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If the copyright police existed from time immemorial and pushed for the kinds of copyright law we see today, we would have roughly 10% of the great works of literature and classical music that do exist. All the great works borrow themes from other great works figuratively and literally, and in many cases it would be considered outright lifting of others work and litigable (from today's perspective). Of course, it is one thing to borrow from PD work to create new works and another to simply copy and resell it. Nonetheless, the founders believed in a much larger public sphere and that common ownership of art was part of that. I frankly think they were far wiser than we are today with our very narrow notions of property rights and the idea that everything can be locked down under patent and copyright.

Here is the blurb on Friday's Jazz Library program on BBC Radio 3. (I hope Chuck wasn't planning on announcing this himself.) Anyway, it looks like it should be a great show, and I am particularly curious to hear the archive interviews. By Friday afternoon, it will be available on Listen Again for a week here: BBC Jazz Library (Currently, it is still the Jelly Roll Morton show.)

Didn't watch the game, but it sounds like it was a classic, with both pitchers doing a great job but with Schilling getting the edge and a bit more support from his team. It does look pretty dire for the Rockies.

I was at this concert in Chicago: I was in the 4th row center, which is actually a bit too close but the view of the stage was great. They opened with an early Mozart symphony, which was ok but not particularly stirring. I give them props for programming a brand new work, the Turnage piece, but I didn't really care for it. I guess expecting lyrical is out of the question for a contemporary composer, but it wasn't particularly melodic. It did have a lot of rythmic and percussive aspects to it, but it still felt pretty gimmicky. The violins plucked their instruments for about 3/4 of the piece. Frankly it seemed kind of a waste of the CSO. It would have been just as good by the Kronos Quartet and a couple of woodwinds and a percussionist. But Brahm's 2nd Piano Concerto was terrific. I was right in front of Ax and watched him at work. But as I said, it was a bit too close. I couldn't really see the first cello (who also has a major part) and thus it didn't register that deeply with me. Ax does vocalize just a bit in certain sections, but nothing on the scale of Gould or Jarrett. The interplay of Ax and Haitink was good, esp. at the start of the 3rd movement when Ax tore through the opening bars and forced the CSO to keep up. A very impressive performance that made the whole concert. They have started releasing live recordings of the CSO, and if this pops up, I would probably go ahead and buy it.

Yep. Two doors down. It goes from 7 am ? to 11 pm. It chimes the hours and then just one ring on the half-hour. Personally, I think 10 pm would be a more reasonable stop time. It also goes crazy at some odd times -- 10:30 am on Sunday (for service, which I understand) but also on Saturdays, so I don't know what that's about.

When in the right frame of mind, I like the soundtrack to Pi, which is mostly electronica with some snippets of dialogue from the movie. Very edgy and dark. The soundtrack to the remake of Solaris is interesting, mostly steel drums and maribas. Not as good as Naked Lunch of course.

While letting the little one play on the computer, I generally open up WordPad and make it full screen so he can type away. This doesn't completely eliminate the possibility that he will restart the computer, but it keeps problems somewhat under control. He has learned a couple of interesting tricks, such as starting the Windows Magnifier (Windows button + U). Anyway, somehow he managed to get the Drawing Pad open inside WordPad. This was actually pretty cool and certainly nothing I've ever seen before. This led me on a merry chase to try to replicate it, but most sites talk about starting the Drawing Pad from inside MS Word not WordPad. In any case, it must be some combination of keystrokes that has opened up the Drawing Pad. If anyone has any info into this, it would be appreciated, since I would like to try Drawing Pad again. In the meantime, I am now letting him work inside Paint and making that full screen, which he seems to like even more.

The others, ok. But this has some of the worst funk music I've ever heard in a movie. In addition, for me, it fails utterly as a film, though the backstory of how it was made is pretty interesting.

These things do tend to go in cycles. On weeks when there are particularly interesting new releases or reissues, we'll discuss those. I do think the album of the week gets some deeper posts -- more than just hey a new release/reissue -- cool. Unfortunately, a lot of my analysis doesn't go a lot deeper. The other kind of post tends to be asking for information about a somewhat obscure jazz figure and that will go on for a couple of days before petering out. Even though I played music in high school, my relationship with music is essentially that of a consumer. My insights, such as they are, are deeper in the realm of social science and literature, so that is where I would post more, as well as in current events where we are all on a more level playing field. I will say that I am a bit tired of only being a consumer of art, and am beginning to write creatively again and hopefully that will lead somewhere.

