David Ayers

We used to be told that Conns were a single print run deal. I don't know if that was or is true. It is evident that some were remaindered becasue cut-outs exist, though they are rare.

People haven't been taking this seriously. Why not just admit you'd go for the pizza with extra EXTRA cheese and have done with all this pretentious tomfoolery??? [insert kissy smiley here - when we GET a kissy smiley of course...]

Either an album of Tiny Tim covers or an update of ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition.

Where I work - a University English Department - everybody is totally clued up to Davis and Coltrane and their like. My brother and his offspring love Maynard Ferguson's Big Bop Nouveau, and even my mum asked me to tape Ike Quebec's Soul Samba for her (er... which I didn't do of course, that being illegal an' all...). My niece wants me to take her to Ronnie Scott's and my youngest nephew plays baritone sax in the school band (as well as clarinet alto guitar bass and piano). The last jazz acts we had on the campus were Trevor Watts and Stacey Kent (not together). And the best acts in the world appear just up the road in London. So I suppose I don't have the sense of swimming against the mainstream which some of you guys have.

Oh and when it comes to breaking 78s... there is a 78 shop well known in Edinburgh that opens for about a day and a half per week (or did when I used to live there). The stock floweth over and is in huge piles on the floor. And in fact all over the floor. So you have to be careful where you put your feet. Because if you don't. You might suddenly hear. A loud. And unmistakable. SNAP. Amplified by the smallness of the room. And as the owner politely pretends not to notice, you look down at your feet to see what you broke (FYI It was the Ying Tong Song by the Goons). After that you pick up anything, pay for it, and scurry home.

Slightly OT, but I had a double CD which I could not open at all. I had to break the case open with my hands and in doing so damaged the insert but saved the CDs. When I looked I saw that the front part of the case lacked one of the small knobs which hinges the front cover. Without the hinge the front of the case would have just fallen off. So somebody had used GLUE along the bottom edge of the cover. That glue would not give and I had to splinter the whole case to get in. Now this was a new CD and shrinkwrapped. That is my nuttiest music packaging experience. On LP sleeves, the first time I glued an LP sleeve where the glue had dried out I didn't understand the physics of glue too well, and I put the record in its inner sleeve straight back in there. The glue fogged the vinyl and created an audible defect. If I think of any more boring stories I'll post them. Actually the really dumb thing to do is to lend people records. That makes for way more trouble than you can ever inflict on yourself. Oh yeah and I once cleaned an LP with washing up liquid. I was young...

Already going out of print eh? It's a sign of my age that this stuff is vanishing before I even got around to studying the list...

I only have a few minutes here, so I'll be brief. I understood your argument and acknowledged it. I would like you to explain why you think that Jazz was "designed" to be background music, because my understanding of what Jazz was "designed" for is just the opposite. When someone says that Jazz is "background music", what they mean is "music that is not worth paying attention to". I mean that jazz was designed to be played in places where people would dance and drink and talk. So it has to have an element in it that people don't have to listen to analytically. I suggested that people who reject the idea of jazz as background music only have to consult their own experience of listening to jazz in this way to have some idea how people who are nonchalant about it might think. Consider anything which does not interest you - wine, bridge construction, website construction etc etc - each of these things is of immense complexity, but does not have to be accessed in terms of the highest analytical level. Jazz is just one of the things in life it is possible to be interested in. But its not compulsory. Ever boogied? And if you have, were you really really listening to every note?

Well, I got a rather general reply: "We use various re-mastering engineers including people like John R T davies, Ted Kendall etc. Most of our releases have material taken from original collections, 78s etc although sometimes we have to take from secondary sources. It's always different." So there we go.

David, I used to do 4 hours a day of analytical listening to Jazz, (i.e. concentrating on the music and nothing else) and this is what I learned: straight ahead has about a billion things going on in at the same time. Polyrhythms, counterpoint, improvised substitutions - not to mention implied polyrhythms, counterpoint and harmony - spontaneous interaction between any of the members of the rhythm section, spontaneous interaction between the rhythm section and lead instruments, minute tempo fluctuations (playing behind the beat, playing energetically), incredibly precise articulation (swinging, grooving, dynamic accentuation of the melody) and on top of all of that, I knew I wasn't hearing everything that happened and most of it is improvised. You can use Jazz as background music, sure, you can use any kind of music as background, but I gaurantee you that if you spend time concentrating on it, Jazz music will reveal subtleties and complexities that you will not find in any other kind of music. This is why calling Jazz "background music" shows a lack of understanding of what Jazz even is. I think my (admitedly implicit) argument was that AS WELL as being a music you can listen to, jazz ALSO functions as background music, not least because it was always DESIGNED to do so. The movement of currents in a river is of immense complexity, but a person can still just sit back and enjoy the flow while they munch on a sammich and knock back the Jim Beam.

