The Magnificent Goldberg

I said that, as far as CDs are concerned, the Peacock catalogue was almost dead in the water and the Savoy catalog is not in much better shape. I would say that your link is a testimony to that. Almost everything available from the golden age is cassette tape only. Actually, I do stand corrected, however. The Japanese have released a good share of golden age gospel Savoy recordings on CD. On the other hand, other than a few nice "Best of" collections for the Davis Sisters and Roberta Martin Singers, Malaco has done next to nothing for getting the Savoy catalog on CD. That's just looking at one style of Gospel music. On choirs, Savoy (and Malaco) are wonderful. For example, Savoy traces the whole development of the modern choir movement from its early beginnings with Rev James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir in the early 1960s right up to modern choirs like the wonderful Georgia Mass Choir. And a lot of that material is available and on CD. Malaco/Savoy is not a company that exists to preserve a heritage, like Document; the company is in the business of making records NOW for its own niche market, which it used to describe as middle-aged African Americans in the South, whose needs weren't being addressed by any other company. In the 1990s, the company usually accounted for about a third of all the albums on the Gospel charts. At present, they seem to have about a third of the cuts on the most played Gospel radio chart. With the company's focus so clearly on today's musical needs, the fact that such a large proportion of that heritage is still available (albeit on K7) can only be regarded as a plus. MG

It seems to me that we're prime candidates as victims of this type of scam, as we nervously wonder when our next bunch of CDs is going to arrive. MG

I wouldn't say Savoy's catalogue is dead in the water. A huge amount of the material is still available. After over 60 years, Savoy is still THE major Gospel label. http://www.malaco.com/Catalog/Gospel/list.php MG

This album comes from a few sessions, it seems to me. Some of the tracks have Earland on organ, while others have Jimmy McGriff's band; you can definitely hear Fats Theus and O'Donel Levy in there as well as McGriff on "Something" and "3 AM blues". MG PS the album has also been issued on the Rare Bird label under Charles Earland's name. PS and Trip, I think.

After Grant Green, George Freeman and Calvin Newborn are my second favourite guitarists. Some Freeman to look out for, in addition to what's been posted above: Gene Ammons & Sonny Stitt - You talk that talk - George's intro to "The sun died" is absolutely a killer! So simple, so effective. Gene Ammons - The black cat - This and the one above are on one CD Legends of Acid Jazz PR24188 Jimmy McGriff - Fly dude - Groove Merchant Jimmy McGriff - Friday the 13th, live at Cook County Jail - Groove Merchant (the B side of this is by Lucky Thompson and is only OK) I guess you can get tracks from Fly Dude on one of those horrid LRC compilations; I've never bothered to look. Groove Holmes & Les McCann - Groove - Pacific Jazz Mickey Fields - The astonishing Mickey Fields - Edmar. This is a bit difficult to find I think. Fields was the local Baltimore tenor hero and dangerous man to have sitting in on your gigs. This one was recorded live at a Left Bank Jazz Society gig with Fields sitting in with Groove Holmes band - the same personnel as on "The Groover". Groove Holmes and Jimmy McGriff - Come together - Groove Merchant (not the live set) MG

I do like the Supreme Angels - the material they did at Nashboro was very good indeed, though their mostly live album was the best of the lot. Like you, I've been listening to gospel music for decades and have about 300 albums. The field is as wide as jazz but under-explored. I have little pre-war stuff; am just getting into Document records; in the past few weeks have bought both of their Rev J C Burnett CDs and the first 4 vols of Rev J M Gates complete recordings. Prime recommendations for people who want to look a little deeper: Best of the Pilgrim Travelers - Specialty The Soul Stirrers - Shine on me - Specialty (pre-Sam Cooke material) Best of Dorothy Love Coates & the Original Gospel Harmonettes - Specialty (Bet this stuff is the first to go when Concord get fed up with maintaining the huge Fantasy catalogue.) Rev James Moore - Live in Detroit - Malaco The Georgia Mass Choir - They that wait - Savoy Rev James Cleveland & the Angelic Choir - Peace be still - Savoy And for Detroit fans, as well as Moore, there's Donald Vails' Choraleers - a good bit of material on Savoy. MG

I think it's got to be a Buddy Johnson song - "Save your love for me" or "Since I fell for you" - or a Percy Mayfield song - "Please send me someone to love" or "The danger zone" - for me. Think I'll go for "Save your love for me". MG Hm there's "Merry Christmas baby" as well...