For goodness' sake. Children live in the real world. They know full well that unmarried people have sex, including, for a great number of them, their parents, their grandparents, their siblings, their uncles and aunts and cousins. So literature should pretend that this is not so? There's a word for an approach like that, GA: dishonesty. You would have children be introduced to literature through literature that denies reality--a fine way to lead them to distrust and disregard literature from the very start. To get fancy, we can classify the Potter novels as a massive bildungroman, where she deliberates ages the characters and does have them experience hormonal urges and so on. By the end the novels are much darker (and really only appropriate for say 13+). So this does introduce a dilemma for future parents who read the books well ahead of their kids. When would you start the Potter series for new readers, since it isn't going to be spaced out and the audience aging with the characters the way it was the first time around. The idea that you could have your child read one a year is kind of laughable. If they start when they are 8 or 9, they will not be ready for the bad things that happen in books 6 or 7. I suppose if you tried to start them at age 11 or 12, they probably will have already discovered them on their own (or will be bored by a character much younger than they are). I guess I'll find out myself, since my children are now 3 and 1 and not quite ready to read on their own.

Thank you. That was my reaction to the answer as well. Whether this is totally accurate is unclear, but this is the exchange as posted in the Guardian UK: A 19-year-old from Colorado asked about the avuncular headmaster of Hogwarts School: 'Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself?' The author replied: 'My truthful answer to you...I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.' The audience reportedly fell silent - then erupted into prolonged applause. Rowling, 42, continued: 'Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald [a bad wizard he defeated long ago], and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent, but he met someone as brilliant as he was and, rather like Bellatrix, he was very drawn to this brilliant person and horribly, terribly let down by him.' So he is asking a somewhat more general question about Dumbledore in love, and she is filling in some details of the backstory. Seems plausible and reasonable to me, but I am not going to burn my copy of the books -- or rush out to buy more -- now that we know the Truth.

I absolutely 100% agree. Agree with Alex as well, but after reading this story, my first question was "What was the point of THAT?" Well, she was asked at a reading about some of the backstory, and she responded. I don't see any problem with that. Second, she is making the claim that his misplaced love for Gellert Grindelwald did in fact have importance for the plot. So I don't see what the problem is. British literature is full of hidden and not-so-hidden discussions of schoolboy crushes and this is firmly in that tradition.

Last night was at the Green Mill to catch Rudresh Mananthappa and Vijay Iyer. Rudresh was leading this time, and they mostly played from Codebook. Really great of course. Of the young (younger than me) musicians, these are probably my favorite two. I went up and talked very briefly to them and got them both to sign the Raw Material artwork. I did ask Vijay how it went in Ann Arbor the night before, and he said it was great. I mentioned that some board members had made it, and he was vaguely aware of the Board, so that was cool. I missed about ten minutes of the first set but I did manage to join a couple at a table, so I didn't stand all night, which was key. I stayed through the first two sets and left before the third. I kind of wish I had stayed midway through the third, since the Ween concert down the street let out at the same time, and the train home was jam packed. Anyway, the music was pretty much what we expect from the pair -- somewhat angular playing from Vijay, long lyrical, somewhat repetitive lines from Rudresh, followed by sheets of sound. The bass player (Francois Moutin) was good, and took a number of solos, kind of risky in a place like the Green Mill but you could actually hear him. Probably the next time I go to the Green Mill, it will be smoke free, which will be good for me, but it will be a big break with tradition. I will say that there weren't clouds of cigarette smoke there as usual, so maybe even there people have started to cut back.

I agree, but don't tell that to anyone in Toronto. They think that after NY they're the theater center of North America. Yeah, maybe if your idea of theatre is Lion King and Phantom of the Opera. Real theatre is off-Broadway and off-Loop (in Chicago). 10 times more satisfying for 1/5th the price. And Chicago's off-Loop theatre scene kicks Toronto's ass. I lived in both places long enough to know.

I liked Toronto a lot. It seems to be run a lot better than Chicago, where a lot of things are getting on my nerves. On the other hand, the music and theatre scene is better in Chicago.

Probably should post this separately but Rudresh/Vijay are going to follow up their Edgefest performance with a show in Chicago at the Green Mill this Sat., starting at 8. It looks like I will be able to go.

I think Kobe would be a disaster for Chicago under the current coach. So unless they decide to dump Skiles, and I see no reason to think they would, going after Kobe would be a bad move. Hard to say if Kobe and Dirk could co-exist, but maybe. Dirk has proven that he is a very good player, but he isn't "the man" and doesn't seem to have much interest in being "the man," whereas that is very much what Kobe is about.

I am sorry to hear that. We had a break-in off the fire escape once. We got fairly lucky, just some minor jewelry stolen, though it sucked of course and we needed to get this huge ass metal grate for the window. Then the downstairs neighbors had a break-in with more stuff stolen. Definitely the worst though was getting mugged (yes, with a gun). In none of these cases were the cops any use whatsoever. I have moved to a different part of the city, but often think it is just a matter of time before it happens again.

