David Ayers

Well then, give the gift of lurve - it's on my amazon wishlist...

Ah, with you on that. Love the dour feel of the whole thing...

Avian Aebersold.

It's a labor of love! I am told that classical records, which in their heyday sold 20% new release to 80% back catalog, have now reversed this ratio. So all that classical back catalog which looks so stable is sustained by very low sales - hence the need for the endless repackaging of many titles designed to thrust them back into the market for a short time. So according to this model, titles that sell, sell for two years, and after that go to a trickle. I have to say that things I buy are either new (day-of-release, very often) or heavily discounted (!!) but mainly the former. Maybe the whole market has gone the same way as me?

I'm interested in the business model, which assumes a constituency of no more than 1500 hard-core collectors/fans worldwide, who will snap up such issues on first release, and then a more casual market so small and slow on the uptake that their needs are not really worth anyone investing in. We heard some years ago that EMI deleted BN titles selling under 500 a year and Jonathan's data here seems to confirm that. Verry interesting.

For the archive: Running Low Classic Emarcy, Verve Small Grp Buddy Rich Sessions (#232) The Complete Roost Johnny Smith Small Group Sessions (#216) Al Cohn/Perkins/Kamuca - The Brothers (MCD-1003) J.J. Johnson - J.J. (MCD-1004) Buddy Rich - Rich In London (MCD-1009) Mosaic Select: Charles Tolliver (MS-020) Mosaic Select: Onzy Matthews (MS-029)

EMI Celibidache edition is back in, I think, four volumes, Bruckner I suppose being top of the list for those who like this sort of thing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celibadache-Bruckner/dp/B005HYNCTK/ref=pd_sim_m_h_3

In my basket - those were released in Spain only and I had been hoping for a box set, having heard Noone on Glossa. Meantime, now the Belohlavek tops the Martinu list, Brilliant fight back on amazon with a £5 bargain on their Jarvi Martinu symphonies set (from BIS). The Belohlavek is really good but these symphonies are not much to my taste, personally.

That may be the problem with those mega sets, do you really need all those cds instead of buying and appreciating music, you feel more like shopping in a Costco center . Let's see I'll take 2 boxes of 40 cds of Bach a 15 cd pack of Bernstein and hey are the Goulds in special I'm running low for the weekend . Yes I never bought a mega-set. It's not only because I never have the time. Like you say it is something about appreciation. When box sets started getting cheaper it was wonderful, and it is great thing that the basic repertoire is available cheaply often in great editions. I tend to think that if I was actually going to work through the Bach Cantatas (say, and I am not) I wouldn't buy on price but on preference. If you are going to spend time with music do you really want it to be decided by the bulk-buy pricing?

Maynard, we get it, really, no honestly we do, oh there you go again, yes hah hah, er... Like an embarassing uncle. etc.

Of course some such album titles are beyond reproach... Uh, though that's not the leader's name, so technically not part of this discussion... maybe I need a new thread...

Well, I am sure I have manny albaums [geddit geddit] with titles like this. But guys come on, it's dumb, right?

Gaaahhhhhh!!!!

Well as my eyes fall on yet another album title which puns clumsily on the leader's name (Roy Haynes, Roy-alty [sic] geddit? geddit?) I am reminded how much I hate these. I have always struggled to get past these frankly dumb album (and song) titles. It's as if the musicians thought their stuff meant nothing and was therefore not worth a meaningful title, or as if they were so dim they thought such puns were really smart. Or maybe they just thought the whole game was like hypnotising chickens and dumbing down was the best way to get ahead. And yes I know, everybody did it who could get a plausible pun out of their names, but, sheesh. Those titles stoke up my resistance to buying. Miles Ahead was the last Miles Columbia I bought, and I never listen to it (in fact, I think I may never have listened to it). I never upgraded Blue Train and haven't played it in years. Delightful-lee has never and will never darken my turntable. Am I alone?

I am guessing he wants more than anyone is willing to pay. In theory he could have released a lot of material, new or old, over recent years, but hasn't done so.

Thanks Larry, no I didn't think you were being rude. I just thought you'd had enough!

Well? I was trying to have a serious conversation.

Glad I asked because otherwise I never would have guessed. A few more questions. I know what composers are, but who might these "other ideators" be? Also, Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell (among many others) never worked that much within frameworks that were significantly determined by composers or bandleaders who "were keen to set the idea of the music above the desire of individual musicians to tootle." Were Armstrong, Young, Tatum, Parker, Powell et al. a passle of "toe-tapping gents" who were just "tootling" ? Finally, your final sentence: "That is all fair and fine but it's not really scalable and we should understand why jazz does not command massive popular support." What does "scalable" mean there? Measurable against something else, a standard of some sort? If so, what would that be? Or "scalable" as in, say, a barrier that could be climbed? And what could jazz's "scalability" (if there is such a word) have to do with whether or not the music commands "massive popular support"? What arts that command such support do so because they are "scaleable"? The question is not about the handful of people who came up with anything new (as you point out, a loong time ago) but with the concept that no end of imitation should be 'supported'. Ideators would be people who reconfigure basic ideas - Cage, Boulez, Eno - these people are very unconservative. In the end I am simply positing a different answer to the question 'why is jazz not more popular and better supported' which is that there are good reasons that people aren't interested. If you play music and ever got labeled a 'muso' you'll know what that means. Jazz is in the paradoxical position of being a stabilised, commercialised music with a narrow commercial base. Designed to go on while people are doing something else.

When I say jazz is musician-led I mean that it is not really led by composers or other ideators. This isn't true of 30s jazz (which is the one period of fame of jazz and where composers and bandleaders were keen to set the idea of the music above the desire of individual musicians to tootle). Musicans tend to be conservative and technique led. They tend to reproduce the same ideas and not change paradigm. So they are refined players but tend to produce an intricate background music, which most people hear as such. So jazz is supported in the main by musicians, toe-tapping gents, and collectors. That is all fair and fine but it's not really scalable and we should understand why jazz does not command massive popular support.

Cecil Taylor wasn't nice about Ornette. Roscoe Mitchell criticized Brotzmann. So what? Musicians want adulation. Go figure. I agree with Allen's first post. As I said in another thread, jazz is musician-defined. To everyone else it is just background. Musicians are very pleased with themselves. As are we all - but that puts no obligation on anyone else.

I found the Taborn interesting though I don't really love it. What I like is that he does more with his left hand than some (in my book this is quite important!). It is a little deliberate, maybe. It is hard for solo piano records not to meander and this does too in places. It bridges the gap between the free rhapsodic approach of Jarrett and the more constructivist approach of, uh, real music. IMHO.

True. I sometimes wonder if that bloody Beatles mono box is still around because I was one of only a dozen or so people who actually paid for it...

I showed the clip to my wife who, while finding it funny, responded with this: "Like everything Jazz, it's too long." If only that weren't true!

These laws were framed in general to protect intellectual property (composition) but limit the rights of performers. Don't need to go into the history of that. But worth noting that what protects performers also protects the producers (music publishers of course are already protected). Why? Can't you just freely publish orphan works as long as reasonable efforts have been made to identify the owner?

No, it's easy. People are often committed to the wrong things.