The Memphis Mafia

[ghost of miles]

I'm working on a Night Lights show about the so-called "Memphis Mafia" (the non-Elvis kind) and wanted to ask... who do you include among them? I probably can't fit in everybody and am thinking about focusing on Mabern/Coleman/Strozier. Phineas Newborn Jr. probably needs a whole show to himself (not to say that the preceding cats don't as well)... did Booker Little ever get mentioned in this context?

[BillF]

The sleeve note by British jazz critic Alun Morgan to my copy of the George Coleman Octet's album, Big George (Affinity) includes the following: "George was born in Memphis, Tennessee .... Other Memphis-born jazzmen of importance include Phineas Newborn, trumpeters Booker Little and Louis Smith, saxophonists Sonny Criss and John Williams, clarinettist Buster Bailey and drummer Jimmy Crawford. In fact Coleman, Strozier, Mabern and Little were school friends .... At the beginning of 1958 [George] became part of the Max Roach Quintet (which also had Booker Little on trumpet)".

[ghost of miles]

Sounds like I should at least add Booker to the mix, though he's somebody else who deserves his own show. I'll have to talk to my editor and producer to get long-term planning approval...oh, wait, that's me!

Many thanks, Bill.

Edited January 5, 2008 by ghost of miles

[JSngry]

Later Memphisian jazzites include Charles Lloyd & Frank Lowe.

Check this out: http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegall...hp?EntryID=J012

[ghost of miles]

Thanks, man!

I've got Robert Gordon's IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS, which covers the post-WWII Memphis music scene..and also the Bear Family Bullet box, NASHVILLE JUMPS (some young Phineas Jr. on that box).