paul secor

The Complete Johnny Dodds (RCA Fr.) - 2 LPs A bit of a misnomer - These are all of his RCA recordings (with the exception of one take of "My Little Isabel"). A great listen.

Art Pepper: Art Is the Art Vol. 1 (Nadja-Trio Japan) - Omegatape sides

Hans has already given you more than enought to begin with. I'll just add a few personal favorites that didn't make his list: Old Time Mountain Guitar 1926-1931 (County) Cliff Carlisle: Blues Yodeler and Steel Guitar Wizard (Arhoolie) Roscoe Holcomb: The High lonesome Sound (Smithsonian Folkways) Roscoe Holcomb: An Untamed Sense of Control (Smithsonian Folkways) Gene O'Quin: Boogie Woogie Fever (Bear Family) Johhny Paycheck: The Real Mr. Heartache - The Little Darlin Years (Country Music Foundation) Stanley Brothers: Earliest Recordings - the Complete Rich-R-Tone 78's (1947-1952) (Revenant) Stanley Brothers: Long Journey Home (Rebel) Forgot a favorite ET: Ernest Tubb: Live, 1965 (Rhino)

Just want to make mention of a couple of good Lester Bowie LPs on Muse that are well worth listening to: Fast Last! and Rope-A-Dope. As Eric has mentioned, Muse LP pressings were spotty at best. It was hit or miss whether you got a decent pressing or a garbage pressing. I probably would have bought more Muse records if it weren't for that fact.

I got a call from my job at 7:30 asking me if I could come in and work for five hours. Half awake, I stupidly said yes. Next time, I hope I'll be awake enough to let the machine take the call and not be home.

Bill - This isn't what you're looking for, but perhaps it will help. Pacific Jazz issued one Al Haig trio track, "Taking a Chance on Love" (w. Harry Babasin and Larry Bunker), on a compilation LP Pianists Galore! - Pacific Jazz/Jazz West Coast 506. I have a Japanese LP reissue. Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance.

Wynn Stewart: Wishfull Thinking - The Challenge Years 1958-1963 (Bear Family) - LP 1

Ray Charles and Betty Carter (DCC) It may get as good... But it don't get no better than this.

I'm not sure that Proper's put out a box of anyone that's still alive. As to the point about record companies, the owners of all the major indies cashed out long ago (or abandoned their catalogues because of lack of commercial interest). Majors like Columbia and Universal still put out high-priced reissues (the Billie Holiday and Charlie Christian boxes, for example). Concord just bought the Fantasy masters, and I'm sure the 50-year laws figured into the sale price.The story I love most is that Irving Berlin lived to see his earliest songs fall into the public doman. I hope that the major jazz labels will now put more effort into promoting current jazz artists. I don't want to get into a feud with you, but Proper has reissued recordings by Sonny Rollins, Anita O'Day, Jay McShann, B.B. King, Lee Konitz, Les Paul, Ike Turner, Dave Brubeck, and Fats Domino - to name some names - all of whom are alive, to the best of my knowledge. Not that being alive should be a requirement for being reimbursed for the use of your music. There is no moral reason - I realize that the law is not always moral - for a record company to make a profit reissuing music that they had no part in creating, while the musician who created it gets nothing. Just MHO. I agree with you that record companies - and listeners - should be doing more to support currently active musicians. Then again, with the state of the copyright laws, some of the smaller companies may think twice about investing in recording artists whose releases don't have an immediate return. (The major labels already think that way.)

Just finished reading Walker Percy's The Moviegoer.

Mingus at Antibes (Atlantic) - The Dolphy/Curson/Ervin/Richmond band, with Bud joining them on I'll Remember April

I thought that libraries served the purpose of giving people access to books. (I realize that most libraries don't provide access to music (or at least much of the music that people on this Board are interested in.) The issue of copyright laws and public domain isn't an easy one. I would bet that there's no one on this Board who doesn't have a reissue that's not licensed in their collection. All of us want to have access to good music at the lowest price. However, there's another side to this. I'm not a musician, but if I look at it from the musician's point of view, here's how it very well might appear. I see a record company that I had no connection with - never signed a contract - I don't even know who they are (not just Proper - there are probably a hundred out there) - releasing some of my life's work, and not paying me a penny for it. They never even asked my permission to do it. It's their "right" to issue recordings of my music and make a profit doing so. What's "right" about that? I'm not a record company owner, but if I look at it from that point of view, it's similar. I'm not just talking about the conglomerates - though they're in it too - but over the years there have been many individuals who have invested their money and time to record the music we listen to. They've done it in the hope of making a profit, but many of them were in the record business because they had a love of music. Fifty years go by and it becomes, "Sorry, what you invested in is now in the public domain. The public has a "right" to the material you recorded." Again, what's "right" about that? The law disagrees with me, as do many on this Board, but I feel that musicians, record company owners, and their estates should be compensated for their work for as long a period as the public listens. I don't feel that anyone has a "right" to something that they had no part in creating.

