Groovin', March 1972 / Grant Green

Oof, a week without a post, time does fly -

Another music mag tonight for your enjoyment.  I was putting this up at the IA and once again fell into reading the ish at hand.

Isaac Hayes and Angela Davis in red, pink, and white. and check out the wild title design.  When you look at enough magazines, you can tell when some outlier is doing it's own thing, Groovin' to its own beat.

Get the original scan here: Groovin' v01n05 (1972-03.Nu-Trend)(D&M).cbr

or you can read it online or download other formats on my shelf at the IA here.

Tonight's scan was edited by groovemaster McCoy, you better believe I can dig it.

I'm able to find next to no information regarding this magazine. I couldn't even find other cover images in a limited search which is very surprising for a magazine from the 70s, even a regional publication.

Contents

Published by Nu-Trend Endterprises, 6510 So. Western Ave, Los Angeles.  I get a kick out of sometimes hitting up the google on these office addresses out of the indicia.  A little stroll through the google street view from where I've linked shows some gentlemen chilling across the street and a car wash next door - a virtual walk through the City of Angels, more fun than expected.

But back to the magazine -  There are not very many ads in this edition, not a good sign for a magazine's fifth issue.  The inner cover points to the main advertiser and perhaps a mostly local audience

 

 

I'm told KGFJ went off the air in the late 80s but at this time catered to a mostly black crowd with soul and R&B programming which looks pretty consistent with the Groovin's content.  Early on, though, KGFJ (I kind of like the call letters) can claim to be the first ever 24 hour broadcaster.  There's a good webpage here where Jim Hilliker shares his research into life of the station. 

The next page's lettering looks like it might have come off a punk rock flyer - we need your five bucks!

 

Shit, or you can hold on to that fiver and catch the Chilites and Funkadelic on Crenshaw

Here in the time machine, though, we can listen to some Chilites for free RIGHT NOW

Tell me, have you seen her?

 

She's interviewing B.B King.  The magazine opens with an unexpectedly candid and melancholy interview by Eunice Pye of King, in town and in an NBC dressing room waiting to go on the Flip Wilson Show.  B.B. dishes on the life of a blues singer, a genre often given short shrift, playing to mostly white audiences, and on his part in divorces from his first wives.  Why does B.B. cry? B.B. King From the Inside

Following B.B., another Memphis icon, Isaac Hayes.  I think we named part of Highway I-40 after the man.  Die famous, get a highway, hallelujah

O.G. OVERGOLD

Isaac Hayes with editor Walter Jenkins

 How bout some fashion.  Ophelia Dudley's crochet creations.  Kitsch or sexy?  I can't lie, miss Rene here wears it well.

Profile of Billy Preston

But we've come to no doubt the article in the magazine that attracted my attention off of eBay featuring Grant Green, jazz giant.  If you don't know, now you now.  The article mentions the popularity of newest single "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is" 😟  Early 70s takes on pop tunes by even the best jazz artists of the day are a real roll of the dice, but let's go ahead and toss them bones -

Not bad once Grant takes over/

Grant Green's first recordings were with Jimmy Forrest and Elvin Jones, a drummer who Green would record with a number of times.  The ever soulful ever funky Lou Donaldson hired him out of a bar in St. Louis for a touring band and very quickly knew he wanted to use Green in the studio.  

I didn't realize this but I'm not surprised - the wiki says Green made more appearances between 1961 and 1965 on Blue Note than any other musician.  Green could play a ballad, man, could he play a ballad, but he could bring the blues, the gospel, the bebop, the boogie woogie - whatever the situation called for.  Sadly, he fell prey to heroin later in the 60s and his career suffered for it. But in 1970, he came back with the funk in Green is Beautiful, a commercial album but with charms, and then more funk with his soundtrack for The Final Comedown.

 

Which probably brings us up about to the time of our ish.  The article.  Green takes stock of where he's been and where he's going (some would call him the father of acid jazz even if I prefer his early 60s work), the role of his wife and manager, gives props to Wes Montgomery, and talks about crossing over.

 

I better leave one more tune in celebration, a late night ballad with Lou, this is the cream -

 

What shall we eat?  Papa's a vegetarian these days, no reason for that bacon in my greens, people.  MMM greens.

An unexpected bit of comics within.  A witch doctor exiled from his tribe rubs an ancient ruby and becomes Super Spade, scourge of Castro and the KKK alike. By Elaine Taylor

I wonder if Super Spade ever got that meeting with the Prez...

What a wild magazine.  Downmarket, sure.  Mom and Pop production, yeah.  But as a time capsule of early 70s black and LA culture and an example of black journalists interviewing the figures of the day, it's insightful and charming.  Keeping an eye out for more issues -

Lastly, the back cover, Sooooooooooooooooul Train! Saturday,  Channel 11, 2:00 PM. Get down.