Had To Happen Sometime

[Dan Gould]

and its on sale in the US at World's Records.

Well, its not like BN and its corporate successors didn't make a boatload of money off of that catalog item already.

And now that I check AMG, this became fair game a year ago anyway.

[Peter Johnson]

I was going to post about this--it's also on sale Via Laserlight. I found out about it because it was listed in the CD Universe email blast I received this morning. Additional Interesting Fact: Notes by Scott Yanow! Also only $5.99.

[paul secor]

I'm sure that Fifty Second Street - whoever they are - deserves the money they'll make off this release.

[Aggie87]

I've seen a 2 disc Andorran (or something) set of Blakey's Cafe Bohemia recordings at my local Half Price bookstore, too.

[Swinging Swede]

Fifty Second Street - whoever they are

They show all the characteristic signs of being an Andorran label, including the "As a bonus" part.

The Andorrans have also just released a Jimmy Smith 2-CD set called The Complete Sermon Sessions, which also contains 1958 Blue Note material (this however on the Groove Hut "label").

But hey, it's not like they are unfairly targeting Blue Note specifically (); their recent releases of recordings just over 50 years old also include material from Columbia, Verve and the OJC labels. There are several Miles and Ellington releases, for example.

[Victor Christensen]

Yes, so it is, just go in and check out Jazzmessengers in Barcelona, they have them all, I don't need to get the BN's (have all of them), but I have bought CD's from them that I could not get elsewhere, shame on me.

Vic

[Rooster_Ties]

You damned dirty Andorians! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!!

[Free For All]

damned dirty Andorians!

[mjzee]

Does the 50-year rule also cover cover art?

[CJ Shearn]

wow that sucks they are doing this

[mikeweil]

There have been a few around, partly in really badly-done reissues, I remember seeing Horace Silver's 1954 trio and quintet sessions. It's legal in Europe, I do not how the regulations are concerning imports to the US ...

[Big Beat Steve]

wow that sucks they are doing this

Why? As long as the 50-year P.D. rule still applies and is met by the producers ...

Can you name a good reason why a 2002 reissue of a 1951 track taken from a 78 is ANY different from a 2009 reissue of a 1958 LP release?

The only thing that sucks is if those items still were sold in those countries where sale of such material would be illegal because a different P.D. cutoff date rule applies. But there the blame is on the distributors, not the producers.

Besides, I still don't get all that fuss about those reissues that COMPLY WITH the 50-year cutoff date. I can only repeat what I said earlier: Did ANY of you ever have any guilty consciences about buying any of those reissues where it is universally known that the ORIGINAL artists were screwed in a BIG way the original company (e.g. Basie's 30s Decca sessions, many blues recordings, including that blatant case of Arthur Crudup being refused royalties for this earlier work (covered by El the Pelvis) at the VERY last minute by execs at a time when he already was an old and sick man, etc.). After all in these cases the bigger companies (that EASILY could have afforded those royalty payments, if only as a goodwill gesture that would have been long overdue) reaped the reward that they had only obtained by really screwing the original artists. Did I ever hear any "boycot MCA (Decca rights holders)" or "boycot RCA (for the Elvis/Crudup doings)" outcries from collectors? If not, why not, I wonder?

Sorry to say this but as long as the 50-year P.D. rule still holds (and is complied with by the reissuers) it just is that a law is a law.

[king ubu]

you know, as long as the "official" releases are around, it still sucks that such reissues appear, even if they're legal.

the ignorance of the importers and retailers matters much here, I guess... they simply don't care if they have a crap-copy of these albums in their shelves or the real one... a friend of mine ordered Nat Cole's "After Midnight Session" last year, and they got him that crappy Andorran (or whatever) version for pretty high a prize... a few month later, they had another EMI sale at the very same shop, and there the "official" CD turned up for a bit more than half of the prize.

it's this total lack of care that sucks so much, and that - as opposed to good book stores - make me stop buying CDs locally more and more (I only browse through sales, mostly).

[Big Beat Steve]

I agree with you on that point, of course. But that problem is not a recent one and not a specifically European one. Take the "Golden Era" or "Big Band Archives" or "Ajazz" and other related LP labels of the 70s. Far from all of them were hitherto unreleased transcriptions or airshots, many of them were studio 78 rpm reissues from the majors, and many Dorsey, Crosby and other big band recordings DID remain in print on the original labels too. So were all of those "collector label" reissues legal and fully licensed? And even renowned retailers such as Ray Avery carried the ENTIRE ranges in their mail order lists, so ... ?