Grant Green: Oleo (Blue Note-King/Japan)

Tommy Flanagan & Kenny Barron: Together (Denon)

Eddie Condon and his Band: The Liederkranz Sessions 1939 and 1940 (Commodore/Germany)

Maybe I should have chosen Albums of the Week and made it a multiple choice discussion.

I think of the Clay/Ali thing every time I see my Brand/Ibrahim recordings. I've got them filed under B, because that's where the first (Brand) ones were filed, and it's too confusing to have them in two places. Basically, I just said screw it. If I ever met Mr. Ibrahim, I'd call him by the name he prefers, but who cares (other than me) where my records are filed?

I think that most of this has already been discussed fairly thoroughly in the Blue Harlem Ike Quebec Proper Thread listed in Brad's thread above. However, I'd like to pose a few questions: The Classics label seems to be held in fairly high regard on the Board. What are the sources for the material they rerelease, and who does their mastering? Labels like Hep, Frog, Oracle, early JSP, Yazoo, Revenant, etc., all have issued what amounts to legal bootlegs of recordings that are "owned" by other companies. Does the fact that they have (in some cases) made improvements to the sound quality in comparison to previous reissues, or (in some cases) made material that was commercially unavailable make their releases more "morally correct" (for want of a better term) than, say, Proper? Does that fact the the above mentioned labels are primarily reissuing (or I could use the term "bootlegging" again) material from the '20s and '30s make a difference? Does the fact that an engineer is working from a 78 as a source, rather than an LP or even a CD, make a difference? If an engineer were to take an LP or CD and come up with a recording that sounded "better" than previous issues, would that make it OK? Do Hep, Frog, Oracle, Yazoo, Revenant (I'll leave out JSP - even early JSP out of this one) pay royalties to the heirs of the artists they reissue? (I'm saying heirs because I doubt that many of the artists they've reissued are still alive). Some of the artists that Classics has reissued are alive. Are they paying royalties to them? I hope that all of these companies are doing that. I'm playing devil's advocate here. I just want to point out that many of the labels that most of us think are more "moral" than Proper may not necessarily be so. My own opinion is that artists and the companies or individuals who recorded them should be paid for their work indefinitely. I also believe that reissue companies should license their material from the proper sources. That said, I do have LPs and CDs from most of the above mentioned companies in my collection. In a better world, all reissues would be done by companies like Mosaic or Bear Family, or by other companies that license their material legally. One final issue that I'd like to mention is to question whether artists or artists' estates actually receive royalties from legally licensed reissues. My understanding is that it's the responsibility of the licenser rather than the licensee to issue royalties. (Hope I don't sound too much like a lawyer here. I can't think of anything worse.) I may be wrong about that. However, if that's the case, and Buddy DeFranco received no royalties from his Mosaic box - see the Ike Quebec Proper thread - should we be boycotting Mosaic? (Or Mosaic boxes licensed from companies that don't pay artists' royalties?) All of this is certainly a gray area, and there will probably be no consensus among us, but at least the discussion has given me much to think about.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (Blue Note/King Japan)

Whew! The Mosaics I have from this list sound better already!

"Groovin' High" with Dizzy Gillespie (Savoy)

Smokey Wood: The Houston Hipster (Rambler) Great stuff. Jazzy western swing, but with a unique sound of it's own. (Great Smokey Wood stories in the liner notes, too.)

One of the Rounder Mississippi John Hurt CDs was supposedly taken off an LP from the collection of one of their employees who is a fanatical collector. I can't remember the name of the CD issue, but the LP was entitled Mississippi John Hurt - Volume One of a Legacy (Piedmont-Legacy 1068). I have the LP in my collection, so I never bought the CD.

Lee Morgan with J.S. on "'S Wonderful". I have it on a 20 year old (or so) Japanese LP - Jimmy Smith: Special Guests. I'm sure that it's been issued a time or two on CD since then. Good stuff!

Skip James, Speckled Red, Little Brother Montgomery, Herve Duerson, etc.: "Hot Box Is On My Mind" - The Piano Blues Volume Five (Magpie)