The Magnificent Goldberg

Joanne was on most of Freddie McCoy's albums for Prestige in the '60s, starting with "Funk drops", and was on the original version of "One cylinder". A very nice, sympathetic, player. I'll play a couple of them later. Happy birthday Joanne. MG

I've just finished reading Fred Wesley's autobiography. Very surprised - perhaps relieved? - to see that he was saying the same thing about the Acid Jazz scene as I tried the other day - only he put it rather more expertly than I could. The context is the show he, Maceo and Pee Wee put together and toured with extensively in Europe for several years. There are two points here. The most obvious is that the undiscerning drunk deserve to be taken for mugs, as seems to have happened with Smooth Jazz. The second is that the audience was culturally miles away - worlds away - from the roots of the music. You'd see the same kind of people turning up for Oumou Sangare, Chaka Demus & Pliers and Hugh Masekela. So it's unsurprising that they weren't interested in the nuances of all of these different kinds of music, merely the most superficial aspects. MG

Is that Sonny Stitt "Pen of Quincy" something included in the Mosaic box? MG

Nope; we're ALL hip. Some of us think some of the others aren't and some of the others... Go for it DMP! MG

Russel Harty Bret Harte Billy Hart MG

I agree with Paul. g Me too, except when the bar decides to finally comply with ASCAP and purchase a license, after 20 years of featuring live music, and then takes that "fee" out of the musician's pay. Ahem. Like a certain bar we're playing this weekend. Not a happy situation. Does he take the whole of the fee out of every band's pay every weekend, or just a fiftieth or whatever? And in any event, this geezer was running a karaoke bar - no musicians. What if the MU tried to levy a license for use of recorded music? MG

I'll be interested to see if anyone responds to this Chewy. MG PS Why do you spell Kenny G with capital letters and not Grant Green?

Yeah, "sour" is what I'd use to describe his tone sometimes too. It sounds like a cocktail you'd pour over a trifle. Cocktail sax! MG

MG

I hadn't noticed. I had better have a squint at the Savoy Jazz site. MG

Anyone else see this as contradictory? Don't care if you like it but if you don't recognize beauty when you hear it you aren't listening. who doesn't like "beauty"? Dan, you're confusing taste with appreciation. Just because you can tell that something's good, it isn't necessary to like it. Equally, just because something's bad, it's not necessary to dislike it. Too many people let aesthetics get in the way of enjoying themselves, in my view. Lots of people know spinach is good for them, but they don't like it. Lots of people know that sausages are bad for you, but they like them. I like lots of people - some of them are beautiful people; some are crooks. Most are a bit good and a bit bad. I don't seek to change them, or say that I won't accept this or that side of their character. Very often, one likes - or indeed loves - people in spite of what they are. So also with musicians. MG

Some are available elsewhere and others are not. I guess it depends on quantities still in the pipeline. Damn! I was just listening to Billie Poole's first album and decided to move "Confessin' the blues" up my OJC list. I can't access the Concord list being a stupid European! MG

Freddie Roach Freddie Mercury Hermes MG

Is the material in the Concord sale not available from other sources now? I was just looking on CD Universe for Billie Poole's "Confessin' the blues" and it's not there, but it IS in the Concord sale. MG

I don't understand this. I thought performance rights organisations collected a general license fee; then you could play anything licensed by that organisation. That's how it is in Britain. Licensing individual pieces that might (or might not) be played is a mind-blowing concept. MG Maybe those five songs were the five ASCAP songs they played. Could be, but what are the chances of that? Oh - are you saying that the US system is the same as the British one? MG I believe so. You pay a flat fee. There may be different fee schedules but that's the basic concept. There's no license paid for individual songs. Thanks Dan. I agree with JazzyPaul - the guy's a cheapskate. He's running a place of public entertainment. 'nuff sed. MG

Teach me. He's a good teacher - very patient... MG

Thanks - that's helpful. So Pharoah and Bembe are only on one track each... MG

I don't understand this. I thought performance rights organisations collected a general license fee; then you could play anything licensed by that organisation. That's how it is in Britain. Licensing individual pieces that might (or might not) be played is a mind-blowing concept. MG Maybe those five songs were the five ASCAP songs they played. Could be, but what are the chances of that? Oh - are you saying that the US system is the same as the British one? MG

Brian Epstein Brian David "Fathead" Newman MG

I don't understand this. I thought performance rights organisations collected a general license fee; then you could play anything licensed by that organisation. That's how it is in Britain. Licensing individual pieces that might (or might not) be played is a mind-blowing concept. MG

Gene Ammons Gene Autrey Gerald Allbright MG

A lovely pair of albums that! Jennings is another guitarist overshadowed by the organist he supported. Apparently, many of those early Wild Bill Davis recordings were arranged by Bill [Jennings, that is]. MG

Isaac Hayes David Porter Coal porter (not THE Cole Porter) MG

All (? most?) of that was reissued by 32jazz - great discs, most of them! Then some cheapo UK label did a 2CD set with the four full albums of which 32jazz did the compilation of that title. Dig the ugly covers! But none are available, as far as I know. And none were available for very long, since 32Jazz was another of Joel Dorn's failures. I've got them all, in one format or another, except for "12" and "Blues for Duke", but it would be great to have a set, including "In case you forgot how bad he really was", which was recorded for Muse but not released until 32Jazz had taken it over. MG

Is that an assertion or do you know for a fact that CCR has been outselling material on, for example, Stax? MG I would be very surprised if the Stax titles came close to the CCR in total sales. Of course not over the past 30 years. I should have made it clear that I meant more recently. (Though in total, Stax must have done a very great deal more than 20 million. Just not since Fantasy acquired the company.) MG