The Magnificent Goldberg

The strange thing is, his colleagues at Universal, running other divisions, do think they have the power to shape the market, and they do so. So why can't Goldstein? MG

I only have 2: a British compilation of Earl Bostic from the mid-fifties and one issued by Ace over here in 1981 by Oscar McLollie and his Honey Jumpers. I used to have a few others but I replaced them with CDs or 12". MG I have sixteen 10" records. Among them are Sidney Bechet's conert in Paris in 1952, Cugat's Favourite Rhumbas, Mills Brothers Barber Shop Ballads, The History Of Jazz- Then Came Swing, which is a compilation which includes tracks on which Benny Carter, Sid Catlett, Nat King Cole, Bumps Myers, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet and others are featured, America's Music - Basin Street Six, Sarah Vaughan Sings, Woody Herman's Blue Prelude, Dixieland Comes To Carnegie Hall, Woody Herman And His Herd, Clifford Brown Ensemble with Zoot Sims, JazzTone Society Spec 100 Jazz Sampler, Harry James - All Time Favourites, and Sarah Vaughan - Images. My main local vinyl source has a good-sized section of 10" LPs, about half and half, classical and jazz. The 10 inchers I've found are in surprisingly good condition, still in their original covers. Sometimes the covers are a little rough. But, the records were well-cared-for, for the most part. Nice. I just had an e-mail from True Blue music, saying that they had a load of stuff on its last legs. Included in the list were a dozen or so 10" LPs - reissues (I guess) of Prestige originals featuring mainly Bebop classics. Not my sort of stuff. $17.98 each - is that a good price? MG Seems a little high to me, but not unreasonable. But, keep in mind that the price always depends on the demand for the product, as it does for anything else. I usually get mine at my favourite vintage vinyl place and his prices are very reasonable, from $5 to $20 usually. The Clifford Brown was $5, but a vintage Rafael Mendez, which I sent to my best friend was $20. My guy bases his prices on the condition of the record. The Brown had a skip on "Blue Berry Hill" and the Mendez was close to mint. So, I would say snap up only the records that you actually want to listen to. $5 would be too much to pay, IMO, for even a rare record that you don't think you'll ever play. The stuff from True Blue would be new, not vintage. It's not my type of material at all, so I wasn't thinking of buying it. (If there'd been some Ammons or Jacquet, that might have been different.) I just thought that, for a sale, for new records not vintage, the price was high. MG

Don't think they did either, but I've always enjoyed the quartet date she did for Impulse in 1963, "Soul Sisters," with Grant Green on guitar, Leo Wright on alto, and Pola Roberts on drums. She also showed up on Wright's "Soul Talk" that same year. Gloria is a wonderful organist. Perhaps she should have her own thread here. MG

I only have 2: a British compilation of Earl Bostic from the mid-fifties and one issued by Ace over here in 1981 by Oscar McLollie and his Honey Jumpers. I used to have a few others but I replaced them with CDs or 12". MG I have sixteen 10" records. Among them are Sidney Bechet's conert in Paris in 1952, Cugat's Favourite Rhumbas, Mills Brothers Barber Shop Ballads, The History Of Jazz- Then Came Swing, which is a compilation which includes tracks on which Benny Carter, Sid Catlett, Nat King Cole, Bumps Myers, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet and others are featured, America's Music - Basin Street Six, Sarah Vaughan Sings, Woody Herman's Blue Prelude, Dixieland Comes To Carnegie Hall, Woody Herman And His Herd, Clifford Brown Ensemble with Zoot Sims, JazzTone Society Spec 100 Jazz Sampler, Harry James - All Time Favourites, and Sarah Vaughan - Images. My main local vinyl source has a good-sized section of 10" LPs, about half and half, classical and jazz. The 10 inchers I've found are in surprisingly good condition, still in their original covers. Sometimes the covers are a little rough. But, the records were well-cared-for, for the most part. Nice. I just had an e-mail from True Blue music, saying that they had a load of stuff on its last legs. Included in the list were a dozen or so 10" LPs - reissues (I guess) of Prestige originals featuring mainly Bebop classics. Not my sort of stuff. $17.98 each - is that a good price? MG

Indeed! MG

I only have 2: a British compilation of Earl Bostic from the mid-fifties and one issued by Ace over here in 1981 by Oscar McLollie and his Honey Jumpers. I used to have a few others but I replaced them with CDs or 12". MG

1 March 1966, a few weeks before "Got a good thing goin'" (29 April 1966). There's some discussion of this on the thread dealing with George Braith's "Laughing soul", which was also recorded on the same day: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...topic=20021&hl= I've always had the feeling that the Oliphant set was used by Patton & Green as a kind of try out before the BN date. Not that Atlantic reps would have approved, of course. But I don't know whether they would have had the second date set when they did the first. Still a good record, though. (Both of them on the CD.) MG

