The Magnificent Goldberg

I've seen quite a few of the series in which he was mainly doing that and I agree entirely. He was a character and very able to be a great populariser of the important work he was doing with wildlife. Sorry, but it's a bit like Michael Cuscuna describing Grant Green as a great populariser and then complaining about his "commercial" recordings. MG

I think baritone saxophonists have a great advantage over players of other instruments. If you can play it, you've got this effin' HUGE sound, which has just got to impress any audience! And music is, before anything else, sound. MG

Joseph Heller Rare Earth Heaven 17

I have the Cookbooks and most of what Scott/Davis did for Prestige, but that stuff is from 1958 (and onwards), as are also their Roost recordings, which I have. They recorded together for King; I think from 1955-57. Have you heard any of those? Also agree about Doggett. Don't see why there couldn't be a nice big Mosaic box of his King material. If Mosaic can do Milburn and T-Bone, why not Doggett? MG

It's Buddy Bolden's birthday today. Still don't remember what I did with that damn cylinder, so I'm playing Sydney Bechet - Jazz classics vols 1 & 2: vol 1 with ear, vol 2 a Pathe Marconi job MG

Nat Simpkins Geoff Simkins Harry Strutters Hot Rhythm Orchestra

Yeah, I can hear that plainly. Seemed to me that was just the continuation of the tradition being developed after the war by the likes of Ammons, Jacquet, Cobb, Quebec and many other Soul Jazz musicians. WBD was part of that tradition. In other words, it wasn't a specific organ thing. Which is what I thought I was looking for. But it implies that Smith, on the other hand, wasn't originally part of the Soul Jazz tradition but part of the Bebop tradition, though he later moved solidly into Soul Jazz, which was changing anyway under pressure from Scott/Davis and McDuff/Jackson. And if that's right, it means that the real question isn't pre- or post-Smith, but pre-Scott, as chewy suggested. Chewy, what do you reckon are the key Scott/Davis recordings? MG

Bennie Green discs 1 & 2 MG

Hary Lime Jack Lemmon Oran "Juice" Jones

Good point - Houston & Etta? MG

A-one, a-two. MG

Just listening to Idris Muhammad singing about Tiger Woods, on this album Any other golfers who've had a song written about them by a jazz musician? MG

John Le Mesurier Arnold Ridley Don't tell them your name, Pike

Thanks Soul Stream So it isn't, as I thought it might be, simply a matter of using different stops and using chords more (and after all, Don Patterson and Jimmy Smith both used chords a lot on ballads). What you seem to be saying is that these guys had a different concept of how you played the organ. Not, I suspect, a different concept of how you played jazz, because they were all of the same generation as the beboppers. And if you listen to Wild Bill playing "Jive samba", you know he was capable of doing the Hard Bop thing when he wanted to. Am I following you right? MG

That's very good to hear. Thanks Jim. MG

I’ve been listening to Tyrone Parsons this evening and he has provoked a few thoughts. Tyrone only made two recordings; his own album “Organ-eyes” for Imperial in 1963 and he provided the backing on a few tracks of “This is Ernie Andrews” for Dot in 1966. That’s it. So there’s this new organist who emerges in the mid-sixties and he doesn’t want anything to do with all this “new-fangled” Jimmy Smith stuff; his vision is from Wild Bill Davis. You gotta admire the guy’s guts! OK, I’ve a lot of records by pre-Jimmy-Smith-style organists, not just Tyrone: Wild Bill; Bill Doggett; Milt Buckner; Hank Marr; Sir Charles Thompson; and so on. These guys don’t often get mentioned, but they’re good; great even, some of them. You can pick out a pre-Smith style easy enough. But what I’d like to know, from some of you organists out there is, what were these guys doing that Jimmy Smith didn’t? In other words, I’m not asking what was unique about Smith but what was unique about his predecessors. Can someone help me on this? MG

Walter Benton (ha, you forgot all about him, didn't you?) - Out of this world - Jazzland original Bill Saxton - Beneath the surface - Nilva original Johnny Lytle - Good vibes - Muse orginal Greg Hatza -The wizardry of Greg Hatza - Coral home tape Tyrone Parsons - Organ-eyes - Imperial home tape MG

I never thought about the impact of prohibition on a firm with those products. So they went into music as an alternative. MG

Flame Braithwaite Earth, Wind & Fire Flaming Embers

Happy Birthday; keep spinning. MG

Hospitals are the worst! Get well soon. MG

George Butler was a record producer for UA. He produced Ferrante & Teicher, amongst others. When Francis Woolf died, Butler was drafted in to run BN. He was frank that a) he didn't know anything about jazz and b) he got the job because he was black. In terms of BN, once George Butler hits the scene, you get a very quick descent into rubbish. Not to say there weren't good albums made after he took over, but there was also a big pile of shit. (I've got quite a bit of it in my collection - you can easily see how people like Lou D, Reuben Wilson and GG were affected.) MG

Percy France Jools Holland Mike German (Lib/Dem leader in Wales)

As I said I have suggested doing something like this to Mosaic. They now told me they won't do it for the simple reason that Verve themselves have plans for something like that next year. How extremely nace! But I'll believe it when I see it. MG

MG