The Magnificent Goldberg

MG

You can hear it much clearer on LP, with the balance fully right, bass right down, treble full up, than you can on the excerpt posted. Hooray for vinyl! MG

I swear by Mundo, in Kyoto. http://www.mediawars.ne.jp/~mundo/cdjapan/link.html The British importers of Japanese CDs are all rip-off merchants. I have 2 Venus CDs (plus a couple of BNs) coming from Mundo now: >> * Harold Mabern - Don't Know Why (TKCV-35319) CD $28 >> * Harold Mabern - Falling In Love With Love (TKCV-35165) mini-LP sleeve CD $25 These appear to be more expensive than Cadence but you can pay in IRCs which, from Britain, gives you a 7-8% reduction on the normal price in dollars, because of differences in the postal rates in Britain and Japan. On a $25 CD, this brings the price down to $23. This is something like a free lunch, because no one appears to pay for the discount. I've no idea whether there would be any similar discount from the USA, depends on how much an IRC costs there. Note: you can't use credit cards with this firm; only cash, IRCs or Paypal. They've never let me down. MG

It was the price that made me shudder; thirty fucking dollars!!! And you can't eevn chose your labels!!!!! MG

MG

I've only got this on LP; I assume the track you're talking about is the long one that takes up the whole of side 2 and starts with "Mode D - trio and group dancers". I'll have a listen later. MG

I believe that the third baseman for the Cardinals in the Roger Maris trade was Charlie Smith, not Charlie James. I thought the Cardinals was a doo wop group... MG

Johnny also had Seldon Powell on "Look out" on New Jazz 8288, the only one of his early LPs that hasn't been reissued on CD. Johnny often had interesting sidemen. "Talk that talk" has Oliver Nelson; "Gettin' the message" has Lem Winchester. The two LPs are available on PRCD24151; a great pairing. He also had John Abercrombie on "Nasty". MG

I thought he wore kilts. MG

I think he's made up. No Charlie James is listed in Lord's discography. It wouldn't have been a pseudonym on a poster. MG

I agree. I haven't any money, though. MG Hm, just remembered that there is “The American Popular Music Business in the 20th Century”, by Russell Sanjec. I haven't read the full thing, just the very large short version prepared by Russell's son, David. The trouble is that, since Sanjec was President of BMI, he tends to concentrate on the music publishing and performing rights issues. The record industry is dealt with rather sketchily in David's version, and even the occasional quoted statistics of record sales are presented in different ways so that one can't compare many years. But it's still an interesting read. Some more good stuff on the post war industry is in Arnold Shaw's "Honkers and Shouters", which focuses on R&B. There are also histories of individual record companies, like Atlantic, and bios of owners. There's also a nice book called "Little Labels, Big Sound", by Rick Kennedy & Randy McNutt, which gives short histories of 10 independent labels, from Gennett and Paramount (though they were both owned by large corporations) to Delmark. MG

I agree. I haven't any money, though. MG

One of the most interesting ones BGP has put out is The Pazant Brothers "Live at the Museum of Modern Art", a previously unissued album privately recorded by the band in about 1971 when the brothers were getting their thing together. Check this one out, if you haven't heard it. MG

