The Magnificent Goldberg

I feel you're probably right. However, I'm not at all familiar with Byard except from an uncertain number of sideman dates, and never listened to Shepp after 'Fire music' which I liked a lot, sold and never bought again. Every so often I feel that might have been a mistake. But there's all sorts of stuff in Rahsaan and Shepp. And also in Pharoah Sanders, who's close to the honkers and screamers of the age of Big Jay McNeely. Many other avant garde sax players go back to the honkers. There's a thread somewhere here what I wrote about the honkers but I can't remember dealing with the avant garde much, if at all. MG

Almost certainly Claude Bartee's tenor. Jim will be able to say precisely. MG

No, I just looked at the credits on Peggy Lee's version and it's J kern and O Hammerstein (I I think). So who's Joe Pesci, if he ain't a trade union boss, and why's he here? OK, he's an actor who often played gangsters, but what standards has he written? MG

Just starting to play some live Ray Charles In Antibes, July 1961 - Fremaux 4 volumes (small band) Zurich 18 Oct 1961 - TCB (big band) then Live in Paris 20 & 21 Oct 1961 3 CDs Fremaux (big band) Perhaps I'm overdosing on Ray but, after 62 years of listening to him, I don't think that's possible. And this is all classic stuff. MG

With a name like Joe Pesci, he HAS to be a trade union leader. MG Only a standard in the sense that Mel Sparks always quotes it MG

Breakfast with Monguito el Unico - In Curacao - Sacodis 1980 Les Vikings d'Haiti - Apre bal la - 3A 1975 Samba Mascott & les Bantous de la Capitale - Musi-Club Now Wild Bill Davis - Lover - Coral 1962 Next Sam 'The Man' Taylor - Music for melancholy babies - MGM 1957 MG

I found big bands quite difficult. There was plenty of Glenn Miller on the radio in the late fifties. And later, when we live with my Grandma, I inherited some 78s from before my Auntie Bertha had left for California, including Hampton's 'Midnight sun'/'Ridin on the L&N' and a Gene Krupa number - 'Hop, skip and jump'. I loved the Hampton, but didn't know anything about it except that the L&N was an R&B type thing. At work in 1960, already buying the MJQ and a couple of other things, including 'Fathead', a colleague asked me if I'd like to buy three jazz albums, two by Goodman and Armstrong's WC Handy. "What's not to like there?" I thought, so I handed over my three quid and took 'em home. The Armstrong was wonderful, but the Goodman, although it was pretty nice - and my Mum didn't mind me playing it - never really got to me. It was the two volume set from the Brussels Expo gig. So it was '65, when I bought Gerald Wilson's 'On stage' and THAT really HIT me. Everything was there that I liked, and very soon loved. I very soon bought his albums with Les McCann and Groove Holmes, and they turned me on to those players. Wilson was an education in two ways; the band, and these west coast players like Teddy Edwards and Paul Bryant. MG PS In the meantime, of course, there'd been 'One mint julep' and the Ray Charles big band. But I put Ray Charles in a different category from big bands in my mind. By the late sixties, I'd bought Hank Crawford's 'After hours' LP and the title track was a knockout, so I looked into that tune and in sixty-nine ordered the Erskine Hawkins compilation of that name. Oh, WHAT a delicious band Hawkins had! That was and still is, my favourite big band. MG

I dare say we'd ALL say that was true of ourselves. We can easily get what's around in the contemporary world, but looking back takes some effort in getting information and then ordering records that probably won't be in the local shops. Going back to swing was about as hard for me as going back to forties R&B, MG

Finishing the day with Monique Seka - Missounwa - Declic 1996 Syl Johnson - Goodie goodie good times - Shama 1979 Now Choc Stars - Akufa lobi akomi moto - Rhythmes et Musique 1986 MG

WOW!!!! MG

Fuck me, I've been misreading Raskin all my life! MG

That reminds me of what Griffin said about Jaws. Something like I dunno how the fuck he gets those sounds. MG