I also find it lamentable if specific reissue labels such as Uptown are ripped off by others (I wouldn't touch other labels with a 10-foot pole if I can get the material on Uptown, their booklets alone are priceless), but even in that field of specific reissue labels, double standards in that debate are at work there too (need I evoke a certain U.K. "box" producer? ).

To me it all seems that people cry out loud when it comes to Hard Bop as their core interest (and probably the oldest style of jazz that they are thoroughly familiar with) whereas older styles of jazz where one reissue company plagiarizes another one's product (or even if some remastering of their own has gone into their project it still is so that multiple reissues in that niche marked steal sales from each other) are not nearly as much frowned upon as lots of people seem to like to take advantage of those "affordable" offers to fill niches in the fringe areas of their collections.

It's this tunnel vision in the debate that I find a bit, well, debatable ...

Edited April 22, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[king ubu]

Good points! And yes, somehow compilations of earlier jazz seem to be looked at as less evil than rip-offs of actual albums... but for the morally superior, buying Classics or Masters of Jazz or whatever, would be a no-go as well.

Also I forgot to mention the consumers being to blame, too... but that's why having good local retailers would be even more important (just as with good book shops, that luckily still exist here and there... there's a fabulous one in Zurich, I can spend hours there and they get many books they don't have within a day... I happily pay 10 or 20% more than on Amazon and support that store, but with music shops, there's nothing similar here, and none of the old often praised music shops ever was able to compete, there's always been a certainl lack of knowledge, even in the one local jazz & blues only shop that closed about 5 or 6 years ago.)

[captainwrong]

Half Price Books in my area have had an Andorran vinyl pressing of this for a while. Those look for all intents and purposes like a legit Blue Note pressing, complete with label, and it was only with some sleuthing that I discovered they weren't. Well, aside from the fact that the covers were European style sleeves and the whole thing felt off.

[robviti]

wow that sucks they are doing this

Why? As long as the 50-year P.D. rule still applies and is met by the producers ...

Sorry to say this but as long as the 50-year P.D. rule still holds (and is complied with by the reissuers) it just is that a law is a law.

if, as you say, "a law is a law," then the sale of these european reissues in the u.s. is illegal. like it or not, copyright protection for the material we're discussing here lasts 95 years in the states. we're all familiar with arguments like "this protection is excessive," and "others made a lot of money already," and "the original artists didn't get there fair share," and "this music deserves to be heard and appreciated by all." such opinions challenge the fairness of current copyright legislation, but they don't eliminate it. so when someone points out that "a law is a law," let's be honest with ourselves about what the law says, whether we agree with the law or not.

even if a music recording is not covered by copyright, why is it okay for european companies to steal the work of people who remixed, reedited, and/or remastered the original recordings? some of these outfits may invest in their own remasters, but what about the others? and for those who did their own remastering, did they use original sources, or did they begin with a previous remaster that was the result of the hard work of other engineers and producers?

most consumers won't be bothered by such concerns, who are probably operating under the motto of "i want it and i want it cheap." all i ask is for people to consider the thoughts and feelings of artists, engineers, and producers when they decide where to get their music from.

Edited April 22, 2009 by robviti

[Niko]

guess bb steve didn't talk about buying them in the US...

i ordered some of these from caiman through amazon.de market place - did i do something illegal there / did they do something illegal...?

[CJ Shearn]

BigBeatSteve, the reason I don't like that these Andorran reissues or whatever are coming out is because, I support Blue Note. And how they present their product, flaws and all.

[ejp626]

so when someone points out that "a law is a law," let's be honest with ourselves about what the law says, whether we agree with the law or not.

even if a music recording is not covered by copyright, why is it okay for european companies to steal the work of people who remixed, reedited, and/or remastered the original recordings? some of these outfits may invest in their own remasters, but what about the others? and for those who did their own remastering, did they use original sources, or did they begin with a previous remaster that was the result of the hard work of other engineers and producers?

Sure, a law is a law. And the copyright law has been consistently interpreted to only apply to recording date and not to remasterings. So it is perfectly legal for Europeans to buy anything from the PD folks so long as the 50 year window is observed. (True, it is possible that the cover art has a different legal status. I'm not as sure of that.) We seem not to have such a hard time accepting this for printed material (most of the classics are in PD and any publisher can compete to put out any edition they would like), but get so hung up over music.

