The Magnificent Goldberg

Johnny Griffin and Sonny Clark at their prime! The Conn sounded blah, so hopefully the RVG will be eons better. Thanks - didn't know Sonny was on it. Another! (Scream from bank account, subtly muted). MG

Two there I'm definitely interested in; the Mobley and the Quebec, which I've only got on LP. What's "The congregation" like? That one might be another I get. MG

Is that an LP or CD? Can't find anything on the web - is the spelling correct? Sounds interesting, and with Ferris ..... African Jazz or what? Not jazz - contemporary Mandinke music. Oumou is a pretty famous (both) lady djali with monster sex appeal, whose work is mainly concerned with elevating women in Mandinke society. It's a CD - I bought it in FNAC in Paris in 1994. It didn't play when I got it back home, so I bought another from my normal (at the time) UK supplier, when he got it a few months later. And when I got a new CD player, I found both copies played OK. Do you want the spare? MG

I'm going to bed after Eric Kloss is finished, but I'll think about Hank. Didn't know it was his birthday today. Mostly, I'll think that "Far away lands" and "Thinking of home" are my fave MOBBLEEEES. MG (It was Tiny Grimes' birthday yesterday and I neglected that date. I'm gettin' past it.)

Very nice indeed. I liked the pianist, too. Wonder who he was. Sounded a bit like Nat Cole. My favourite Peggy Lee is "If you go", from about 1961, very intimately arranged by Quincy Jones. She does some unusual songs. MG

Have a good time there, as well as working hard! Rudy and Ralph are good 'uns. MG

Nice session - it comes off the shelf every few months here. MG

Thanks for the info Akanalog. Keep us posted. MG

New strip for goalies looks different. MG

New uniform for goalies looks different. MG

Anyone know anything about this one? Looks kind of irresistible to me. MG

Yes. Have you got the CD "Genius + Soul = Jazz Live" done at the Paris Olympia in Oct '61? Don is on that and takes a beautiful solo on "Come rain or come shine", which is not only the best solo he's ever done but, in my view, one of the ten great tenor solos ever. MG

Just found (remembered) I have another album with Allen Hoist; "Fourou" by Oumou Dioubate (Gefraco KL 070). Allen (one of two tenor players, but I think it's him) plays a passionate solo on "Mori ba djassa". Glenn Ferris is on trombone on this album, as well. MG

Ahhhh! The Hammersmith Odeon! I saw Ray Charles there in '60 or '61. MG

Once Groucho supposedly said to a woman with 12 children "I love my cigar but I take it out of my mouth occasionally". I only know Groucho from his films, of course. Thanks folks. MG

I want to thank you all. Thank you. We pore furriners miss a fair number of jokes. I missed Michael Cuscuna's joke on the original LP sleeve note of Grant Green's "Solid" - "Grant's tune, not tomb..." (I note with interest that he expunged it from the CD release.) Didn't even know it was a warhorse joke... MG

That ALWAYS happens. It's an immutable rule of the universe. MG

His daughter-in-law's bio says drugs, without specifying which. I just looked at my single of "Canteloupe woman" and it's a cut out. I don't think I've ever seen another jazz single that's a cut-out. I take that to imply that it didn't sell nearly as many as Verve expected it to. That leads to the conclusion that Verve had the willingness to try to push the single. So why didn't it make it? Can't tell, of course, but it could have been down to GG. MG From the Nov 63 recording of Idle Moments to the April 66 recording of Got a Good Thing Going a span of roughly two a bit years Grant Green left a legacy of sessions that could be considered unsurpassed in jazz guitar beauty, lyricism and intensity during such a short period of time. This includes the (at the time it was recorded) state of the art sessions with Tyner and Jones, all of the Green, Young and Jones recordings and the brilliant culmination of his recorded patnership with Big john Patton on Let Em Roll and GAGTG...this run of sessions pretty much ending with the recording we know as Iron City and the "two mysterious and apparently unheard sessions that may or may not still exist in the verve vaults". Is their the possibility someone can confirm whether anyone might be able to verify if these tapes still exist.??... Not me Guv; I only know what's in the discographies. BTW, surely you should go back at least to the sessions with Sonny Clark in talking about that legacy. Oh, and the period you're interested in also included Art Blakey's "Hold on, I'm comin'", and George Braith's very friendly "Laughing soul". MG

