Don Byas

[Dave James]

Has anyone ever talked to Mosaic about a Don Byas set? There's more than enough material around to warrant a good-sized box, although getting the rights from all the different labels for which he recorded might be both an expansive and an expensive task.

[John L]

Here we go again...

I wanted to respond to a comment that Chuck made in the second set of comments that has now been mysteriously deleted.

I appreciate the idea expressed by Chuck that some labels that exploit EU copyright laws are worse than others, in particular those labels that are ready to steal immediatley newly remastered or released material on labels that have made a significant investment in these releases. It might still be useful to agree on an explicit black list of such labels in order to know better what the limits of discussion are on Organissimo. We have been trashing the "Andorran labels," and perhaps rightly so. But there would appear to be non-Andorran labels that are guilty of the same thing, for example JSP.

[Big Beat Steve]

I wanted to respond to a comment that Chuck made in the second set of comments that has now been mysteriously deleted.

This is getting ridiculous. Posts had disappeared en masse, and now they have been restored. Fine ... BUT - in the meantime the discussion (since that cutoff date before which those older posts had disappeared) has gone on and did yield some fruitful thoughts IMO, including on this topic. Now these are all gone. How annoying is THIS???

Why would it not have been possible to MERGE these threads, like it had been done elsewhere in the past?

I appreciate the idea expressed by Chuck that some labels that exploit EU copyright laws are worse than others, in particular those labels that are ready to steal immediatley newly remastered or released material on labels that have made a significant investment in these releases. It might still be useful to agree on an explicit black list of such labels in order to know better what the limits of discussion are on Organissimo. We have been trashing the "Andorran labels," and perhaps rightly so. But there would appear to be non-Andorran labels that are guilty of the same thing, for example JSP.

You know these blacklisting things are a borderline subject and seem to be colored by criteria that are far from historically objective. Who would you want to blacklist just by the name of the label alone?

IMO quite a few of these "Andorran" releases have received undue fire. Yes they take FULL advantage of the European P.D. rules (a rule is a rule) but they also release a LOT of stuff that NOBODY but REALLY NOBODY among the corporate bigwigs (that pretend they hold the licenses but in fact only lock those licenses away and therefore prevent access to any of it) could EVER have been bothered to even look at for a second. Do you ACTUALLY think anybody over there at Fresh Sound will get rich and reap huuuuge rewards by releasing stuff like "Jazz From The Westchester Workshop"? Or the REALLY obscure stuff held now by majors such as the Don Bagley item on Decca (now MCA etc...)? Would those who hold the Decca catalog now EVER do a COMPREHENSIVE reissue program of their own that went far enough to include (semi-)obscure artists such as Bagley? Rehashing the umpteenth big star name reissues is no accomplishment.

And why does anyone DARE to say that Fresh Sound is bad PER SE (as is often done here) though excellent releases such as the NOCTURNE label box set (another subject that NOBODY elsehwere has ever bothered tackling seriously) have been openly endorsed by the originators of the label?

Whereas, OTOH, forumists around here drool openly and excessively about labels such as Proper that have nice compilations and nice prices but clearly rehash previous (and not so old) reissues. I've given this example before but will repeat it: Just compare their Accordion Jazz box set with the contents of the Accordion Jazz box set by Fremeaux Associés (the first ones around with that really old stuff) plus the fact that the Mat Mathews etc. stuff included in that Proper box set was reissued not long ago too. And now tell me - do you REALLY think that all those overlaps of the contents are pure coincidence? There would have been a LOT more worthwhile P.D. accordion jazz that could have been reissued by Proper with ZERO overlap with the Fremeaux set and THIS is what would have served the customer (but of course that would have meant a LOT more research and remastering as it would have boiled down to FIRST TIME EVER reissues in some cases).

Sorry to say but it seems to me that whole debate is pretty much skewed around here, and Anglo-Saxon (U.S. in particular) forumists in particular seem to argue along the lines of "Anglosaxon P.D. label = good" and "Continental European P.D. label = bad). Neither fair nor appropriate, and lacking seriously in differentiated thinking.

Whereas the basic problem IMHO is: Corporates, clean up your act and keep stuff in print, for jeez sake! Then there won't be no P.D. labels. (Yes, I am deliberately disregarding sales figures. It is a niche product for ANYBODY, particularly since I doubt seriously the corporate ones keep paying their artists of decades ago once the P.D. rule has come to be applicable due to the age of the recordings. (Or would the current holders of the Savoy catalog NOW make good for Lubinsky's royalty wrongdoings? )

Edited November 7, 2012 by Big Beat Steve