MG

There are also some cuts from Specialty (now Concord) Yes, I overlooked them. MG

It's a very good compilation, as compilations go. If you only want a little bit of Gospel, this is the one to get. I think I'd have been inclined to include some Pilgrim Travelers and the Supreme Angels cut isn't as good as some of their live stuff. No choir material; perhaps Dorn is saving the choirs for a subsequent release. I think there's nothing from Peacock/Songbird in the album - probably Universal wouldn't license anything. Close inspection indicates the material has all come from the present owners of Vee-Jay, Nashboro/Creed (who acquired Mahalia's Apollo material) and Hob/Gotham; one cut is from Savoy. I've got about two thirds or three quarters of it already, so I shan't be buying it. MG

Thanks. MG

Hear hear! MG

That sounds about right. Although he loved playing his old stuff so that probably wasn't what was bumming him out. Usually bad drummers and bad organs did that to Big John. Of course, hard to say without being there. I remember the band as being slightly sub-standard but not THAT sub-standard; they certainly knew all the tunes and were American, not British. I reckon the promoter would have had to pay for John's own organ to come over with him. If you're prepared to fly the man over the Atlantic for one night - there must have been two or three thousand there and not cheap to get in, 15 pounds I think, so this was a real money-maker - you can afford to bring a B3 &etc. MG I'll have to ask John's widow Thelma about it. I remember him saying he went to England once or twice in the 90's but he didn't say much more than that. I remember he seemed proud that he got some recognition there at the time. I remember that Thelma came with him on this do. And I also remember some blurb in the local paper my mate sent me about how glad he was to come here. But I nonetheless got the impression it was just a job on the stage. MG

That's really helpful and interesting, Shawn. Thanks. But which one had a lot of tape noise? MG

I've always made it a practice to stay away from Jazz Giants on the understanding that I'd never have any difficulty buying albums by Trane, Duke, Armstrong etc, whereas trying to put together complete collections of John Patton, Don Wilkerson, Baby Face Willette, Lonnie Smith, Grant Green, Houston Person, Charles Kynard, Sam Lazar, Freddie Roach etc etc seemed like a priority, since there was little doubt in my mind that those guys albums would be bloody hard to get if I didn't buy them whenever I had the opportunity. Of course, after 40 odd years of approximate neglect, I have so many Giant holes in my collection that I'm rather proud of the following list, which I've put together through reading the earlier posts (to find out who these Giants are). Only the first two on the list do I regret not having any records of, and I intend to put that right later in the year. I suppose I ought to add Count Basie to the list, since the only Basie record I have is the album he made backing up Arthur Prysock. I do have two Bird albums. One Ornette. The other Giants are mainly in the "few" category. Only Stitt (Soul Jazz Stitt mainly, of course), Dex, Sonny Criss, Hank Mobley, Hamp Hawes and Pharoah Sanders are major artists in my collection. Here's the list Jelly Roll Morton King Oliver Bessie Smith Billie Holiday Ella Fitzgerald Miles Davis Fletcher Henderson Jimmy Lunceford Roy Eldridge Stan Getz Chet Baker Bix Beiderbecke Gerry Mulligan Art Tatum Albert Ayler Cecil Taylor Errol Garner Archie Shepp Jim Hall Tal Farlow Barney Kessel Shelley Manne Gil Evans Lee Konitz Art Pepper Sarah Vaughn MG

That sounds about right. Although he loved playing his old stuff so that probably wasn't what was bumming him out. Usually bad drummers and bad organs did that to Big John. Of course, hard to say without being there. I remember the band as being slightly sub-standard but not THAT sub-standard; they certainly knew all the tunes and were American, not British. I reckon the promoter would have had to pay for John's own organ to come over with him. If you're prepared to fly the man over the Atlantic for one night - there must have been two or three thousand there and not cheap to get in, 15 pounds I think, so this was a real money-maker - you can afford to bring a B3 &etc. MG

