Dan Gould

What can I get for a finder's fee? I want a better credit than that dude from the Left Bank always demands. Edit to add: I found Cory on FB and sent him a message.

You do realize you deserve considerable credit too for putting it into my mind that it even could be Big John. I was already prepared to say "oh well, we'll never know anything about this obscure pianist because any web search for information about John Patton, pianist, will be subsumed in a tidal wave of hits for Big John Patton, organist."

Like a freakin' bloodhound I wouldn't stop until I had acceptable proof. But can you imagine trying to do this pre-Internet/Facebook?

Case closed: Ed Cherry has just informed me that it is Big John Patton saying "rippin' my shit" on the clip I sent him. And he should know the man's voice since they were neighbors in Montclair NJ for a while back in the day. So could I interest Zev and Cory in this recording? Too bad this is owned by the Smithsonian and they'd have to negotiate an arrangement.

https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/37328/PDF/1/play/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/sports/leon-spinks-dead.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210207&instance_id=26877&nl=the-morning&regi_id=68486788&segment_id=51209&te=1&user_id=97b4d9b18a0aa595e5cd5740f64bf5db (I wonder if that link will get anyone in since I was signed in on my NYT account?) Anyway ... Leon Spinks is dead. Back in the mid and late 70s I loved boxing and hated Ali. I didn't care about the history or the person, I just wanted to see Ali get beat, by Foreman, or Kenny Norton or Joe Frazier or even Ernie Shavers. So when in 8th grade I watched Spinks keep throwing punches and win the decision it was amazing and made me so happy. Too bad he didn't handle his money well and had a tough time afterwards.

Well thanks to Andy Bleaden I ended up finding a guy who plays the organ, was part of the Newark NJ scene and ultimately wrote a dissertation on the organ club circuit and in particular the Newark scene. Unsurprisingly he knew Patton pretty well and told me that he saw him play piano twice at a couple of impromptu jam sessions. Radam Schwartz says: "I think it's a good chance to be Patton. The picture is hard to tell, but that's the way he had his head when he played, and it's his complexion. His playing is sort of sparse using space and that's sort of his style, he was not a technician on the organ either. So all in all I would say it's a good bet to be Patton. "

Soupy Sales Alan Hale Mary Ann

Thanks for this post I may check this out, because I got into a FB conversation with Ms Elkins about Percy France and I got a nice remembrance from her about him. She told me that he sang on their gigs and that was something no one else seems to have known about Percy that he could carry a tune, at least for Wedding-type gigs. I've been curious since about Ms. Elkins singing.

I like Booker too, maybe not to the level shown here but I am always reminded of our Chuck Nessa's description of his solos: There were two - fast and slow.

For the record, old friend Mike Flanigin AKA Soulstream has ID'd Big John Patton from his voice, his vocalizations, and now his body language in the above photo.

So I have secured a photo from this gig ... but this is the only one and the pianist is looking down ... how I wish Leonard had gotten a nice group photo of the musicians together but alas, no. So what do you think? Interestingly, Michael mentions the upright piano yet this is a nice grand piano. To me, that's circumstantial that BJP wanted something nice to play and got it. There are other reasons why a club would have a grand piano of course but ... Photo credit: Leonard Gaskin Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Nice, and congratulations, Mark. The on-demand option is a good idea and I think I will take advantage.

Not anymore! It hardly exists at least as a format at least on terrestrial radio. The oldies station in Miami dropped the 60s entirely years ago. I don't know if any "oldies" format touches the 60s at all, though again there might be a spot for it on satellite services. 20 years ago there was a station in south Florida peddling "hits of the 70s, 80s and today". Man that was nauseating - stuff I grew up with alongside all of the crap that ultimately turned me to jazz and kept me there.

If I were interested enough, it would be in the car wreck aspects and I doubt you get all of that if he willingly participated in a book. But I think that part or most of your fascination, and part or most of my lack, is listening to his productions in the moment vs as part of "oldies radio" approved records.

I like the Argos myself. I guess no one is too impressed that the pianist on 11 and 12 was a Ra trumpeter. Maybe not prominent enough when he was in the band. I still think it's cool.

Thank you Matthew. I am glad you feel better after your test ... it's hard to agree though that we're the worst judge. Our wives or friends hear or watch only some of our mistakes or failures whereas we are aware of every single time our sentences trail off or we say something nonsensical.

