bertrand

I do need to find a way to put all my copyright research findings in an article of some sort. I had talked about it with Mike Fitzgerald but never actually did it. I would prefer having a co-author, but I am not sure who. I don't actually read music myself. My efforts were kind of lonely and rebuffed by some Library employees, so I kind of lost my mojo. But my chief nemesis there is retired now, so maybe it is time to revive the idea. I could at least compile a list of all that I uncovered. Creating a narrative around it will come later. Tons of unrecorded music to talk about. Don Sickler does address No Room For Squares/Up A Step in the historical notes sections for these two songs at jazzleadsheets.com. He may have gotten this from Hank himself.

The copyright deposits may or may not shed light on this. Don Sickler publishes these tunes, but I doubt anyone suggested it to him. I can talk to the guy who works for him who puts together the lead sheets for the website. Title switches are frustrating because no one believes them and they are never changed later. I cannot convince anyone that the Wayne Shorter songs 'Blues a la Carte' and 'Harry's Last Stand' were switched. The copyrights prove it. Someone would need to ask Wayne. Two Mingus tunes on the Changes records were also switched. Mingus actually announced it correctly in the Montreux DVD, and Jack Walrath confirmed it. And don't get me started on composer credits. I did get Blue Note to change a few, but got some pushback. Butch Warren did get some money from my efforts, so that is good. Bertrand.

You are basing this on the fact that the long track sounds like a second cousin to Impressions, or do you have some other source for this claim? The long piece is also what Lee Morgan plays on the Live in Baltimore CD and incorrectly calls The Vamp. It is also not from Baltimore, BTW. Why do you think the song titles were switched? There are several Mobley pieces that may have had the titles switched. There is a folder of Hank Mobley copyrights at the Library of Congress that were pulled from the warehouse at my request. I hope I can go back soon and figure this out.

Have you seen what jazz is at Wolfgang? This would fit right in. There are many incomplete tracks, hardly a precedent. Zev is only borrowing. Left Bank can still place recordings elsewhere. But they would need to be proactive. There is some great Jazz at Wolfgang, especially Newport. But yes, acquiring Left Bank tapes would definitely make their jazz collection far superior.

For the sake of argument, let's ignore the legal issues, which are of course the elephant in the room. Wouldn't it make sense for Wolfgang's Vault to acquire the Left Bank Jazz Society catalogue and make the recordings available for download? There are several arguments in favor: 1) All the recordings could be made available, not just those the labels deem the most marketable. 2) Some of them do not sound that great. 3) There are many incomplete tracks on the tapes, or portions of the tapes are degraded, and the labels would not put those tracks out, even if they have some killer solos. Wolfgang would not have such concerns from past experience. Only a few Left Bank members survive, and the youngest one who has the tapes is in his early 80s. Time to make a permanent plan here. Letting them sit in Zev Feldman's office (or wherever they are currently housed) is not a permanent solution. Bertrand. PS: I would much prefer CD options like the Roy Brooks, but not everything can be released. Also, they left a couple of tracks out for space issues, a problem Wolfgang would not have.

Since I have the Fantasy CDs, I do not need these, unless there are bonus cuts. But the fact that important music currently held under the Concord umbrella is going to be reissued as is (not as a compilation) is promising. As we all know, they have held their assets close to the vest (my choice of words is deliberate). I am not sure who is behind Craft recordings, or maybe they are owned by Concord. But this is a good sign, IMHO.

Is this really Patti Bown, or maybe someone else?

1970?

Zev Feldman will find a backup copy. He will not release it though because it will have no commercial potential.

So it is not the Wolff estate taking over, I was wrong in that other thread. UMG taking over is fine, but we will still only get to see it in bits and pieces. I dream of an archive where you can see every single photo, organized by session. There would be one folder per session.

Yes. That was mentioned in the film. Everyone was shocked, even Lion, when his wife and kids showed up at the funeral. Why this was never told until the film is a mystery. She was African-American.

Yes, he was definitely in the band by then. The unanswered question is whether he joined in late July or early August. I thought Mosaic no longer controlled the Wolff images and their status was in limbo? I wonder if this related to the fact that the producers of the Blue Note documentary 'It Must Schwing' tracked down Wolff's family. Apparently, it was a surprise to everyone when a wife and kids showed up at the funeral in 1971. Wolff had kept his personal life very private.

Has this material been released before?