Laws can change. They could stretch to cover remasterings, but they don't. The current copyright regime in the US could be (and certainly ought to be) shortened; it could be lengthened. I think the law is completely removed from ethics; they are separate things. There is no point in playing holier than thou over copyright laws and their loopholes. Once you claim there is some sort of universal ethics that would automatically include this but exclude this, I would counter that the current copyright laws are such a distortion of the Founders' original intent that they themselves are unethical. Again, not to do this to death, but Night Waves on BBC just had a piece on Handel and how he along with every other composer of his age would basically be liable for thousands of pounds of damages if today's intellectual property rights regime was in place in his era; the point was that Western civilization would be so much poorer for it.

As far as loopholes, I think there is an interesting issue for people who travel or live abroad. I bought several items that were legal in the UK at the time I was living there. Should I destroy them when I return to the US? Should I have declared them separately from all the other CDs I brought back and forth, which were indeed passed through customs (I didn't smuggle anything in either direction). I think it is actually an interesting grey area that is hardly touched upon, since import rules sometimes do make exceptions for limited quantities of items normally barred if they are for personal use (I think importing peanut butter into the UK was one). Does the length of time a PD CD is in my possession before returning to the US matter? So if I lived there 5 years everything would be kosher, but if I was there for a weekend trip it would not be. Rules can be drawn up to cover all these cases, but they will be arbitrary and again separate from the ethics of it all.

[carnivore]

Regarding European reissue labels like Master of Jazz, Classics etc - would we prefer to retain our 'moral purity' and do without the opportunity of listening to literally thousands of recordings that, left to the US record industry would be withheld from us forever, save for listening on original issues. Do we honestly think that Major Conglomerate Inc. will put together a CD of 'The Obscure Chicagoans' or give a toss about Bennie Moten or Wardell Gray? A friend who works at SONY tells me that Marketing have declined to put out a Benny Goodman set that had been planned for the centenary. The set had been put together with material that was varied and resourced in such a way that it would have been a useful addition to most collections. Still - Marketing, and I presume. Accounting said 'No' Not even to be made available for download.

[Chalupa]

I just wonder how having a shorter time span for copyright will effect what happens to the original source material? I mean once the original recording is in the PD and the exclusive financial incentive for making money off the original source recordings is gone(or greatly limited) why would anyone spend money on archiving/preserving/storing the original source material?? You'll never break even. Sure the material would be of value from a historic perspective but those recordings will have little monetary value for the owner as compared to when the recording was still under copyright. Hopefully the original source material won't be discarded when it enters PD and will wind up at some archive somewhere.

Regarding European reissue labels like Master of Jazz, Classics etc - would we prefer to retain our 'moral purity' and do without the opportunity of listening to literally thousands of recordings that, left to the US record industry would be withheld from us forever, save for listening on original issues. Do we honestly think that Major Conglomerate Inc. will put together a CD of 'The Obscure Chicagoans' or give a toss about Bennie Moten or Wardell Gray? A friend who works at SONY tells me that Marketing have declined to put out a Benny Goodman set that had been planned for the centenary. The set had been put together with material that was varied and resourced in such a way that it would have been a useful addition to most collections. Still - Marketing, and I presume. Accounting said 'No' Not even to be made available for download.

Carnivore makes a good point. Instead of having the market flooded with reissues I think actually we'll see less re-issues(and re-issues of lesser quality) once this stuff enters in PD. Again, the lack of financial incentive will have a deleterious effect upon the re-issue market. Why should EMI spend the time and money to remaster their Blue Note catalog that was recorded before this date in 1959 if the Andorrans are going to put out a cheaper version using their material a few weeks later? I mean if sound quality isn't an issue for you than by all means go have a party but, if SQ is an issue for you well.....

[robviti]

...We seem not to have such a hard time accepting this for printed material (most of the classics are in PD and any publisher can compete to put out any edition they would like), but get so hung up over music.

you're right, i'm more concerned with protecting recorded performances than written works, including music compositions. compositions are open to repeated readings and interpretations, while performances and especially improvisations cannot be repeated, only replicated. someone can play a charlie parker solo note for note with a written transcription, but you have to buy a recording of bird if you want to experience what that performance really is.

...There is no point in playing holier than thou over copyright laws and their loopholes. Once you claim there is some sort of universal ethics that would automatically include this but exclude this, I would counter that the current copyright laws are such a distortion of the Founders' original intent that they themselves are unethical.

i hope you're not accusing me of being "holier than thou." i apologize if i came across that way. i'm just sharing my opinion and encouraging people to be honest with themselves about how they make their music-buying decisions.