I THOUGHT it was '69. I saw the programme when it aired on the BBC and we were v disappointed that GG didn't have more of an airing. MG MG could you give some info in regards to what kind of situation this footage was first aired on. ie-was it as a musical interlude on say a UK chat or variety format where they crossed to the Ronnie scott club or something, or was it part of a music programme that featured more of the performers....I have always been wondering how this performance was originally presented....any info would be greatfully appreciated Also in the Grant biography by Sharony Andrews Green I think it mentions that some Grant performances may have been documented on African American community TV stations during the early seventies in different contexts, I definitely remember reading about musicians talking about this kind of thing somewhwere. It was a programme in the BBC's regular TV jazz series "Jazz 625" (625 referring to the number of lines on the screen). The material came from a guitar workshop from a Jazz festival called "Jazz Expo" or maybe "Jazz Expo '69", held in London. The programme was made up of some of the musicians at that festival. Very generous of the BBC to devote 40 or so minutes to showing bits of a week-long festival! As I recollect, the video posted here is all the GG that was shown. No memory survives of who else was on the programme or at the festival - I was only watching because of GG. MG

Postman came this morning, with some odd things from Jazz Record Mart On LP: Rev Isaac Douglas & the Charles Fold Singers - Live in concert Rev Isaac Douglas & the First Tabernacle of Deliverance Choir - I'm never left alone (No images on web of these) On CD Williams is a great preacher - looking forward to this. Ron Levy's first two albums (on K7) MG

Mono and stereo versions Best Steven French issues, Steven, with those numbers? MG

Good question. My guess is that this would have originally been issued in the UK on Fontana (an imprint of Philips), as UK CBS didn't start operating until around 1965/66. Certainly, this is the case with 'Miles Ahead' and 'Porgy and Bess'. That's right - Fontana. I've got an illustration on the inner sleeve of something else. Not clear, however, whether this would have been a French issue. 2 catalogue numbers quoted - 682 059 TL and 885 113 TY. May be mono & stereo versions; may be from different European countries. MG

Right, right. MG

I never paid much attention, but I asumed she was about 31 THEN! She looked it! MG

I was a teenager (15-19) in Ealing, West London. My area was the patch north of the Thames up to Kilburn - about a sixth of London. In that area, the top band was Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers. Cliff had a great band; two saxes, one doubling on piano, guitar, bass and drums. Cliff himself didn’t play an instrument. As a singer, he wasn’t at all individual, but he could imitate anyone. Cliff could imitate Blues singers, Soul singers, Rock ‘n Roll singers; he could do women or men; and he was really good at it. So was his band, who were real musicians. (A few years later, he signed up with Brian Epstein, who was the Beatles’ manager and got a couple of hits singing Beatles songs.) In the summer of 1962, the Ealing R&B Club opened, every Saturday night. The first band there, resident for a bit over six months, was Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. Alexis is known as the Father of British Blues. He had actually recorded with real Blues singers like Champion Jack Dupree – and for Atlantic records. Although the band was nominally a Blues band, they played a wider range of music, moving from Chicago Blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, to Ray Charles and Soul Jazz material like "Back at the Chicken Shack". As the summer progressed, we found that other Blues bands were developing and working in our patch. In Southall, there was the Mann-Hugg Blues Menn, later called Manfred Mann. In Richmond, there was a band called the Yardbirds, the training ground for Heavy Metal guitarists; Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck were all in that band. And in Hayes, usually sharing the Sunday night gig with Cliff Bennett, there was Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds, with Albert Lee on guitar. Oh, there was also Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages – not a Blues band but something approaching heavy metal when they weren’t playing the fool with toilet seats. Most of these musicians had been welcomed by Korner sitting in with his band on Saturday nights. Then Korner got a Saturday night gig up west. In the month or so before he started in Oxford Street, Korner suggested to a number of people who’d been sitting in with his band that they form a new band and take over from him at the Ealing R&B Club. That was the Rolling Stones. It was great being a teenager in West London! MG