Oh, a college friend of Hoagy Carmichael called Stu Gorrell said to him one day that he should write a song that went 'Georgia, Georgia' , so HE got half the credits, same as Sadie. MG

I agree. Particularly David Raskin, who some called the grandfather of film music. But otherwise that's a damn good list that Crisp put up. Particularly the politicians. MG

Thanks Bill. I like the idea of all those kids coming to sit on the curb because Basie did. Churlish of the photographer to even attempt to get them out. MG

The guy who did arrangements for Chess? MG

Yes, the Pazant Brothers also recorded there. But it didn't seem to fit with the thrust of the original post's idea. MG Which put me in mind of this Jimmy Ponder album, Live at the Other End, which had once been the Bitter End. I always miss this looking through CDs, because it comes before his Muse CDs. MG Where's the Living Room? The Three Sounds found there way, so it can't be too difficult a question. MG

So it was some other Wolf. That makes the deal more plausible. MG

Did any of the dozen kids on the curb ever become jazz superstars? MG

Yes. Lots of companies' owners got their names, or those of their nominees, on credits. I'm not talking about the likes of those guys. They're not non-standard people, because it was a regular practice. Often they paid for the copyrights (usually not much, I believe - there's a story about Sid Nathan regularly sending Cowboy Copas off to Nashville to buy copyrights for five or, exceptionally, ten dollars - but he missed 'Tennessee waltz because he wouldn't cough up fifty). MG

Oh, so Frank Sinatra might not have written 'I'm a fool to want you'? Was Tommy Wolf an unproven songwriter at the time? Dunno. MG

There's been a bit of discussion about who wrote stuff and it prompted me to think of some unlikely composers of tunes/songs. Not necessarily jazz. An obvious one, but not really very likely, is 'I'm a fool to want you' for which Frank Sinatra got his name on the credits. Two more were by a comedian called Lovin' Sam Theard (aka Lovin' Sam from Down in Bam) who made quite a few records singing, moderately poorly, songs that were supposed to be off colour, though they're no more off colour than George Formby's. But two have had lasting value and everyone knows 'em. 'I'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal you' is one that's been done to death. 'Let the good times roll' contains the only really funny line in all of his work, in my view - that's 'Don't let no female, play me cheap, I've got fifty cents more than I'm gonna keep.' Sam never recorded it, but Louis Jordan and, later, Ray Charles, did and made it into a standard. 'Mariama' is a song by Soundioulou Cissohko, a kora player from the Gambia, who moved into Senegal. A famous player of traditional classic Mandinke music, he was accompanist to Maa Hawa Kouyate, a Guinean classic singer. Some of their recordings can be obtained still. The song was written for Maa Hawa's daughter, who later married Soundioulou's brother. But 'Mariama' is a Mbalax song, which has been recorded by the Royal Band de Thies and Pape & Cheikh, as well as being quoted by numerous Mbalax singers including Viviane and Ismael Lo. It's also been recorded by the Guinean bands/singers The Super Boiro Band; Mory Kante; Keletigui et ses Tambourinis; Balla et ses Balladins, and Soundoulou himself, in a Mandinke vein, but always to create pop music. Once again, it's quoted widely among Guinean artists. I actually know Mariama, which is a bit like knowing the girl from Ipanema. Another comedian who wrote a standard is Phil Silvers, who wrote the words for 'Nancy with the laughing face'. Any more for any more? MG

This afternoon, Orchestre Sinza - Mahoungo - Pathe 1975 Ikenga Super Stars - African unity - Rogers All Stars 1976 Now Les Bantous de la Capitale - Marie Jeanne - Sonafric 1976 MG

Found one more I missed when looking through my CDs. Ram Ramirez - The most crazy - Columbia (UK) A Lansdown Production by Stanley Dance done in Frank's Steak House, Long Island. MG

While looking through my collection for live albums Rodrigue Millien - Ambiance Samedi matin - Esperance 1983 (one of the best titles ever) Chris Connor - Lover come back to me - Evidence 1980 next Sam Fan Thomas - Makassi - Tamwo Records 1984 MG