The Magnificent Goldberg

No Fopps even in English Wales. Better look in Spillers next trip to Cardiff. I looked on Amazon UK and was surprised at how expensive it all is. MG

Well, if they're all out in Japan and only five quid over here, who's gonna shell out $150 or thereabouts for a box? MG

Aren't quite a few of them now out in the Japanese 24-bit 1000 Yen series? I suppose, for a few weeks Japanese Chris Connor CDs aren't quite cheap enough for me, I think. MG

Porter Waggoner The Wagon Train Gang Ward Bond

Historical doesn't necessarily mean dead. Lots of Picasso paintings were in museums long before he died. There was a Motown Museum in Detroit long before Berry Gordy sold the firm. MG

Not a bad idea, but I think there's some stuff in amongst the real goodies which is only so-so - 'He loves me, he loves me not' has pretty boring arrangements by Ralph Burns, as I recall. I didn't get on with her first for Atlantic, either, but didn't play it enough to know why. The Gershwin twofer is a curate's egg, again going from memories of listening in the sixties. I never heard 'I miss you so', but I never felt that would be a goodie, so didn't get it. The rest is various shades of wonderful! I flogged all my Chris Connor albums at the end of the sixties, but have been forced to buy most of them again on CD. They don't get stale. MG The Gershwin album needed greater variety of pace. the arrangements are all pretty safe. Nothing daring but Chris sounds great and there are some great sidemen. Yes, I think I agree with you on that. If I see a cheapo, I might give it another try. MG

I won't make any claims for any of the trio albums vis-à-vis "Soul Jazz" - I'll leave that to Ramsey Lewis who must have been the more significant piano trio leader in the 'soul jazz' field. But I certainly do have a problem with your inclusion of Stanley Turrentine's That's Where It's At, when a much better Turrentine + soulful pianist collaboration exists in the form of Blue Hour. You already included Les McCann's In New York, why two collaborations with Mr. T? As much as I enjoy That's Where It's At, it pales in comparison to the original Blue Hour release. YMMV, but it really shouldn't. OK, I'll accept what you say, Dan. I did ponder both those Turrentine albums and came up with 'That's where it's at' because I think McCann is a more significant soul jazz pianist than Gene. But I'm happy to change that. Got to admit that 'Blue hour' is probably the most perfect album of its type, even compared with Jug's Moodsville albums or any of the Midnight Slows. And you've drawn to my attention that, except for the Wes Montgomery Trio, which isn't all ballads of course, I didn't include a classic ballad album, which is a big mistake. So I've changed those around. MG

I am inclined to agree with you, Paul. Personally, I've stopped categorising different kinds of jazz in my database of my own collection. Now it's just a whole mish-mash of everything from Louis Armstrong to Fred Anderson. And the CDs are filed like that, too. So are the hard drives (though it takes a while to page down from Al Casey to Young-Holt Unlimited ). But, for me anyway, segregating, on the shelves, on the hard drives and in the database, mbalax from jazz, gospel, reggae &c serves a useful purpose, so I do it. But I still perceive that there's a bunch of musicians/recordings that are soul jazz and that the history of this bunch is qualitatively different from other kinds of jazz, particularly in its feedback loop relationship to black popular music but also because developments in the music are very often driven by rhythm TEAMS (eg Timmons, Jones, Hayes; Patton, Green, Dixon; Spencer, Sparks, Muhammad), rather than by individual great geniuses. That's not something you get in other kinds of jazz, I think, though perhaps one might say it of the Basie rhythm section of the thirties. But people say a lot about his sax, trumpet and trombone players, so I don't know. MG

I think I see - this stuff is being labelled 'Northern Soul' nowadays, is it? (Not by Ace - I'm sure they're more careful than that.) Looks like a mix of blues & R&B, recorded in a transitional period before soul became completely entrenched as the mainstream of popular black music. These transitional things are not uninteresting, as a matter of principle, but even Ace suffers from trying to find 'rarities' that no one else has got. MG

Not a bad idea, but I think there's some stuff in amongst the real goodies which is only so-so - 'He loves me, he loves me not' has pretty boring arrangements by Ralph Burns, as I recall. I didn't get on with her first for Atlantic, either, but didn't play it enough to know why. The Gershwin twofer is a curate's egg, again going from memories of listening in the sixties. I never heard 'I miss you so', but I never felt that would be a goodie, so didn't get it. The rest is various shades of wonderful! I flogged all my Chris Connor albums at the end of the sixties, but have been forced to buy most of them again on CD. They don't get stale. MG

Is that the Rev. J.W. Williams Jr that did Clear Shining After Rain? Yes, same guy. I think 'Clear shining' was his first recorded sermon. I don't think it's as good as 'Black & proud' but it's still top drawer stuff. But the message is the same as above; find 'I fell in love with a prostitute' for the ACME in the black art of oration. Oh, looks like it was an LP Can't find a forum-friendly version of the Jewel CD, but it's out on an Atlanta International CD, viz: MG PS, you can get it from Amazon.com for $5-87 http://www.amazon.com/I-Fell-Love-With-Prostitute/dp/B0024F144K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410002426&sr=8-1&keywords=rev+jasper+williams+i+fell+in+love+with+a+prostitute

If you pick up a copy of his Paula CD, 'I fell in love with a prostitute', which isn't too hard to get, I think, you'll be even MORE amazed. I think it was previously issued on a Jewel K7; NOT on LP; it's too long - 56 mins. MG

