The Magnificent Goldberg

I'm with the other 33% who don't want to live in either France or Britain. We'll manage it one day, maybe. MG Where then.......Mars? Namibia, if they can get their land reallocation schemes working without ruining the economy, as happened in Zimbabwe. MG

Maybe Google will put in something to make it easy to search for a particular artist or song on Youtube. (I can't see how to do that ) MG

The only one I have is Bill Leslie's. My favourite version is by Chris Connor, from the album "Free spirits". Words, if I recall correctly, by Margot Guryan. MG

I'm with the other 33% who don't want to live in either France or Britain. We'll manage it one day, maybe. MG

The first session for this album was in December or November 1954. You might be confusing it with the Blakey Birdland date, which was recorded in February 1954. Guy You're right! So Horace would certainly have been listening to this Ray Charles stuff on the radio a few months before he recorded. MG

+ = click here?? Well, maybe Albert Ayler? Or Ken Vandemark? Cecil? Of course, there might not be much left of the song but... MG

Leon Rene (I sold my heart to the junkman) Leo Messner Saul Bihari

"Warm & Sonny" got to #51 on the R&B album chart and is one of the very few terrific Disco albums by a jazz musician. "Joy of sax" is one of the very many so-so Disco albums by a jazz musician (but there are even more that are worse). The two on Muse are probably his best in his entire life. And the covers are deadly dull. They were reissued on 32Jazz. They were also issued in Japan by Nippon Crown, of whom I've never heard in any other conection. "Saturday morning" was on Xanadu and is nearly as good as the Muses. And it has a decent cover, by Don Schlitten. In 1987, Fresh Sound brought out an LP called "Live in Italy" FSR401, recorded in January 1974 with Georges Arvanitas on piano. That's a very nice album. I think I saw it on CD once when I didn't have any cash on me (GRRRR!!!). That man could SING!!!!! MG

I listened to this all through last week, or thereabouts, for the first time since about 1985. Glad to say I like it a lot better now than I did then. And even gladder to say that I didn't ditch it MG

An interesting thing about the Silver & Jazz Messengers album is that Horace seems to use the same voicings for the horns as Ray Charles did a few months earlier in his December 1953 recording session in New Orleans, from which came his first hit to utilise Gospel forms, "Don't you know". I don't think "Don't you know" had been released at the time of the first Silver & Jazz Mesengers session in February 1954, but I've often wondered whether Horace saw Ray performing the tune. Or whether their both using similar voicings and bringing in Gospel patterns was simply a coincidence deriving from the "spirit of the time". MG

Can I have someone else's hometown, please? Baltimore. Mickey Fields. A tenor player who I first heard about in Bob Porter's sleeve note for Stan Turrentine's double LP "Jubilee shouts". He said that traveling tenor bosses had better watch out for some local guys. "A Mickey Fields in Baltimore... is capable of cooking an unsuspecting tenor man into bad health!" This guy has only made one LP: "The astonishing Mickey Fields backed by the world's number one most exciting organist Richard "Groove" Holmes". Well, he's got a title long enough for a lifetime's worth there. This album was mainly recorded live at one of the Left Bank Jazz Society gigs. Unlike most, however, it was released at the time, on Edmar 1075. In Addition to Holmes, there is George Freeman and Billy Jackson - the same band who made "The groover" for Prestige in 1968, which must have been when this was recorded. In addition there are two poorly recorded cuts done at Fields' regular gig somewhere else. You can imagine the sounds I made when I found a second hand copy of the LP in Mole Jazz, London! Fields is fantastic! He's still regarded as a giant in Baltimore. --------------- Another god guy in Baltimore is Arnold Sterling, who was featured on a number of Jimmy McGriff albums in the '80s and made an album as a leader for JAM - "Here's Brother Sterling". He dropped out of sight in the late '80s, but apparently is still playing, dividing his time between Baltmore and Washington DC. MG

Billy Murray Harry McDonough Byron G Harlan

I think it's down to the performance. I can't think of any tune, whether standard or not, that someone couldn't take and make something of. But I LOVE Grant Green's version of "Stella by starlight"! MG

Illinois Jacquet Kansas Joe McCoy Louisiana Slim

I don't have the CD any more, so I can't be positive. Altogether, however, it's a minute or two, shared between three tracks. Not really too significant, unless you're really used to hearing the way the LP versions end. MG

Arthur "Babe" Clarke Roosevelt "Baby Face" Willette Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup

Didn't know about those. Are they on Capitol? MG Yes, 1958 and 1959, respectively. US catalog numbers are: African Jazz - (S)T 1117 Jungle Jazz - (S)T 1184 These feature firey percussion, colorful orchestration, and Plas as featured soloist alternating between tenor sax and alto flute. Cor!!! I bet they're expensive. Baxter seems to be "in" with the DJs at the moment. That's the time for a reissue, methinks. MG

Just having another listen to "Melancholy baby". The bass player is very good. The pianist has a very light touch. I've heard very little Bill Evans but maybe this is him. MG

Didn't know about those. Are they on Capitol? MG

Pape Fall Baye Fall Aminata Fall

Sioux City Sue Hard Hearted Hannah The Maid of Orleans

This one looks like a "real" BN sleeve by Reid Miles. Is it? MG No, it's by Patrick Roques. But it's nice; one of the better "new" covers, I think. A very good job. MG

This one looks like a "real" BN sleeve by Reid Miles. Is it? MG

Oh and I forgot Plas plays some beautiful soulful stuff on two wonderfully laid back LPs Paul Bryant made for Fantasy "Somethin's happenin'" and "Groove time". If someone could persuade Concord to reissue these... MG

Dan's mentioned some very good ones. "LA 55", "Hot blue & saxy" and the one you've just picked up are on Plas own label, Carell Music (but the first never made it to CD and is OOP). His most recent for Carell is "Christmas in Hollywood" and it's one of my favourite Christmas albums. You can get that and the other 2 Carells from CDBaby. In addition, Rhoda Scott's newest album, "From C to shining C" on Doodlin' records, is also available at CDBaby and features Plas and Red and is a fabulous album. Rhoda is one of the best organists around. On the (Swiss) Jazz Connaisseur label is a very good album by the Wild Bill Davis Super Trio with Plas - "That's all". There's an album called "The best of Plas Johnson" on the Wolf label (German), which contains all the material Plas recorded in the mid fifties for Tampa (about 3 10" LPs worth). This is kinda R&B-ish, kinda Rock & Rollish, kinda jazzish. In the early '60s, Plas made some albums for the Charter label under the name of Johnny Beecher. I have a couple of singles which are pretty tuff stuff. He also recorded prolifically with the LA organist Ernie Freeman, who's severely out of fashion now but was a very groovy organist. I have a few of that band's singles, too. He also recorded under his own name for Capitol around the same time. A compilation of that material came out in France in the '80s. Plas has probably made more recordings than anyone else in the world! (Well, except probably George Washington Johnson, who is said to have had to record his big hit 40,000 times, because only 150 copies could be made from each master.) You can, I think, also hear him on Boots Brown (Shorty Rogers?) recordings, as well as plenty of Henry Mancini. He was prominent on some of the "Peter Gunn" tracks. A VERY incomplete discography is on his website here http://www.plasjohnson.com/ He just can't remember everything. MG