...Night Waves on BBC just had a piece on Handel and how he along with every other composer of his age would basically be liable for thousands of pounds of damages if today's intellectual property rights regime was in place in his era; the point was that Western civilization would be so much poorer for it...

are we discussing intellectual property rights or the unauthorized use of actual physical property? no one is saying we should haul sonny rollins off to jail every time he quotes another person's composition in his solos. if he were to record a solo over another person's recorded work (like natalie cole's duet with her father), then he'd be responsible to get permission or pay royalties. "western civilization would be so much poorer for it?" surely a ploy to tug at our heartstrings (or at least our gut strings).

As far as loopholes, I think there is an interesting issue for people who travel or live abroad. I bought several items that were legal in the UK at the time I was living there. Should I destroy them when I return to the US? Should I have declared them separately from all the other CDs I brought back and forth, which were indeed passed through customs (I didn't smuggle anything in either direction).

for the moment, let's put aside your nefarious dealings at the border (i picture you wearing a red fez, appearing quite calm and collected to the casual observer). that scenario is insignificant compared to the widespread importing of these european reissues by online and brick-and-mortar companies in the u.s. has anyone claimed this behavior is the result of a "loophole?" it seems to me more like an unwillingness to uphold the law as it stands. which brings me to my final thought: if existing laws are not being enforced, maybe they should be struck down, not just ignored. on the other hand, maybe two wrongs can make a right! how about we tax the shit out of these imports? that way, everyone can buy the music they want to buy, and the government can stop taxing my goddamn cigars!

[Big Beat Steve]

I just wonder how having a shorter time span for copyright will effect what happens to the original source material? I mean once the original recording is in the PD and the exclusive financial incentive for making money off the original source recordings is gone(or greatly limited) why would anyone spend money on archiving/preserving/storing the original source material?? You'll never break even. Sure the material would be of value from a historic perspective but those recordings will have little monetary value for the owner as compared to when the recording was still under copyright. Hopefully the original source material won't be discarded when it enters PD and will wind up at some archive somewhere.

Regarding European reissue labels like Master of Jazz, Classics etc - would we prefer to retain our 'moral purity' and do without the opportunity of listening to literally thousands of recordings that, left to the US record industry would be withheld from us forever, save for listening on original issues. Do we honestly think that Major Conglomerate Inc. will put together a CD of 'The Obscure Chicagoans' or give a toss about Bennie Moten or Wardell Gray? A friend who works at SONY tells me that Marketing have declined to put out a Benny Goodman set that had been planned for the centenary. The set had been put together with material that was varied and resourced in such a way that it would have been a useful addition to most collections. Still - Marketing, and I presume. Accounting said 'No' Not even to be made available for download.

Carnivore makes a good point. Instead of having the market flooded with reissues I think actually we'll see less re-issues(and re-issues of lesser quality) once this stuff enters in PD. Again, the lack of financial incentive will have a deleterious effect upon the re-issue market. Why should EMI spend the time and money to remaster their Blue Note catalog that was recorded before this date in 1959 if the Andorrans are going to put out a cheaper version using their material a few weeks later? I mean if sound quality isn't an issue for you than by all means go have a party but, if SQ is an issue for you well.....

I am sorry but overall this is not true, and besides, it is EXACTLY that tunnel vision I mentioned earlier.

I certainly won't condone duplicating reissue projects (launched by "legit" labels) by one of those P.D. labels but again, this is NOT a European or Andorran specialty (please read my earlier post and then tell me you never bought ANY of those all-U.S. LPs I mentioned - if you did not then this probably only was because you did not happen to be that interested in swing-era jazz, but if you had been then you'd snapped some of these up too , I bet ). But what is more, while it may well be that some majors think twice about this or that reissue project of a major artist this is just the tip of the iceberg of the reissue world, and we don't even know if those majors shy away from such projects because they fear a ripoff from a P.D. label or because they just cannot make enough dough on them even if no one else got in on the act. (Makes me wonder why that remastered Louis Armstrong Hot Five ever saw the light of day under these circumstances, BTW ). I guess no matter how well you rule out any ripoffs following legit reissue projects, that kind of jazz would hardly ever be reissued comprehensively by the majors anyway because it's jsut not profitable to them by ANY standards as it is waaaaay too much of a (minor) niche market, and I think it was THIS point Carnivore was making.

