JSngry

Ranks right up there with the "ass kicking" (or whatever it was) that somebody once auctioned off.

But a problem, perhaps, for those who have "done the right thing" if and when one of those JSP/Proper/etc type labels puts the same material out? I'm not busting your chops, nor those of the people who buy these type sets (and in all honesty, that Proper R&B tenor collection has been calling my name MIGHTILY hard for over a year now), especially the "casual" fans who are totally unaware of the economics at play, and/or "better" ways to get the much the same same material. Ignorance IS an excuse as far as I'm concerned, at least in this matter. But ONLY for the consumer. The manufacturers know EXACTLY what's going on, and have none. But once you DO know, shouldn't you at least weigh your options before gleefully indulging in a feast for the price of a mere snack? I occasionally "do the WRONG thing" myself (sometimes MORE than occasionally), but I do so knowing what the deal is, and I try my damndest to make it up some other way. On the whole, my conscience is in no way clean, but it IS clear. I take, but I give. When one knows that one has options, to do otherwise just doesn't seem wise, at least not to me. Karma's a BITCH I tell you! Rationalization? Sure. But I'm not one to claim an unambiguous stance in matters such as this, just as I'm not one to deny that it IS serious business (as in Business). "To live outside the law you must be honest", as Dylan somewhat portentiously, yet accurately, put it, and "doing wrong" is not a matter to be knowingly undertaken lightly. If I'm going to be on a perpetual see-saw (and god knows, most of us are, it seems), I want it to be one that's functional and enjoyable for all concerned. Sometimes I cut in line, sometimes I give up my place to others. It's all about the "balance", and in more ways than one. Keep the see-saw balanced, and everybody rides. Put too much weight on one end, and NOBODY rides. And when the fat kid on the one end gets off, woe be unto him/her who's on the OTHER end!

Same here. MOST interesting work!

"Bouncing boobs" is attractive as an anatomical description, not as a description of a type of person...

And didn't I pay 50% of the replacement cost of a new shirt to replace the one that got blood on it? Sure, a Fruit Of The Loom T-Shirt ain't exactly an Alexander Julian, but I didn't HAVE to do anything! My generosity and genuine concern for the human condition is often SEVERELY underestimated!

WELL!!!! Could be pretty interesting! Or not. I'd be willing to find out, that's for sure.

The unrepenitant cynic in me can't help but notice how all the current publicity photos of Krall are intentionally "unglamorous", keeping with the more somber thematic material of her new album. First she's a glamorous diva, now she's an introspective, "regular type". Don't believe it? Well shucks, pictures don't lie! Nothing WRONG with that, and not at all relevant to the actual merit of the music (or the sincerity of the lyrics), but it's still marketing and controlled imagery for image (propagandistic?) purposes, a layer of "presentation" for a "product" that is supposedly all about the lack thereof. I'm actually interested in hearing this music, but hey - an unrepenitant cynic has a congenital obligation to notice such things.

Peggy dead is tougher than most women alive.

Gosh, I believe that Koch & Collectables have pretty much done this already, having reissued most (all?) of the VeeJay albums by the artists in question (as well as the Morgan/Shorter material) and have by all indications legitimately leased the material! There's also a "reactivated" Vee Jay label that has put out this material. For that matter, the more "questionable" Blue Moon label has too. The latter two add a few alternates, but the first two offer straight reproductions of the LPs. Of course, buying those individual CDs won't be as cheap as whatever the "other type" of label put out (so much LESS overhead...), but if you want most (all?) of the original material w/o the alternates (or at least, fewer), the options have already been made available.

I believe you are correct.

Fair enough, noble enough (really!), and I share your desire for a level playing field more than you perhaps realize. But I think this shows the difference culture makes in perspective. Here in America, we too have "old money" families (although definitely not as "old" as y'all's), and more than often enough, they stink the joint up to high heaven. But it's a big enough country where we don't HAVE to deal with these pricks (or at least it USED to be big enough. The whole Reagan/Bush/Bush economic agenda seems hellbent on destroying the "buffer" that a healthy, vigorous, and multi-tiered middle class brings, but that's fodder for another forum...). Although I've seen more than enough of the spoils that inherited wealth brings, I've also seen enough cases where it's been used wisely and benevolently to be of the opinion that, as in all things, the only moral absolute is that a system will be as good or bad as the individual in it. So it really doesn't bother me if there's 5th-or-more generation shithead trustfund babies out there benefitting from the same system that allows for Blue Mitchell's widow to receive that nice little royalty check from Blue Note that she did not too long ago. I'd like to think that should Blue's music be rediscovered (and profited from) 100 years from now that at least a token piece of the money that everybody else will be making will go to the Mitchell family, just because family matters - even it the notion has been distorted and abused grotesquely by some, family still matters. As the laws are set up now, they won't. If Blue's music gets used in a soundtrack 100 years from now, and by some freakish notion becomes a hit, everybody BUT the heirs will get a piece. That ain't right. Only in "the arts" do we find such a scenario. It just ain't right.

