How does something like this happen?

[Hardbopjazz]

How royalties don’t get to the artist. This is Jutta Hipp as written on Allmusic. I pretty sure there are others. Do you know of any others?

...She lost contact with the music world to the extent that Blue Note didn't know where her royalties should be sent until 2000. Three years later, at the age of 78, Jutta Hipp passed away in the Queens apartment where she lived alone.

[Jazzmoose]

You know, every time I see one of those news articles about artists' royalties not being paid, it really drives home what kind of people run these big record companies. Seems like every time a list of artists "missing" comes out, theres always quite a few that are currently touring, and I don't mean just jazz artists either. I'm talking big names. What kind of bull is that?

[PHILLYQ]

The recent article where the Attorney General of NY got those thieves to fork over $50 MILLION listed P. Diddy and some others that are presently on tour! AG Spitzer said something to the effect of, the music companies could just throw a check up on the stage to pay some of these people.

These are the same music companies that are sooooo concerned with 'artist's rights' when it comes to downloading music. I guess their concept of 'artist's rights' ends with properly compensating them.

[Hardbopjazz]

I remember a year or so ago reading that the widow of Blue Mitchell received 2 checks each for 50 thousand. Intel had used Mitchell's Fungii Mama in a TV ad. Then I recall reading on the Blue Note site, asking for help to locate the estates of some artists. Some of these artists have children that are in the music industry. I recall Don Cherry being one of the names. Isn't Eagle Eye Cherry his son. Maybe Eagle Eye isn't the aire his dad's estate.

[bertrand]

According to a blurb in the new Downbeat, Steven Spielberg's upcoming film The Terminal (about a guy who has to live in an airport due to a bureaucratic glitch - this must be based on the true story of the guy who lived at Charles de Gaulle airport for a decade or so) has a jazz subplot involving someone (the main character?) who is an avid autograph collector. He has the autographs of everyone in the Great Day In Harlem photo except Benny Golson, and part of the story has him searching for Benny.

How hard can it be to find Golson in New York? All the musicians know him, he most certainly is an AFM member, and he did a lot of TV work (including the Cosby show a few years ago), so he can't be too hard to find. Obviously, they were limited to the half-dozen or so musicians from the photo who are still with us, but I'm sure there were guys in the picture who were a lot harder to track down. Take Gigi Gryce, for example: he dropped off the face of the planet about 3 years after the picture was taken. I'm mightily impressed that the guy had the foresight to know right after the picture was taken how historic it would be, and that if he wanted Gigi's autograph he better move fast. It just doen't make sense.

Bertrand.