32 hours of Monk

[Hardbopjazz]

Back in January while I was driving to work I was listening to Bird flight. Phil had T.S. Monk and his brother-in-law on the show. They mentioned that they've recently acquired over 32 hours of pristine Thelonious Monk recordings that T.S. and his brother-in-law never knew existed from a collector. Phil started talking and he went on and on and before long I arrived at my office and never heard if these recordings would be issued. I then just remembered that the station is no longer streaming was even more upset. I sent an email to the station but I haven't gotten a reply. Does anyone know about these recordings? What are these? T.S. Monk was very excited about these discoveries. 

Edited February 12, 2016 by Hardbopjazz

[Tom 1960]

Hardbopjazz, I came across this article from 2003 which could shed some light on your question. Apparently, TS runs his own label and planned at the time to release some of these recordings. Here's the article, read down and he makes mention of these recordings. http://jazztimes.com/articles/19699-t-s-monk-underground-monk

[Hardbopjazz]

Thanks. 

The Bird Flight I was listening to may have been a repeat. 

Edited February 12, 2016 by Hardbopjazz

[l p]

yes, that info sounds like it would be from an old broadcast.

 

from the linked article-

>>> But Thelonious didn’t have that kind of commitment behind him, so he started recording himself, and a lot of other people started recording him too, because they couldn’t get live recordings of him. >>>

 

this isn't really true. 95% of the unissued material is from european radio/tv broadcasts. there are very few audience recordings of monk. but they (the family) do seem to have family tapes and nica's tapes. although there may be very little of this material, and it may all be released and in circulation now.

 

i've wondered why that family site stopped selling cd's shortly after starting. probably got sued by columbia or families of the sidemen. it was a very brief endeavor.

 

[jlhoots]

I have several of them. They're pretty good.

[l p]

so if a musician is exclusively signed to a label, then that musician's family can't release any tapes from the time frame that he was signed to that label. it's kind of a fucked up deal now for collectors and for the families of the musicians. there would be a lot more music out there for us to hear if the families could release anything that they wanted.

[Rooster_Ties]

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 0:01 PM, l p said:

so if a musician is exclusively signed to a label, then that musician's family can't release any tapes from the time frame that he was signed to that label. it's kind of a fucked up deal now for collectors and for the families of the musicians. there would be a lot more music out there for us to hear if the families could release anything that they wanted.

Would be nice if there was some kind of statute of limitations on such contracts.  Like the label had exclusive rights to release anything recording during the timeframe in question for a period of 25 years, after which the rights would revert back to the family.  Or something like that.  30 years, even 50 years -- just some kind of deadline to give some incentive for the rights holder(s) to not sit on material infinitely.

[ctuck1]

On 2/12/2016 at 10:42 AM, Hardbopjazz said:

Thanks. 

The Bird Flight I was listening to may have been a repeat. 

I notice Bird Flight has featured old broadcasts recently.  Heard an old interview with Eddie Durham upon Jo Jones' passing last week.