Who, indeed!

When you buy an original painting, you're buying the only one of its kind. Reproductions are intentionally "second best", and would never be create a disrutption of the fair market value of the original. The monetary value of the object is in its originality. Film, music, etc., is intended to be sold as reproductions, therefore their monetary value lies in the sale/distribution of same. Apples and oranges, really. Again, the only REAL quarrel I have with any of this is the notion that somebody can lose TOTAL rights to something on a strictly arbitrary (and disctiminatory) whim of law. As I said a looooooonnnggg time ago, I'm cool with concept of "public domain" so long as there is at least a token requirement of compensation to artists estates (and again, if the estates choose to fully release the work(s) into public domain, more power to them. But it should be their choice), and to a lesser extent, mechanical rights holders. I refuse to accept as valid the notion that time alone is a valid justification for stripping an individual of some "property" but not others. The lack of logical/moral/whatever consistency is more than obvious, it seems to me. It seems that what there is of it is along the lines of, "Well, Louis Armstrong belonged to the world forever, so the world should be allowed to make money off of him forever, and his heirs can go get a job just like the rest of us". Right, Bev? That attitude totally misses the fact that Louis Armstong's music was as much his labor as it was his bliss. Bliss it is/was indeed, but it was also WORK (and I sometimes sense an underlying resentment in some of these arguments that some individuals are fortunate enough to have a life that includes labor and bliss not being mutually exclusive). Devaluing the "labor" aspect of "the arts" is a common enough mistake, sometimes innocently ("oh, it's just music, how much work can THAT be?"), and sometimes malevolently. But it IS a mistake, and it's one that artists themeselves all too often make (although I don't have a lot of sympathy for them when they do unless they were totally duped, which is not at all uncommon ether). However, the fruits of one's labors are totally valid "gifts" to one's heirs (and they theirs), should one decide to make them such. Since when is it cool to take away from one set of heirs what virtually all others get to keep into perpetuity (or insolvency and/or incarceration, as the case may be )? Explain THAT to me! Now when it comes to things like the pirating of just-released material like the Uptown sets, well, as they say in that Pace Picante ad, "GET A ROPE!!!"

wouldn't one be investing in the "bad" part of their business by buying disks by these new talents? Hey, on MY horse I can (and smell) the shit quite clearly. Tally ho!

That stuff has been leased out and pirated so often... AFAIK, the one time that it was ALL released "under one roof" was on a 2-Lp set on Douglas (the label of the original producer), athough maybe Celluloid did it too later on. Seems like I remember something like that on Celluloid, but I already had the Douglas issue, so I didn't bother.

And I'm glad to see Proper investing in new talent ala Fresh Sounds. I wish them well, and hope they "do the right thing" by their own artists.

The politics of resentment again - "somebody else has something I like/want, so I don't care who takes it from them (or how) because they were lucky to have something like that in the first place, so it's ok to take it from them in 50 years". Most unbecoming, Bev. I'd expect such reasoning out of a 20 year old idealistic-yet-clueless "revolutionary", but YOU? Maybe it IS "a British thing" based in the resentment of the class system and all that, in which case I must say that I've never lived there, so maybe I don't get it. I mean, I can smell bacon just as well as the next guy, but I have, uh... OPTIONS, if you know what I mean. But otherwise, it sounds like "the world owes me a living" has been morphed into "the world owes me cheap music". And to THAT, I can only say "NANNY NANNY BOO BOO!!!!"

And in closing, when one's horse is so high that they can not see when they have stepped in shit, then one's horse is too high indeed.

I sense that Morris Levy has relocated to the other side of the Atlantic.

I'll bet that the Dolphy is the IRON MAN dates, some of which came out on VeeJay (or was it Exodus?) as a "Memorial Album".

I can see by the logo in the lower right corner that it's a Giants Of Jazz label issue, and therefore is illegal, immoral, and fattening. Seriuously, tht is a label that steals whatever the hell they want, and sells it cheap. Avoid at all costs.

On a jazz board, it's Okeh.

Merely disclosing that there was in fact a settlement violates the nondisclosure" clause. I'm calling my people as we speak. Your lawyer was right - your ass is now officially grass. Prepare to be gang-mowed.

Hey, man - let's be fair - when I found out you weren't from the IRS, didn't I try to push you back UP the stairs? Guess there's no pleasing some people....

I'm a compulsive experimetner, so, yeah, I knew this, although I stumbled on it completely by accident. It's a cool aspect of this software, and not all boards have it. You can also hold down the CTRL key and use the horizontal arrow keys to skip to the beginning of each word, forwards or backwards.