MG

Jazzbo, the sound of "Grass is greener" differs a lot between the trio and the sextet tracks, even on the Japanese CD issue. Is that still the case on the new Collectables CD? MG

The label and the sleeve of the original Prestige issue are different. The sleeve gives the titles pretty much as Bertrand listed them: 1. Hot Sauce 2. Chop sticks 3. Chunky Cheeks 4. Crenshaw West 5. Please Let Me Do It 6. Coolodge 7. With Malice Toward None 8. Little Flame 9. Cantelope Woman The label gives the following: Side 1 1. Hot Sauce (Braith) 2. Chop sticks (Braith) 3. Chunky Cheeks (Dixon) 4. Crenshaw West (Braith) Side 2 1. Please Let Me Do It (Braith) 2. Collage (Braith) 3. With Malice Toward None (McIntosh) 4. Little Flame (Braith) 5. Cantelope Woman (Dixon) The insert and label of the Japanese CD issue give the same title information as the sleeve of the original. The insert attributes "Cantelope woman" to Braith. I believe the date of 1 March 1966 for this session. I believe that is also the date of the Grassella Oliphant session. This is despite the entry in Lord which gives the date as 1 March 1965 - which I think he got from the Ruppli discography of Atlantic. That album CAN'T have been recorded in March 1965, because it includes "Ain't that peculiar", which was released late in 1965, and "Get out of my life woman", which hit the R&B charts in January 1966. However, the tracks on the Oliphant album sound like they were recorded in two sessions; one with just Patton, Green and Oliphant, the other with Ousley, Terry and Holley added. The sound, particularly of the drums, is very different on those tracks. So it's just possible that there was more than one date. I think it's unlikely, however. I reckon the engineer redid the set up, when the horns arrived or left. [Edit - neither the original LP nor Japanese CD issue give any date.] I see no reason why the two albums couldn't have been recorded on the same day. It would be unusual but not impossible, since the Atlantic studios were in New York and we all know where RVGs was. "Laughing soul" is my favourite George Braith album. It's not as good as his Blue Notes but is much more likeable and friendly. MG

That would be nice, but I'd like a box of the complete Davis/Griffin recordings - a lot of which were on Jazzland so couldn't be RVGed. Well, I guess they could be, but it wouldn't be the same, would it? MG

Stuff was an odd case. Their recordings don't do them justice. It's odd to be saying that about a bunch of studio guys, but it's the truth. They used to be at Mikell's at 97th and Columbus for years and I saw them countless times. It was always smokin'. They generated a lot of exitement live. In the earlier days before their albums the repetorire was Soul Classics and they were killin'. King Curtis' band was the same way. So much better live than any of the records reveal. I can well believe it. Pity they didn't come through on disc. MG

I'm not sure there IS such a thing as purely musical innovation. It seems to me that any jazz musician is simultaneously two things; a creator of art and a consumer of art. As a consumer, he is a member of his culture. He's affected by substantially the same pressures as the other members of the audience. He's a part of the zeitgeist. As a creator, he plays from what he knows; tells the stories he can tell from his experience; makes it up as he goes along. The great innovators manage to capture the cultural changes that come along before others do, and reflect them, and the new or developing needs of the culture, through their own personal reactions to the developing situation. The degree of musical innovativeness, in order to be successful, probably needs to be commensurate with the degree of cultural change, or it will be perceived as being "too far out" for most members of the culture to identify with. Thus each of the musician's roles supports, limits, and stretches the other. It also needs to be relatively "easy", in the sense that someone who plays what no one else can play cannot have the influence needed to make an innovation "stick" and form a "movement". I think this applied to Duke Ellington, whose approach to writing jazz for big bands was radically different to that of Fletcher Henderson. Duke's approach couldn't be taken up, it seems, until Mingus came along, simply because no one else was talented enough (and then the context in which Mingus was working was completely different). So that much of Duke's work remains a wonderful, individual, body of innovation that, though relevant, is "off to one side". MG

I wouldn't put Richard Tee among the greats but his name on an album is not one to cause you to turn your nose up. I'm not so sure about Stuff, though. I have three of their albums and they aren't nearly as good as they ought to be with the personnel they have. MG

What I've heard of Gospel sax fits that description, too. But it's not much. I don't think the Gospel sax tradition is well documented, either on records or in the literature of Gospel music. That makes it much more difficult to relate particular jazz saxophonists to Gospel saxophonists and the tradition. But I don't doubt that that relationship exists. MG Brother Vernard Johnson? Of a later, post-Ayler generation, but certaily worth investigating for his understadning of / contributions to the gospel saxophone tradition. Yes, I have a Vernard Johnson album - he has made three or four, I think, but only one became available, even as an import, in Britain. There are a few saxophonists working with some of the Mass Choirs, as well. But that's a very small, and relatively recent, sample. I haven't heard any players from the '40s or '50s - or indeed anything earlier than the late '80s. Houston Person's 1978 Gospel album, though it was genuinely a Gospel record, not jazz versions of Gospel songs, still featured Houston playing in his own normal style. MG