My recollection is the same as Jim's. But I'll add there are also (or were) excellent Horace Silver (Blue and Junior band) playing tracks from Blowin the Blues Away before the album was recorded, as well as the Mobley/Morgan Messengers in 1959, a set that doesn't appear very often I don't think.

Ken is used to being paid by the word. So he couldn't just leave it at "none of your guesses are correct".

Seems like a good time to mention that I am more or less or convinced that I will at some point be found to have some form of early stage dementia or communication disorder of some kind. For a long time - I mean since my early 30s at least - I've struggled with "having the word on 'the tip of my tongue'". (Not a good thing if you're working in radio ... better when doing VO with a script in front of you.) Over the past several years I have noticed that I will speak in complete sentences while saying the wrong word in the middle of a string of words. Usually a word that starts with the same sound. Or my ability to recall simple words is degraded enough that I am referencing "the thing" rather than standing there without completing my thought. I will also put words together in the wrong order. Last year I was forced to switch jobs in the insurance industry and for the first time in five years, had to communicate on the phone with clients. My ability to speak intelligibly was unmistakably degraded. I will also write words in the wrong order, or write the wrong word. Please do not tell me to seek medical attention. I am uninterested in being any sort of guinea pig for some new, inevitably worthless experimental drug that's not going to change things. It is what it is. I'm 55 and hopefully I'll retain enough ability to communicate to work and earn a living for another 5-10 years.

All discs are now spoken for.

Happy Retirement to Dustin Pedroia, who is kind of in a Catch-22. He played so hard and missed so much time, is he Hall-worthy? Or would he be Hall-worthy if he hadn't played so damn hard? Surely should be recognized as an inspiration for every under-sized kid with an overwhelming drive to succeed.

Steve, it depends on how you measure effectiveness. I am willing to measure it by whether or not you are likely to die or be severely impacted. With any of these I'd be unlikely to die or be hospitalized, so yes I'd take any of the options today if someone were ready to jab my arm. Why is it hard to understand that a "failure" is measured by any one in a study getting infected, but that the vaccines are still effective enough that something like a modest flu is far and away the most likely outcome if you do get infected? (Not asking you directly Steve.)

As promised, I am offering the following CDs for sale. Paypal only - shipping is not included but I will add just a $2.00 flat rate, regardless of number of CDs purchased. That is US only. European shipping at cost. Paul Plummer - Ron Enyard Trio and Quartet (Quixotic Records) $6.00 This is composed of the 1981 LP Detroit Opium Den and the 1980 LP Acoustic Jazz Trio (from which the BFT track was taken) Ron Enyard - Bobby Miller Live at Herbie's (Cadence) $5.00 This one didn't make it to the final BFT. Bobby Miller is made out to be a great inside/outside tenor in the liners (Coltrane is quoted as saying "the baddest there is" and Eddie Harris sang his praises too. Miller was plagued by "personal problems" and this is the only known recording of him. Mario Escalera, Ballads, Boleros & Blues Volume 1 (Phoenix Records) $7.00 Onaje Allan Gumbs is aboard for this live set released in 2000. Mario Escalera, Didn't Know (Phoenix Records) $4.00 Oliver Beener is back from the Blue Monday LP from which I pulled the track I used in the BFT. This is the cheapest as it is only 27:37 long. Two tracks reprised from the Blue Monday LP, Elegy for Trane and Blue Mondays, still with a string session, this time an expanded one. I will not reduce prices, I think these are fair especially considering the shared shipping cost. And I don't hate them that much, just don't have to keep them. Thanks for looking.

From the NYT daily "The Morning" email: The data By those measures, all five of the vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson — look extremely good. Of the roughly 75,000 people who have received one of the five in a research trial, not a single person has died from Covid, and only a few people appear to have been hospitalized. None have remained hospitalized 28 days after receiving a shot. To put that in perspective, it helps to think about what Covid has done so far to a representative group of 75,000 American adults: It has killed roughly 150 of them and sent several hundred more to the hospital. The vaccines reduce those numbers to zero and nearly zero, based on the research trials. Zero isn’t even the most relevant benchmark. A typical U.S. flu season kills between five and 15 out of every 75,000 adults and hospitalizes more than 100 of them. I assume you would agree that any vaccine that transforms Covid into something much milder than a typical flu deserves to be called effective. But that is not the scientific definition. When you read that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 66 percent effective or that the Novavax vaccine was 89 percent effective, those numbers are referring to the prevention of all illness. They count mild symptoms as a failure. “In terms of the severe outcomes, which is what we really care about, the news is fantastic,” Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said.