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Miles Cellar Door Update


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This already got reviewed in last Sunday's SF Chronicle:

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MILES DAVIS: THE CELLAR DOOR SESSIONS 1970

In the light-speed evolution of Miles Davis’ electric ’70s period, one album stands like a marker. “Live-Evil,” though released only two years after the groundbreaking space-jazz of “Bitches Brew,” is galaxies apart from that effort and contains inklings of the psycho-funk Davis would achieve a year later. But “Live-Evil” was a hodgepodge, with some tracks recorded live at the Cellar Door club in Washington, D.C., and others from an earlier studio date with different personnel. The great stuff was from the Cellar Door, and the new six-CD box set has it all: four nights, eight sets, with Davis on trumpet, Gary Bartz on sax, Henderson on bass, Keith Jarrett on electric piano, Airto Moreira on percussion, Jack DeJohnette on drums and — for one night — John McLaughlin on electric guitar. If “Bitches Brew” was the journey, “Cellar Door” is the arrival at the deep and the dark. -- David Rubien

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Just received bad news...as in "cancelled"...details still vague...

Someone posted on the Dime Jazz Email List that Amazon sent him a cancellation mail for his order, since the release of the set was cancelled.

I didn't post that here, since I don't know that guy, but now that another source seems to seed this same rumour, I thought I'd share it here.

How ridiculous this all is! :angry::(

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My source is unimpeachable, and it's a member of the Davis estate that is doing it (cancelling the release, that is).

It is my hope (and unfounded in anything but hope - no info to support it) that this is just a temper tantrum and/or negotiating ploy.

Edited by JSngry
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from the Miles Beyond website:

October

Earlier this month, Seth Rothstein, VP of Columbia Legacy, confirmed the release date of the Cellar Door as November 22 in the US. A week later someone closely involved e-mailed me with the message that "Vince Wilburn has put a kibosh on the whole thing again." Wilburn, Miles' nephew and a drummer in his uncle's band 1985-1987, is the leading voice in the Miles Davis Estate. He was also the person behind the first delay of the boxed set release. The latest news is that the release is abandoned altogether. Please watch this space for official confirmation, and more details on the story behind all this, insofar as they can be revealved without compromising my sources. (More information on the set below.)

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I'm sure things are quite complicated, particularly in a case where Columbia is going to want to keep going back to the Miles Davis catalog, but how do these companies keep running into these problems (remember Basra)? Don't they have a signed contract, certainly before they start advertising and pressing CDs? Perhaps it is the case they could tell the guy from the Davis estate to take a hike but that it isn't worth it. I know this is only one small thing out of a lot of issues, but I wouldn't be surprised in the next round of copyright extensions, the corporations find a way to cut out troublesome estates. (It actually will become more and more of an issue, since they apparently will be granted copyrights in perpetuity and the original artists will all have passed away. I suspect a ploy to retroactively designate all artistic work as works "made for hire" and strip away any involvement of estates. Why not? They've gotten everything else they want.)

In general, I support estates looking after the interests of the artists, many of whom got a raw deal while alive, but some cases just seem ridiculous, such as this one. Whose interests are really being served here?

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Yup, they could be complicated...or not.

I just hope that there's good reason and not just some dumb "sticker" issue

(like the last holdup?). Maybe there are questions about the release and sale of promo copies?

We don't know...but it's quite a disservice to fans if it's something less than a rights issue

that involves potential cash to the estate.

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