What I've heard of Gospel sax fits that description, too. But it's not much. I don't think the Gospel sax tradition is well documented, either on records or in the literature of Gospel music. That makes it much more difficult to relate particular jazz saxophonists to Gospel saxophonists and the tradition. But I don't doubt that that relationship exists. MG

Yeah, right. Jacquet, Cobb & co were all Prez men. MG

Enjoy! MG

I think Ayler attributing some of his technique to R&B is more about vocabulary rather than the messages Ayler conveyed. His accent or dialect on the horn, maybe? I think that's correct to a very large extent. I think the early Avant Garde musicians owed quite a bit to R&B, but saying that doesn't, in my view, detract from what they actually achieved. Don't forget how old these guys were; they were mostly from the generation that grew up with the sounds of the R&B honkers in their ears. And, unlike the Bebop and Hard Bop men, their early jobs were with R&B and Blues bands. Those Honkers were HOT in the ‘40s and early ‘50s; hot in both senses. They were extraordinarily popular because they provided a musical outlet for ghetto audiences; a catharsis that sometimes led to riots, when sax players would walk out of the dance hall and honk out in the streets, taking the audience with them. They were hot players, too; it’s difficult to see how they could have provided that catharsis if they’d played cool. The first thing that strikes me, listening to Sanders and Ayler in particular, is how much they SOUND like the R&B honkers and screamers. Pharoah and Albert are probably the tenor players whose sound most recalls those men. Though he was a good deal calmer than either Sanders or Ayler, Ornette did as well, on the "Ornette on tenor" session, and commented on the importance of the “honk” to tenor playing, and its use as a rhythm instrument, in the sleeve notes. In his period with Miles, and later up to “A love supreme”, Coltrane didn't sound like that, though he, being a bit older than the others, had actually been one of the Honkers and Barwalkers. With “Ascension” and “Village Vanguard again” (the only one of Trane’s later recordings I have at present), you find that sound creeping into his playing – by no means as much as in Pharoah’s, of course, but there are more than just hints. Secondly, the Honkers played loooooong solos, shrieking over and over on one chord, winding up the tension to unbearable heights. Subtle it certainly wasn’t. Here’s a helpful little quote from a Robert Palmer sleeve note. “A lot that was perceived as new when Coleman and Coltrane did it in a new context – overblowing the horn to get a distorted tone, biting down on the reed in order to produce shrill squeals, playing lengthy solos that grew hotter and hotter until they verged on hysteria – came directly from the R&B saxophone tradition.” I seem to remember (it’s a long time since I read it) that Kofsky’s book does more than hint that a significant part of the objective of the new music was the creation of a black catharsis that I can recognise as not too dissimilar from that provided by the Honkers. It seems to me not unnatural for the similarity of purpose to call into being some technical similarities, particularly given these guys’ backgrounds and experience. But, of course, the new music was based on completely different assumptions from that of the old R&B honkers. The real achievement of Coltrane and the others was the creation of those new underlying assumptions. No amount of identification of points of technical similarity can detract from the revolutionary nature of that creative leap. MG

I read a Trane bio a long time back (sorry, can't remember the title or author) in which he was quoted as saying that in his opinion the man who knew more about the saxophone than anyone else, and from whom he learned a lot while he was working for him, was Earl Bostic. MG

Where does it say jazz has to be serious? Fats was a big influence on R&B. It seems to me that Louis Jordan's approach stems from that of Fats. And Rufus Thomas was, I suppose, the greatest of Fats' followers in more recent years. Nowadays, however, I hear very little that might be said to carry on the spirit of Fats. MG

The B B King album I like best is "There must be a better world somewhere", which he recorded in 1981 for MCA. Most of the songs were written by Doc Pomus and Dr John. The band is incredible. Dr John ran the rhythm section, which included Bernard Purdie, Wilbur Bascomb and Hugh McCracken. Hank Crawford ran the horn section, which included David Newman, Ronnie Cuber, Tom Malone, Waymon Reed and Charlie Miller. The solos from Crawford and Newman are among the best they ever recorded. It's not just the band, however. The songs are great! "Born again human" is one of the most moving performances I've ever heard. And B B is on top form throughout. I'd recommend this for anyone who likes B B King - and for anyone who likes music that really DOES something to you. MG

Wait, who? Sorry, I meant Butch Morris. MG

I'm sure you're right. I was listening to that the other day, but didn't hear it - must have slipped out to make a cup of tea. MG

Yes, now I remember! Thanks MG