The concert the day before was definitely filmed. The repertoire was somewhat less conservative in that they played 'Yama' and 'The Summit', but my hunch is that it is just a fluke that the 1/12 concert left out Shorter and Morgan tunes. There was no specific plan. This is a great set, and I am pretty sure the only live date by the Shorter/Morgan/Timmons band from a foreign tour to be released on US Blue Note, the label to which Blakey was signed at the time. The others are from US club dates. I will take any record with Lee and Wayne together, one of my favorite partnerships ever. It is kind of odd that they played two different halls in Tokyo 10 days apart, but then I am sure the demand was high. The Messengers also played two different venues in Paris in 1958 with Golson. So where else in Japan did they play on this tour? Looking at the Blakey chronology: Art Blakey Chronology (and the Jazz Messengers) (jazzmf.com) we have Osaka, Kobe and Nagoya, with no specific dates, but presumably between the two Tokyo dates. I wonder if any of these were recorded. The live dates by this band are far from a 'you heard one, you hear them all' situation. I find the playing much more aggressive on the May 1961 Paris recordings, Wayne sounds borderline hostile. Was it perhaps because the band was soon to break up? Lee's 'personal problems' did not help the dynamic, I am sure. I am also curious as to when Lee Morgan left the band exactly. Lee is on the 6/13/61 Impulse date, and in Baltimore right after. KD subs for Lee at Newport on 7/2 (I wish we knew more about that incident), but Lee is back with them in DC two days later. There are photos with Lee from the Jazz Gallery in late July/early August, but Hubbard is on board by 8/8/61 for a few tracks from Three Blind Mice. Bill Hardman may have filled in briefly in the interim. If the Jazz Gallery is really early August, then Hardman's tenure was very brief. Jeff McMillan has different info in his Morgan chronology: 1956 (umich.edu) 1) Morgan is ill on 7/2/61, hence KD subbing. 2) Jazz Gallery is 7/11-16, but then apparently Lee is also in South America? 3) Hubbard is already with Blakey at the Village Gate on 7/25. The Village Gate and Jazz Gallery dates need confirmation. I have the New Yorker CD-ROM, I will see what I can find out. When did Lee come back? Hubbard is on Kyoto (2/20/64), Lee may have been at the Manne Hole as early as 3/10/64 per Fitzgerald, maybe slightly earlier. McMillan has more: Lee is not at the Village Gate on 2/21-22, but he rejoins in late February. He has Manne Hole gigs 2/28-3/8. Even better: the Messengers are on the Steve Allen show on 3/6, and UCLA has a copy. This is footage of Lee I have never seen, presumably the Indestructible lineup. I want to see that! Charles Tolliver filled in briefly for Lee in June/July 1965, including Newport on 7/2/65. Would love to hear that! Lee's last gigs with Blakey were in August 1965, possibly at Manne's Hole. I wonder if Blue Note/Zev Feldman are planning more Blakey releases. The 1/11/61 TV Show with the Sharps and Flats has never been on CD in the US, to my knowledge. And I still think a CD combining the 1959 Newport date with Lee and Mobley and the 1961 Newport date with KD and Wayne would be a most attractive package. Recordings of both are in the VOA/Newport collection at the Library of Congress. The former is 40 minutes, the latter is between 15-30 minutes depending on whether there are two songs or three. There is a story behind that I probably already told... Bertrand.

40K is consistent with the fees I was hearing for Shorter around 2008, if that helps.

When he played at Bohemian Caverns in DC in the late 90s he got a rubber check. That was under the old owner. The guy who ran it after for about 10 years until they closed, Omrao Brown, was a class act all the way.

But this concert was after other Japanese concerts that did feature Shorter pieces. Maybe the incomplete pieces are Shorter tunes.

Not with COVID. Yup. That is probably why he gets mixed up, but, as I said, he tells the story as if the accident happened in August.

So how do get to hear this music? There is no reason we should not be able to.

A rare recording is up there now also.

Yes, contracts are out there but those who have them are not getting the research importance. Blue Note has contracts which would prove when an artist was signed to them but they are hanging on tightly to this info. It is needed whenever a tape shows up and it has to be determined which label, if any, has jurisdiction. This will be an issue if that Grant Green Left Bank tape ever surfaces. I think he was not with Blue Note, but they may claim otherwise. The Left Bank archives at UMBC does have a few contracts, let me see if I scanned any of that when I visited last August. I know the fee for a Duke Pearson Big Band gig was shown, and maybe a couple of others. To watch someone in action claiming contracts are of no historical importance, please watch the YouTube panel discussion I was on last year. You should be able to find it by searching for 'Baltimore Jazz Alliance Left Bank Jazz Society'.

80 is the new 90 these days. Re: Benny Golson. I have heard him tell the Clifford Brown story many times. He always gets the month wrong and says the accident was in August. It was June.

Agreed, this should have been a single CD, although they left off some other tracks.

So these were two different concerts on the same night, and neither concert is complete because some tunes were cut short? Which tunes were incomplete?

Today is the last day to watch, not tomorrow, correct? How long is the film?