The Magnificent Goldberg

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

It was only John's second album. I think "Along came John" sold so well, they decided not to issue this for a bit, then along came "The way I feel" and you couldn't issue "Blue John" when you had that album waiting in the wings. I used to get tremendously frustrated about this album, because it was illustrated on the backs of the subsequent albums. (Same with "Rollin' with Leo" which was on all the inner sleeves.) Michael Cuscuna's dismissive comments about this on the Mosaic box are quite wrong. Patton's complete BN output should have been on a proper sized box. But I always think he doesn't have much of a feel for Soul Jazz. He's only ever produced two great Soul Jazz albums in his life, and they must have been accidents. MG

I saw Lonnie at Brecon in 2000 and he killed me! It's not just what he plays, it's how he BEHAVES! What a show! With R Cuber and P Bernstein and drummer whose name I couldn't hear. Ahhhhhh! But sorry I couldn't make it to London to see him last week. Never seen Poppa Lou. MG

Well, the computer’s back from the menders. Recent purchases, while I’ve been off-line have been: Strangely, the sleeve notes say this was recorded at the end of Jimmy Ponder’s “What’s New” session, but the date given is July 2000. “What’s new” was recorded on 5 August 2002! Ponder’s “Thumbs up” was recorded on 3 July 2000, but Ludwig isn’t on it, though Brooks was. “Double exposure” is a great album, though. One my importer couldn’t get when it came out a year or so ago. Very nice stuff. Wonderful rare 70’s funk from a great, underrated, band. And is that a GREAAASSSSY sleeve or what! More from Rev Gates, from 1-6 December 1926. This one includes the incredible sermon, “You’ve got to lay down and die some day” – “You, you, you policeman; arresting innocent people; you know you’ve got to lay down and die some day!” Some things never change. MG

A couple of CDs by the great Rev J M Gates It's incredible how popular Gates was. He recorded 44 tracks for 7 different companies on the 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 & 16 September 1926; one day off in ten! (His manager didn't commit him to a contract with any company, and they all wanted to record him.) MG

Thanks but I want to BUY the CD - my LP versions are a bit shitty, see? (Anyway, I don't have a thing that can create a digital thing from an LP.) MG

Nope. And two or three people seem to have heard the unissued recordings. Wish I knew how. I'd like to hear Grant Green's Live at Club Mozambique set. MG