I agree with you Chuck but the reason it never happens may be because it can't. If there were a touring exhibition recognising YOUR work, now or at any time in the last 40 years, you'd be required to make personal appearances to support it, sign autographs, kiss young lady fans ( ), stay in expensive hotels, appear on TV. Anyone for whom such a thing might be organised would have loads of better stuff to do than that. (Well, not sure about kissing young ladies There's a cost to everything and only the dead don't have to pay that one. MG

Chuck looks like a Baye Fall in those clothes so... Cheikh Ibra Fall Cheikh Amaadu Bamba Mouridoulah

When you say R&B, what do you mean? The forties/early fifties recordings of people like Louis Jordan, Joe Liggins, Charles Brown, Amos Milburn etc? Or something like what young people now are calling R&B, which appears to be everything from there and then to here and now? Which is what I call popular black music. MG

Yes, we were writing simultaneously, but I had to look at the timings for 'Trust in me' and 'Blue odyssey', the latter of which has never come out on CD, as far as I'm aware. MG

So being labeled as "Soul Jazz" doesn`t necessarily requiere the artist to play "soulfully"....just curious..... btw if remembering correctly I didn`t state that Dexter Gordon Live in Montreux is "Soul Jazz" but tried to describe the impact of Junior Mance`s playing on other artists and/or recording sessions - this actually in order to answer a question by "The Magnificent Goldberg".... and I was commenting on what I quoted that JimR said - so, no, playing soulfully is apparently not necessary to be 'Soul Jazz', but that's not something I worry 'bout 'cause playing soulfully, i.e. with feeling whether it be expressed in a particularly churchy manner or not, is important to me; contributing to the codification of a marketable genre is not... yes I've got to agree with you about playing soulfully being the important thing and sub-genres of jazz less important. But there are reasons, having to do with the general health of jazz as a whole, why I think that an understand of soul jazz is worthwhile and helpful. See my other response to Danasgoodstuff up a bit. MG

I thought about Horace a long time before deciding no. Not because he was more a hard bop player than a soul jazz man - because I think he's both at the same time - but because I'm really not sure that the line of influence leads through him. In December 1953, Ray Charles recorded 'Don't cha know', which was a small hit in '54, and the first of Ray's hits in his 'new' style, quickly followed up by stuff like 'I got a woman', and the rest is history, as they say. When you listen to that first hit, you can hear the same horn voicing that Horace used for Messrs Mobley & Dorham, in '54. So, did Horace get it from Ray? Well, possibly, possibly not. But soul jazz follows (and leads) black popular music. Most of the artists who've made big changes in black pop music were soul jazz musicians - honking saxes (Illinois), gospel concepts (Ray), funk (JB), Smooth soul (George Benson). Another way of looking at soul jazz is that it was the jazz thread of black pop music (or R&B) during a period when jazz was an important element of R&B. So, if you try to think on the sources of inspiration for the soul jazz musicians who followed on, the influence that was THERE and HUGE was Ray's, and Horace was by comparison a minor detail. Of course, that first album of Horace & the Jazz Messengers was a classic soul jazz album, as were several others Horace made. And even when he wasn't making a classic soul jazz LP, he'd often still include a classic soul jazz tune in there. I don't think you can separate him from soul jazz, though I've never tried. It may be that, technically, Horace had a big influence on other pianists/arrangers/bandleaders. I'm not qualified to say. MG

You're not wrong there, but unless you do that it's hard to get a historical perspective. Also, if you say, "well, jazz is just this big mess of stuff that's been played for a hundred years or so and there's not much difference between King Oliver and Willis Jackson, so let's just think of them all together," then it's fairly undeniable that the focus is going to be on the relatively few geniuses among those guys and people are going to pay little attention to the people who may have played a key role for a time in keeping jazz a real career prospect for black youth. And if young black kids don't think of jazz as real music that they can use to pay rent with (and pull birds with), then the whole music dies/is dying/has died. MG As far as Acid Jazz is concerned, that was a term started in England in the early eighties. I guess the magazine 'Blues & Soul' may have been where it originated, or maybe it was someone down on a dancefloor. MG

Well, Wes is difficult, I think, like Milt Jackson & Sonny Stitt. That first trio album with Mel Rhyne feels to me like a kind of Moodsville/Midnight slows session (and they often had an up number or two in there), played in an Atlantic City bar frequented by TTK. Sure you don't think of 'A day in the life' as soul jazz? There were lots of Wes Montgomerys. MG

Will Scarlett Little John Maid Marian

Those are all REALLY nice albums. My favourite is 'Walking down', because Eric Dixon's tenor playing is so strongly snaky. But are they underrated? Well, how would I know? I LURVE Bennie. MG Curtis Fuller recorded some great ballads. Sure you're right, but the point about adopting vibrato-less tone (not just trombonists, of course) was to achieve greater facility to negotiate fast bop changes, wasn't it? MG

Indeed! Lon played me part of 'Black rhythm happening' when I visited him in Austin and Shawn took me 'End of an Ear' and found the CD and shoved it under my nose. I'm most grateful for having been introduced to it. It's really good to read that background about him. MG I can't use the smilies because of issues between my browser version and the board software, so I have to guess what the code for rolling on the floor laughing my arse off is - is it ? MG Yes, I see it is. MG

I do. I spin all my Les McCanns - and I have them all - at least once a year. MG

Thanks Jim, I didn't know all that about 'Hollywood'. I've added 'Crusaders #1' to the list, managing to spell it right after three attempts MG