policemen and riot. MG PS It was the first Black Power music, and that was NOT true of Red Allen and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band in the thirties.

Mungo Park Mungo Jerry Ming the Merciless

They used to be well-stocked, but the owner is a dick. The shop clossed years ago. I got along with him very well. So only Concerto/Plato is left now in Amsterdam? (Fame in its new location is a joke.) I understand there are some good places in Amsterdam to buy African vinyl and K7s. 'Course, you may not want to buy records with shea butter on them MG