Hey, I never said that! I said that Michael Cuscuna didn't have much of a feel for Soul Jazz. I would NEVER say that about BJP! MG Sorry, I thought you went insane for a second. Now, to send some thugs to Cuscuna's place. Also, Jim to what you were talking about.... Many listeners, musicians, critics, ect.... don't quite understand how completely individual and complex some of Patton's music is. Only an organist could appreciate the left and right hand independence of the whole "That Certain Feeling" LP. THAT is some ridiculously tough shit. And UNDERSTANDING....I mean, that's a freakin' DUO plus horn more or less! When Patton plays it's just him and drums and he's playing all over that thing. Memphis To NY Spirit is so far removed from what other organ grinders were up to it's a joke...I mean covering Wayne Shorter tunes and stuff like Steno and The Mandingo?!!! Come on!!!! That thing's a masterpiece. Every album he did was a completely different journey. As much as a LOVE McDuff and JOS....their records were all more or less the same. Patton was a Chameleon...I mean, listen to Along Came John and then put on Memphis To New York Spirit. I'm really not up to the techical stuff - you're probably right about only organists being able to appreciate what John was actually doing. But what comes over to the lay audience is what Jim was saying about his vision and the way everything - even John Zorn who, on the face of it is completely WRONG - fits together. But also, John has an odd way of doing things (not a technical term); I feel he is in a way similar to George Freeman. They're both like your neighbour offers you a lift into town one Saturday morning and goes HIS way, round all the back doubles. Suddenly you're lost; then suddenly you see a landmark in the distance and you know where you are again and you get to the same place in the end and everything's fine and you say, "Thanks for the ride". MG PS - I agree about the continuous development. Can't think of another musician who was so into developing his ideas over a whole career. I saw him in the early 90s - he was brought over to Brighton (home town of Acid Jazz) for a one-nighter - he was more or less compelled to do all his old stuff and looked a bit pissed off. MG

No, the show wasn't recorded. It was a outdoor community event from a couple of years ago ( The Clarissa Street Reunion) in Rochester, NY. Rochester is Joe's hometown and about 70 miles from Buffalo ( Lonnie's hometown). Joe and Lonnie are old friends. Lonnie used to play in Rochester all the times in the old days ( before the turban), and Clarissa Street housed the infamous Pythodd Room. The other players were Rochester locals. After the concert ( where people from the neighborhood danced in front of the stage), a rather well lubricated fellow and his wife came up to Joe and said " I told my wife when you see a maotherfukcin' xylophone up on a stage, you're goin' to hear some motherfuckin' music!". A photo of the old Pythodd Room: Joe has recorded over 25 sessions as a leader and over almost 100 as a sideman since 1977. Joe Locke The Joe Locke Discography by Noal Cohen Her's another: Thanks - I see he was on Pucho's "Hideout" - I like his playing on that. (And on "Mucho Pucho" I now see.) I also love the photo of the Pythodd Room, I guess in the 60s sometime. So how come Wynton was sitting at the table (front right) and Grant Green was playing drums? MG

Total BUMMER! Alvin has allowed M&I records in Japan to reissue most of the two albums he made with Junior Mance; "The tender touch" and "Glidin' and stridin'". Maybe we should write to M&I records... Trouble is, there's no address on any of the M&I CDs I've got, nor website, nor e-mail address (unless they're in Japanese). MG

I've also got this one on CD. Good stuff, for a compilation. Also issued on vinyl too (they did a similar compilation for Grant Green). Only the vinyl version of the compilation had 6 previously unissued (at the time) cuts from the MTYNS and Boogaloo and "Dragon slayer" sessions, which made the vinyl version THE one to buy. But it's redundant now, of course. MG

Hey, I never said that! I said that Michael Cuscuna didn't have much of a feel for Soul Jazz. I would NEVER say that about BJP! MG

Who is he?

Just out of curiousity, what are they? "It was finally released in 1986, but Blue Note was right; it didn't measure up to what are now known as Patton's first three alums." Or, did you mean the two great Soul Jazz albums? They were "Teasin'" by Cornell Dupree and "Birth sign" by George Freeman. And MC was only one of two producers on the Dupree; the co-producer was Mark Meyerson. MG Sorry, the second part of your answer is what I was looking for. I never realized he did "Birth Sign" - that is one cool record George is totally wonderful. MG

Just out of curiousity, what are they? "It was finally released in 1986, but Blue Note was right; it didn't measure up to what are now known as Patton's first three alums." Or, did you mean the two great Soul Jazz albums? They were "Teasin'" by Cornell Dupree and "Birth sign" by George Freeman. And MC was only one of two producers on the Dupree; the co-producer was Mark Meyerson. MG

I find it quite difficult to compare an album I've had for thirty-five years with one, or two really, done around the same time with similar personnel, that came out relatively recently. Some of what I feel about AOTB is definitely to do with it's being kind of an old friend. But "Rakin'" is and always will be a fabulous groove track, while "Capt Nasty" and "Village Lee" are both wonderful compositions. I think the compositions on MTNYS are perhaps a little less distinguished than those. On the other hand, the tracks on the two CDs which were intended for a third album, which in my own mind I think of as "The Dragon Slayer", are great. (These are the ones featuring George Coleperson.) I really wish they'd issued all six of these as one album; I think that would have been a classic! MG