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 today?? [heck, I just looked - the front page even shows your actual AGE! Does the board software have absolutely NO discretion?....]

Ornette said 'let's play the music not the background' (i.e. cycles of chords). We can take this as a reminder that jazz has always functioned as background music for dancing and drinking. To judge by how many CDs you guys seem to get through(! ) I have the suspicion that many people here would have no difficulty listening to jazz CDs while doing something else. Well, if you are doing something else, it becomes background music, something that in large part it was designed to be. So you can't complain when other people call it background music! (where's the kissy smiley - damn we need more smileys on this board...)

Happy Birthday! But what are you doing reading this? Hit that birthday bottle of Jim Beam, then stagger out into the desert to shoot up a few rattlers. Or whatever it is you Texans do for amusement.

Hi John. Thanks for the update.

Chuck At the time of the definitive/mingus scandal did you go into the legal question (which I raised above) about the possibility of copyright in remasters? Also, as far as (what may be) a clone of European provenance like the Patton is concerned, what is the legal position regarding its sale in the US? With the Mingus, if Definitive tried to sell it in the states Uptown could jump on them, right? Or not? All, BTW I have no difficulty rejecting an unethical product even if it is legal - I just notice how the accusations fly in these cases and I am aware that they haven't always been investigated. Have Revenant commented on this or taken any action, do we know? I would really like it if someone could clear up the legal points I raised in my previous post (above) just for my curiosity.

It is also possible that the labels are doing it themselves. That said, I tried to figure out the law on this by looking at UK and US legislation. I have no idea what precedents there are, but my reading of the law in each case is that it is not possible to claim copyright in a remastering. Once the original recording is out of copyright, that follows for any remastering, since it is only the original which is subject to copyright. Or so it would seem, except that I note the whole point of US remasters is to declare a new (p) date , i.e. date of copyright in the sound recording. I don't know if this works legally or not but it looks like it might. I doubt that the law will be changed to reflect copyright in remastering. When US legislation was framed in 1971 it was in response to pressure from major elements in the industry which persuaded Congress that 100,000,000s of dollars were being lost to pirating and home taping.

It must be clear from what I have already said that I think it would be wrong. But I don't automatically draw the conclusion that this is what happened, as you seem to. People who have compared them find the JSP sounds better, and do not make the claim you are making. So for me the jury is out. By the way the JSP is not the first UK issue of Patton. Catfish records did a 3-Cd set a few years ago, including rare material. People in Europe can collect records too, whether or not they are released here.

The amazon reviewer claims that the sound of the revenant and the JSP are dramatically different. Even if that is not true, I don't agree that you can accuse people of a crime and then challenge them to disprove it. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. PS To save on gruffness I mailed John Stedman to ask him. Let's see what he says.

This material is public domain in Europe. Is there evidence that the remasterings in the Patton case or the Berigan case are stolen? If so, it would be good to hear it. As things stand, the tendency to denounce all European issues as thefts is not helpful (and potentially libellous). I would like to know for sure, what is copied and what not, and I won't take the copied material. But to do that I would like to have accurate information, if anyone can help with that.

I can see why people selling records might want customers to shut up, stop whining, and hand over the money. But it's not compulsory. As it happens, photographs are expensive to license, and a good part of the cost of hearing the music goes to pay for visual and textual production. Apologists for sloppiness may be thought to be sloppy. If well recognised historic photos appeared reversed, the editors would be judged incompetent. In fact, the same applies when the photographs are not well known. These sets are offered as historic documents. As I noted, the DG sets which lack the visuals cost less then half the EMI (sorry, Mosaic) sets. The price should and must reflect the quality. These mistakes are careless editing. The line that we should be grateful for whatever we get in whatever form it comes cuts no ice with me.

No nothing missing on the Eldridge that I know of. I was generalizing about recent issues. There was a query on the completeness of the Mulligan set which is unresolved. I notice that Deutsche Grammophon have started to imitate the Mosaic model with a series of historic classical sets which are editorially good if less lavish, and come out much cheaper than the comparable deluxe jazz set.

Am I the only person to feel whose enthusiasm is dampened by reversed photos, damaged source tapes and missing tracks? I just feel that if the marketing pitch is quality, detail and care then those things should be 100% present. Maybe you guys are more tolerant than I am, or maybe its just old age. These sets cost an average $100 each. Maybe I expect too much? There just seems to be evidence of carelessness...

Be sure to let us know.

Thanks for the input. I hadn't heard of anyone being ill, but I had noticed the online site had vanished. It sounds ominous. If I find out anything else I'll post it.

I called in Mole just before closing yesterday and found the stock seriously run down. Maybe they had had a good day? Or maybe they are in difficulty? Maybe this is the run up to the January sale?? Or none of the above? Anyone in the UK know what is going on? If anything?