Here's what I've been able to find out about the labels mentioned so far. Budget labels Baronet - dunno Coronet – this was a subsidiary of Premier Albums Inc (see below) Clarion – a subsidiary of Atlantic Crown – subsidiary of Kent/Modern/RPM owned by the Bihari Brothers Design – a subsidiary of Pickwick Diplomat - dunno Forum – a subsidiary of Roulette Guest Star - dunno Kimberley - dunno Palace – Hollywood firm owned by Al Schlesinger (who also owned the R and B label) active from 1952 into the 60s – may not be the same firm as mentioned in preceding posts Period - a subsidiary of Everest, who made quite a lot of interesting jazz records – Gloria Lynne, Wild Bill Davis etc. Pickwick – dealt with in earlier posts Premier – there were several 1950s labels called Premier. :1 a firm in St Louis owned by H S Somson – active between 1944 and 1951 :2 a firm in Syracuse , NY, owned by Frank J Hundshamer, active between 1955 and 1958 :3 a firm in Tucson, AZ, active in 1959. I don’t know which one of these owned Coronet Richmond – a subsidiary of London (itself a subsidiary of the UK firm Decca) Rondo-lette – A subsidiary of Rondo, which was owned by Eli Oberstein – the great failed entrepreneur of the record industry. Rondo started in 1955 and was still active in 1959 – may have continued into the ‘60s Spin-o-rama – a Newark, NJ firm owned by Henry LaPidus, who also owned the following labels: Humpty Dumpty; Peter Pan; Prom; Rocking Horse; and Synthetic Plastics, which was the parent company. The last label started in 1949; at least Prom (and maybe other labels) continued into the 60s Strand – there was a Strand label at the end of the 1950s which was distributed by, and MAY have been a subsidiary of, US Decca. Sunset – a subsidiary of Liberty Wing – ditto Mercury Wyncote - dunno Don’t forget New Jazz – Bob Weinstock converted the original label he had started in 1949 into a budget line, for introducing new artists. Grand Award was, I think, a budget subsidiary of Command - well, it was a subsidiary; not sure about price. But it had been the original owner of Command Performance, wich changed its name to Command. MG

Oops!

SESAC stands for Society of European Songwriters, Authors and Composers. It is a performing rights organisation, a tiny competitor with ASCAP and BMI, which collects payments for performing rights from radio, TV and other users of public music. I believe the firm originated in France. Its corporate HQ is now in Nashville. It used to specialise in representing the interests of those European classical composers whose works were still subject to copyright; very tiny beer. In the 1970s it diversified into Gospel music, and is still important in that area - every one of the tracks on the latest CD by the Georgia Mass Choir (2002) is licensed by SESAC. The firm has further diversified since then and now represents a number of big songwriters, including Bob Dylan and U2. They also deal in jazz; Joshua Redman appears to be one of their composers. Their website is at http://www.sesac.com/aboutsesac/about.html MG

I just remembered the one who's totally off the scale - Kankawa122 He has a nice line in getups, as well. And he is a seriously bad organist; check out his live albums with a) Jimmy Ponder and b) Jack McDuff. MG

Now that's complete nonsense, as Tjader died of a heart attack in Manila on the Phillipines on May 5th, 1982 ..... in other words, that was the release date. You must be right. I just checked to make sure I hadn't misread it - no, that's what it says. You'd have thought someone in his position would have done better than that. MG

Lord v4.4 gives the date as being August 1984. MG

Yep. Water's based in San francsco. I imported mine from the US in August. MG

I hadn't heard of him before. I thought he was a local Miami musician. Good, though. MG

Mosaic is the least likely outcome, I should have thought. I recall when "Good move" came out there was some comment from Michael Cuscuna, perhaps in the "True Blue" magazine, or maybe on the Blue Note website, to the effect that that was the only proper jazz record the man made, so there. I doubt it Blue Note would have licensed "Brown sugar" to Water records this year had they any idea of issuing it. Freddie is, I fear, caught between two stools. His work isn't particularly dancefloor friendly, so big sales can't be expected that way, but it's still Soul Jazz and very funky and feels very black, so it doesn't go down with serious jazz fans. Except in Japan. I don't understand the Japanese market, but I'm very grateful to it. MG

I'm glad you posted that, Cliff. I started thinking just after I'd responded, about how it's a total burner that not even Earland could better. In fact, I think Earland must have learned about horn arrangements from that cut. I can't think of any other cut that presages so well what he was doing several lears later. No one had ever tried to arrange horns that way behind an organ. The way Blue and Harold come in after that single note line that John plays is just out of this world! I never thought of the track as being a significant innovation in organ jazz, but it was. Course, John had done BURNERS before; "Cookin' with Clarence" is one. But the horn arrangements were lacking there. Night flight was a lesson. MG

Yeah top stuff; that track has converted more people to organ fans than I care to remember. Not precisely your average dancefloor classic, however. MG

I think it might depend on what type f brush you use. I have one called "The parostatik disc preener" which I bought in the 60s. It's tubular so, when your disc has done a revolution beneath it, you rotate the brush anit-clokwise so that the muck is raised up off the surface of the disc. Then you can swivel, drag or just lift it up off the disc surface. I've often wondered whether this was still available: it's the only product of any kind that doesn't seem to wear out. MG