But the statement "we'll see less re-issues" just is not true. I just picked a few CDs from the nearest stack here, and what do I have? "The Complete Lem Johnson 1940-53", "Felix Gross Complete Recordings 1947-55", Marvin Johnson - Jumpy Rhythm Jive 1946-51", all of them on Blue Moon (Barcelona and/or Andorra), and then "King Perry 1950-54" on Classics (Blues & Rhythm series). Now would you please tell me which MAJOR record company would EVER have considered reissuing those recordings in what you would call "legitimiate" terms? Please name just ONE recent project of those artists (picked totally AT RANDOM, and the list could be continued ad infinitum) on a MAJOR label! Heck, they couldn't have cared less - even in the case of Marvin Johnson who was on Capitol (a.o.)! Where would the collector be if there were none of those P.D. labels? And the same holds true not only for R&B. Would we ever have heard 50s jazz LPs from the Stepheny or other similarly oscure labels again if it had not been for the "Andorrans"? Which U.S. major would have bothered e.g. about the Stepheny label AT ALL? So really now, please rethink your statements!

Not to mention the fact that it is easy to see those "Andorrans" jump on other majors' bandwagons (such as the labels previously catered for by OJC), seeing that the OJC reissue policy seems to be going down the drain fast. How many around here had been complaining of the mess caused to then OJC catalog by the current rights holders? And this was BEFORE P.D. labels jumped on that bandwagon. So in case like this you really can't say the P.D. labels had discouraged those rights holders from pursuing a comprehensive reissue policy.

Anyway, some of you are really out front and real fast when it comes to breathing down the necks of "the Andorrans" (a pet peeve of some around here, it seems ) but how come I hardly ever hear "Brits" mentioned instead of "Andorrans"? May I remind you how often people have been drooling here on this very forum about a certain British box set producer, despite the fact that their P.D. reissue policy in fact duplicates a LOT of other reissue material on other labels that paved the way (of which some, such as Ace, definitely are the fully legitimate holders of the rights of material that is old enough to have fallen into P.D. a decade ago, and yet they have BOUGHT the reissue rights, and still the same artists crop up on those box sets on that other Brit label, and people keep drooling about it).

More blatant cases can be found even in other of those box set projects, e.g. in the case of an "Accordion Jazz" box set. Now what would you guess if I told you about two thirds of another (older) accordion jazz box set issued in France by Fremeaux Associés happen to crop up on that box set too, and the remainder (intended to show post-war accordion jazz) comes from two LPs by one single artist (Mat Mathews), both records of which are past the 50-year limit too? Do you really think this is a case of not enough accordion jazz being around to avoid those duplications? C'mon, I could rattle off more than a handful in the very same vein that have never been reissued. Reeks more of a case of using what's EASILY available for re-reissue with a fairly limited amount of one's own work. Digging out all-new material that would not have duplicated but COMPLEMENTED that Fremeaux Associés project (e.g. by reissuing not Mat Mathews' material over again but maybe Angelo Di Pippo's jazz LP on Apollo or maybe Johnny Hamlin for samples of 50s accordion jazz), now that would have been something else for a change. But it would have meant more remastering work, so ...

So the basic difference to the reissue policy of the Andorrans really is inexistent IMHO, yet people have been drooling about that label.

Double standards around here? Looks very much so to me, sorry to say ...

Postscript: Personally I don't have any problems with those P.D. reissue labels if they respect the 50-year P.D. cutoff limits applicable here in Europe but what I do find a bit annoying is how people single out certain reissue labels to put all the blame on them. If you want to nag about those Europe-based P.D. labels then go the WHOLE way, even if this means you have to forego the pleasure of adding this or that dirt-cheap "non-Andorran" but other "European" P.D. box set or single CD to your collection.

And remember a LOT of the "Classics" series dear to the hearts of many U.S. forumists around here technicaly falls into the same category too as far as the P.D. cutoff dates are concerned (and whoever wants to see special protection from P.D. releases accorded to labels like Blue Note but couldn't care less about other original-release labels is definitely using double standards as long as the U.S. P.D. time limits are still being "infringed").

Enough of this rant now but it just had to be said ...

Edited April 22, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[jazzbo]

As I remember it, the first time we talked about the Andorrans with a sneer. . . was when they started reissuing itmes NOT within the fifty year period. . . and they've continued on that path. That's very different than the issue of fifty year plus old recordings.

The thing that interests me is that recordings that are technically not legal for sale in the US are distributed by distributors that distribute the disc of the US legal holders of property. Surely the distributors could be made to stop sending them to the stores both brick and virtual. . . yet they don't.

Rob is right: the law is the law. But hardly ANYONE seems to be paying attention to this one in that no one is stopping their sale. Weird.