Teasing the Korean

It's better now than it was in the 70s!

Unload your stereo copy now and get the mono.

I still don't see how anything I wrote during that exchange was an "assumption," but whatever. It is well known that EU releases of albums resulted in cancellations of "official" releases. Everything in my posts was based on actual occurrences.

It's certainly not an assumption with regard to one Euro indie that I know. This label has reached out to the majors over the past decade to license obscure recordings that were never on CD, and they have not worked with them.

Because the record companies knew that, album by album, their back catalogs would begin to enter the public domain. If they chose to ignore their desirable out-of-print titles falling into the public domain - for whatever reasons - they knew that Euro indies would hop on those titles and release them, from whatever source was available, good or bad. Any of the majors could have entered into reciprocal arrangements with one or more specialty indie labels to supply masters for the indies to release on CD, just as Columbia did with Scorpio for their LP reissues. Informed listeners like you and I would have happily purchased these authorized versions over dubious releases mastered from vinyl. If Sony/Columbia chose to authorize vinyl releases of such obscure titles as Phil Moore's "Portrait of Leda," Andre Popp's "Delerium in Hi-FI," Michel Magne's "Tropical Fantasy" and Rex Kona's "Wild Orchids," why not license them for CD? Sony still has not released any of these to my knowledge. And these are just 4 examples off the top of my head.

The major labels whined that there wasn't enough interest in fringe titles to justify manufacturing the discs and booklets. They could have chosen to license recordings to independents, just as they have done with vinyl reissue labels, such as Scorpio.

On the other hand, the EU public domain loophole - when it was 50 years - also presented an opportunity for the majors to work with independent labels to release niche titles less expensively and with good quality sound. I'm not sure this ever happened. If the majors were too clueless or stubborn to release this stuff - and it was probably a combination of both - screw them. There are a lot of albums I would love to hear from the original master tapes, but I don't want to wait until I'm 90 to hear them.

For twenty bucks, I'd have lunch.

Please do tell us if there are other mixed metaphors and inappropriate metaphors, like the one discussed previously.

If you want competent people to head charities, you have to pay them relatively competitive wages. Otherwise, they'll just go to the private sector. C'est la vie.

In my experience, artists have a hard time differentiating between art and craft in their own work.

It's like when you say "I'm sorry" when something bad has happened to someone. There is no convenient word/phrase for expressing empathy that does not include the unintended guilt connotation that comes with "I'm sorry." JSngry's suggestion is good. "Masterful exponent of ____" "rooted (or grounded) in the tradition of..." might be another.

Re-investigating Soft Machine after finding the "Original Album Classics" CD set of albums 3-7 for like 10 bucks. I'd had some (not all ) of this on vinyl for ages, but I'm always spinning new vinyl, so stuff gets lost in the shuffle and somewhat forgotten, even though I know it's there and I know it's great. I've had these 5 CDs on repeat for several days now, at home, in the car, at work. Don't know what the consensus is, but I think all five of these albums are solid top to bottom. This stuff is like the missing link between 70s Miles, Brian Eno, Goblin and Stereolab.

I can never listen to the Beatles' version again, because of the way he repeats that three-note phrase at the end of bar 4 each time.

Warner LPs at the time were notorious for not including such information. The back sleeves showed a photo of the mixing board, but didn't credit producers or engineers. One noteworthy early Warners LP was Ray Heindorf's recording of Miklos Rozsa's "Spellbound," with Samuel Hoffman on theremin. It too is stunningly recorded and engineered. I'm told that back in the day it was frequently used to demonstrate high-end hi-fi gear.

Gary does his own whistling, as far as I know. I have to go into work today, but when I get home, I'm planning to blast "The In Sound."

You've got to read it, and then please, make that album! Although it may be expensive to hire Don Sebesky to write the arrangements.

Some - not all - easy listening albums by jazz artists sound as though they were made with a gun pointed to the musicians' heads. McFarland's easy listening albums to me sound completely genuine. I think they were just as important to him as his "serious" albums, and they convey the childlike wonder that is in his best work, jazz or otherwise.

yes, that is a gem!

"A solution to a blues that wore razors for spurs" is not only a mixed metaphor, but a an inappropriate one, considering that spurs are are associated with a form of transportation that was (largely) outmoded, while Parker's music was all about progress and new directions. I first became aware of Crouch through liner notes on reissued jazz LPs and didn't care for what he had to say then. I was finished with him after the Ken Burns debacle.

His score for "Little Shop of Horrors" is an example of the Twilight Zone Jazz genre that I love so much. RIP.

The Beatles ruined Beethoven's 9th for me. I will never be able to listen to it again. I will never be able to listen to the Beatles again either, for that matter. I'm through with both.

Cochise Jones - Redbonin' (CTI, 1973).

Jim, where are you?

The naked family aesthetic was a really horrid by-product of the hippie movement.