The Magnificent Goldberg

Ah, that's why. After many tries, can't abide Miles Davis. MG

One thing you've gotta say about Prestige - Bob Weinstock LOVED tenor players. In the fifties/early sixties, there were Arnett Cobb Booker Ervin Budd Johnson Buddy Tate Coleman Hawkins Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis Gene Ammons Jimmy Forrest John Coltrane King Curtis Lucky Thompson Red Holloway Sonny Rollins Sonny Stitt Willis Jackson Late sixties/early seventies Dexter Gordon Gene Ammons (still!) Houston Person Illinois Jacquet Rusty Bryant Sonny Stitt (still!) Teddy Edwards Willis Jackson (encore!) Now that's a LIST! And most of those players WOULDN'T have got gigs, at the time they got gigs at Prestige, with other labels. (OK, Teddy only made 2 albums for Prestige but hadn't made an album for the previous 4 years and didn't make another for another 7.) And most of those guys' work for Prestige is underrated. And, as Jim said - George Braith!!!!! And you could do another list of organists: Charles Earland Charles Kynard Don Patterson Freddie Roach Jack McDuff Johnny 'Hammond' Smith Larry Young Leon Spencer Rhoda Scott (before she went to France) Groove Holmes Shirley Scott Sonny Phillips Trudi Pitts (oh well, I think even I underrate her ) None of those organists gets the rating they deserve for their Prestige material. MG

Never heard 'Somethin' else'. Something else to look into. And you wanna hear my Esquire copies of Jimmy Forrest's 'Sit down and relax' and Jug's 'Bad bossa nova' D: MG

George Shearing Chris Barber Sweeny Todd

It's soul jazz which is 'primarily aimed at entertaining black adults' and it wasn't my intention to express a view that there was lofty concert artistry in any of the live soul jazz albums I've come across, which I feel is music to accompany the party. It's a pity none of those live albums include material such as 'Happy birthday to you'. That would be more authentic (By the way, that's how Bob Porter defines - perhaps too tight a word for what he means - soul jazz. I don't disagree; I seldom disagree with Bob Porter on soul jazz issues ) MG

All depends where you're coming from. Where I'm coming from - R&B - is a soul jazz perspective so the Wilkersons, Roaches, Reuben Wislons, Lonnie Smiths, Lou Donaldsons, most of the Grant Greens, Stanley Turrentines are the acme of Blue Note's work; music primarily aimed at entertaining black adults. I think the genre is underrated and, therefore, most of the recordings within it. Conversely, I feel that the hard bop genre is overrated, and so are most of the BN recordings within it. Somewhere in between, there's Horace Silver. Off to one side is George Braith. Braith is his own genre. And top of it, of course. Though I've always loved his early work, I think it's true that you get more of a handle on his BN and PR albums by listening to the material he's been issuing in the last decade or so on his own label. (Instant dismissal of the majority of the BN catalogue ) (No, that's not true. There's much to like in Hank Mobley, Dex, ... can't think of any others, sorry.) MG

Private Keepout General Nuisance Major Upheaval

Hah! I only got 4 and thought I was doing well! I ought to get that Ray Bryant album. Never heard of it. Should have recognised him, but I think his left hand wasn't nearly so strong as usual on this track. Which label was it on? MG

I agree entirely, Ubu. MG

Ford Prefect Slartibartfast Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

No.1 only keeps going because of MG's patronage. Actually, I mainly buy T-shirts there now. Hardly any room for regular purchases of physical albums any more. But it IS a good shop. MG

I like Hamp's singing. MG

Valentine Dyall The Man in Black The Black Guardian

Fabuloso buy today! On Saturday, I went into the post office and was behind a guy posting what looked like 12" LPs (what else could look like an LP? I ask myself), so I asked him if he sold LPs. Yes, he did, so I asked him to hang on outside the post office for a chat. He gets stuff from car boot sales, mainly. He had some jazz though mainly he sells rock, which is the #1 market around these parts. So he lives on the council estate the other side of the graveyard from us. I said I'd be along when we got a sunny afternoon. That was this afternoon. As expected, there was lots of uninteresting stuff. but I got this little lot. Various artists - African sounds for Mandela - TS Afrika Bennie Moten's Kansas Cith Orchestra 1923-1925 - OkeH (Parlophone UK 1971 issue) Earl Hines - Tea for two - Black Lion (Audio Fidelity USA) (I got the other one, 'Tour de force', a couple of years ago and everyone here said I should get this, so I did.) Earl Hines & Stephane Grappelli - The giants - Black Lion Jazz Crusaders - Southern comfort - Blue Thumb (Movieplay, Portugal) (Never seen a Portuguese pressing of anything before!) All are in good nick. 'Tea for two' is the most pristine LP I've seen in my life, new or second hand. I gather that Audio Fidelity pressings were supposed to be pretty smart. OK, that lot - 5 albums, six records - cost me SEVEN POUNDS!!!!!! He's going to give me a bell if he gets any more jazz. Hope he doesn't learn about the prices of jazz albums before that happens . MG

Smokey Robinson Smokey Hogg Bill Black's Combo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CllbWo2urAg

Mike - a reasonable option is to get the Mosaic box. I love it! MG

Is this the material from the Wild Bill Moore gig that Teddy Reig recorded for his Bop label, which was reissued as a Savoy Jazz twofer called 'The hunt'? Those tunes have been renamed a few times, I think, so it's not easy to know which issue you're recommending. MG

There's also a Prestige album called 'The chase' - a live gig with Gene Ammons from 1970 - which is pretty jazzy MG

Larry, you turned me on to Gene Ammons: Live! I had forgotten about this list. Looking back six years, I don't see much of anything that I'm ashamed of today. That surprises me somewhat. I'm a Gene Ammons lover, but 'Live in Chicago' (aka 'Dig him') doesn't get me nearly as much as his live album for PJ with Groove Holmes. I think he's playing stuff just a bit too fast and loses some of his sound - course, he could do pretty well what he liked in Chicago, I guess - but I love the more relaxed tempos of 'Groovin' with Jug'. MG

Like Jim, I like the Prestige albums a lot. My favourites are At Montreux (with Junior Mance) Ca' purange (with Thad & Hank Jones) Tangerine (more from the That session + 1 from the next LP) One I feel sure everyone (but me) would recommend is that next album Generation (with Freddie Hubbard, Cedar Walton, Busta Williams & Billy Higgins) I find that one's a bit too much like a jazz album for my taste. MG PS - Oh, the Black Lions done at Café Montmartre, Copenhagen are very nice as well. I tend to avoid Columbia so I've only got 2 of those.

Just looked at the sleeve of the Ray Charles LP. It's a song by Percy Mayfield. As far as I know, Percy never recorded it, so it was probably written for the session, which was about 1964/5. MG

Looking back through this thread, I was amused to see that Dan dug into his list for one or more of his BFTs. Yeah! (I think I have more of Dan's now than I did six years ago.) MG

#4 is a very poor recording of Ray Charles singing 'Granny wasn't grinning that day', from the LP 'Ray's moods'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxxBTSRiIfQ MG

Ben Branch Rev Jesse Jackson Operation Breadbasket

Just started looking into Merengue stuff from the Dominican Republic. Very interesting. Seems to have had an influence on Ripsaw music from Turks & Caicos (just a bit north of the Republic & Haiti, so not a total surprise). MG