I wonder if it is something specific to Western or even US culture that insists that there always has to be some new thing, something surprising. I could tack on some Marxist analysis here, but am too tired. It's not that I don't try to listen to today's innovators or more often the innovators from the 1970s, but almost always return to hard bop of the 1950s/60s and people essentially working in that tradition (Eric Alexander, Stefon Harris, Jason Moran). I've just really not liked any of the rap/jazz acts that are out there. Probably the only person on the scene with something new that I actually enjoy is Vijay Iyer where he is drawing heavily on Indian music and mixing it with jazz. Anyway, this lead me to think about "world music," which often just means African music packaged for Western ears. Not to say there are no developments in this field, but it is a point of pride that some of the songs they are playing are in a tradition over 500 years old and in some cases the songs themselves are well over 100 years old. The valorization of the new at the expense of the old does not appear to happen so much. But of course, this is only a partial picture, hinging mostly on what record producers are picking out (say in Mali which is a huge favorite of the BBC right now). In many African countries the kids are only listening to "the new thing," even if traditional music is still being played in clubs. Ghana is kind of an interesting example where highlife was more or less pushed out by US-influenced dance and funk music (and if you haven't heard Ghana Soundz 1 or 2 you are really missing out). Another counter example I just thought of are the great Tuareg group Tinariwen who play electric guitars, which was certainly pretty surprising the first time I heard it. Nonetheless, I still think the quest for the new and surprising may be less extreme outside the US.

I think they'll just hold out for a few more months. Once the dollar slides enough, 10 pounds will equal $100, and their problem will be solved.

In any case, I checked and DG is planning on bringing in a number of these releases, including the Hodges and the Rouse. I asked if the Rouse was the French release or a Japanese version (without bonus tracks), and they told me they were coming from Germany (!), so I assume they will be identical to the Epic France versions, but I will wait to see a copy in the store before I buy.

True, but would it really take more than 1 letter from RIAA to emusic or Amazon to say that you shouldn't be bringing in the Gambit/Lonehill/Definitive/Blue Moon releases into the US? There are always ways around these things, but that would stop the majority of casual copyright infringers (those who aren't aware of the issues and/or going out of their way to import something and are really just ordering something that looks kinda interesting). But maybe I am wrong and importing a single copy for personal use puts this in a different category of enforcement. For instance, Amazon also allows people to buy Region 2 DVDs, and it even posts a warning that this will only work with a R2 DVD player. On the Amazon.uk side, they will allow you to buy 1 copy of a region 1 DVD. It sort of makes the whole region scheme even more farcial and stupid than it already is. I can't believe that they will even bother with the regional coding or DRM for much longer, given that it does make people less likely to buy when it is nearly as easy (or even easier) to steal.

But that's when Andorran intellectual property law enters the picture... I found an English translation of a draft for an Andorran copyright law which says there's a 50-year protection for recordings (this document from this page). However, I don't know if it has been put into effect. If I knew Catalan the answer could probably be found here. Ah yes! Andorra, I think, ALSO isn't part of the EU, so it doesn't have to incorporate EU law. MG That may be, but I don't believe there is any part of EU law that says if a CD is legal in Andorra but not in the EU, then you can import and sell it in the EU. This is a major bone of contention in the US, in that recordings that are legal only in the EU are freely sold in many stores and now can be downloaded on emusic. I'm not claiming any moral high ground here, but it is interesting that the majors in the US haven't found a way to stop this, where the law (unfair as I think it is) is clearly on their side.

Of course, if anyone out there still doesn't have the Mobley, this is probably going to time out next year (I think this was the consensus), so go grab that. I haven't decided if I will order anything, though I might. Earlier this year I got the Gillespie and the Nelson (and the Onzy Matthews Select), but I am strongly considering the Wilson.

Because it is almost always "better" to be in on a secret, to be an insider. There will always be people who feel that music whose natural audience is a mass audience is inferior to music that is aimed at a narrow niche (to which they belong). These people are particularly upset when "their bands" go commercial and try to broaden their fan base. A lot of it has to do with maintaining cultural status and the more insider knowledge one has, the more status one will have in these circles. One might almost consider it a game in the art or music worlds to be as obscure or unpopular as possible and still have a viable career outside of commercial channels. I'd say go read Simmel and then Bourdieu on elite tastes and why they persist in mass society. As for why jazz artists themselves bought into or played up the difficult aspect of the music at the expense of popularity, I'm sure there are many reasons, including wanting to be accepted in the hipper circles and the believe that serious artists were not mere entertainers. Some felt compelled to follow their own vision (again sort of an elite artistic worldview) and were not particularly concerned with whether the world followed. I think there's no question that there are plenty of things I go so precisely because I know they are out of the mainsteam. At the very least, you usually don't have to fight 2000 other fans to get seats to a Roscoe Mitchell or Fred Anderson concert.