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garthsj
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Posts posted by garthsj
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Stan Levey
Russ Freeman
Milt Bernhart
Shorty Rogers was NOT Jewish by religion, but by birth, I believe.
Sammy Davis Jr.
Max Kaminsky
Sol Yaged
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There is much food for thought here ... Thanks so far folks ....
Garth.
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how is the sound quality on lonehill releases, in general, poor, fair,good?. i was thinking about the best of the west vol 1 & 2. but if it is going to be that poor, i would have second thoughts about placing an order.
Damn! Again .. by the time I posted that I had ordered from DG they were already sold out of "The Best From The West" .. so I am afraid I can't answer your question ... but I do have the John Graas set, and that is definitely taken from LPs ... the sound is O.K. but there is audible surface noise. On the other hand the John Lewis, Orchestra U.S.A. and the Gerry Mulligan/Art Farmer Concert albums are very good ... so I guess it all depends where they get the source material. I must assume that they DO NOT have access to the original BN 10" tapes ...
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Actually, CD piracy is illegal in Malaysia, just as it is in most every other country. There's just some, shall we say, "inefficient" enforcement of the law in this regard. I met a 21-year-old kid there who was basically running his own DVD mafia, paying off customs officers and keeping a truck with all the merchandise waiting at the bottom of the mall where his store was, ready to split if the cops showed up.
What I don't understand is why they would bother to pirate specialty items like Mosaic sets, which don't sell more than a few thousand copies anyway. It makes no sense and I would be surprised if they were even aware of the demand.
Perhaps they figure it is safer to rip off little outfits like Mosaic than step on the toes of a Sony, or other larger operation, who could say what the hell and if they wanted to, and spend a few thou on legal fees.
I will repeat what I said above ... I do NOT think that they are "ripping off" anyone in the usual sense of piracy. It would cost far too much money to duplicate all those albums, and the boxes and ancillary material (such production costs are more expensive than actually producing the CDs ... You have to have special dies cut, printing, binding, etc.) ... so the merchandise apparently is the genuine article ... none of the criticisms they received indicate a problem with the product ... mostly non response and late, or no delivery. So .... how do they do it for this price? ... THAT is the mystery ... and if we could get an answer out of Mosaic as to whether they are, in actual fact, selling wholesale to this organization it would go a long way to solving the mystery.
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Actually, CD piracy is illegal in Malaysia, just as it is in most every other country. There's just some, shall we say, "inefficient" enforcement of the law in this regard. I met a 21-year-old kid there who was basically running his own DVD mafia, paying off customs officers and keeping a truck with all the merchandise waiting at the bottom of the mall where his store was, ready to split if the cops showed up.
What I don't understand is why they would bother to pirate specialty items like Mosaic sets, which don't sell more than a few thousand copies anyway. It makes no sense and I would be surprised if they were even aware of the demand.
Boy! If they are pirating these albums then they need some jazz expert giving them advice ... if you check out their full catalog you will see some very specialized items, and some offerings that would really tax the ingenuity of someone trying to duplicate such things as the Dexter Gordon, Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis boxes .... and why would anyone pirate the already pirated Lonehill Jazz material? I don't even pretend to have an answer to what these people ARE up to, but based on the comments, even the negative ones, their merchandise does seem to be genuine ... so how can they sell those boxes for $11.03? I wish I knew ... it is so tempting to just wade in .. and then wait a year!
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I am always tremendously impressed with the expertise on this board, and particularly in this audio section, so here is my dumb, naive challenge and request for advice. I am expecting a small royalty check from one of my publishers, and every year I just deposit it into my bank account, where it goes to pay my property taxes, the light bill, or assist my jazz jones. This year I would like to upgrade my audio setup .... basically at the moment I am using the CD player and speakers that came (as a free gift) with the new Phillips HDTV extended TV as part of "the home theater" setup. (This is surprsingly good, but clearly I need something with more sonic quality). In the past I had a Carver 2000 receiver, with "Infinite Slope" J.S.E. speakers. (I also had a Thorens TD 318 turntable ... but I no longer have any LPs ... ) ... BTW, all of this is for sale if anyone is interested ....
So ... If you had $2,000 - $2,500 to spend for a "quality" CD playing setup, what would you buy? (I would appreciate links to any equipment you recommend if that is possible).
Thanks in advance for the advice ... Garth.
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Hmmmmmm .. I found these listings on DG .... The Tony Scott is a real mish-mash .. damn! They could have done a better job of pulling this material together... I already have most of it, and Rhino reissued a pristine version (from the original tapes) of the Milt Hinton album several years ago. The trip to The Bastards was useful though in that I picked the Conte Candoli "Little Big Band"; The "Best Of the West": and an expensive Japanese mini-LP of Tony Scott's great Brunswick album, "In Hi-Fi" ... an expensive morning, but worth it.
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This label continues to put out a lot of titles, and one of the new releases combines the two Blue Note "Best From The West" volumes, as mentioned by mikeweil in another thread.
But what do you say about the title of this one?
I would be interested .. where did you see these albums posted? I assume that the Tony Scott includes the Bethlehem, Brunswick and Dawn albums..... It would be nice to have the two 10" "Best of the West" available .. but why doesn't BN do it themselves. Lonehill does fill in some gaps, but unfortunately they make their dupes from vinyl ... and the surface noise is very obvious.
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I saw Buddy DeFranco last week.
Mr. DeFranco is 81 and he was great. It was an unforgettable experience.
.... as you said .....
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DEAR GOD!! THIS WILL BE MY THIRD, AND OFTEN FOURTH VERSION OF THESE!!! (Do Liberty LP editions count?)
..... and then some joker told me earlier this week that my hearing was deteriorating ... so why should I bother? But Damn! I guess I will go for it .... why stop now? My son could always use the original CDs ... sssshhhh! He doesn't know any better, having just started his collection with my castaways .... but what about my TOCJ's? ... Questions, questions!
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Just this past week I showed "D.O.A." (1949) in my class, Social Aspects of Film. This is one of the great Film Noirs, starring Edmond O'Brien as the "murdered" Frank Bigelow hunting for his killer. There is a great scene in a jazz club where the frantic music is a clear indicator that something "crazy" is about to happen. (Frank's drink is spiked with "luminous poison"!) Even as a kid I was fascinated by this rather long scene of jazz musicians sweating, mugging, and generally acting like every stereotype of a 1940's dope-fiend hipster you can conjure up. There is even some gratuitous hipster banter with a very "cool chick" at the bar .... so you mavens out there ... who were these musicians? (I know ... but I am just testing the famed expertise on this board) ...
Garth.
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Gee! I am amazed that no one from England has mentioned the "great" Freddy Gardner .... his records, particularly things like "Roses of Picardy" were staples in my household when I was growing up ... He sounded a bit like Johnny Hodges. Does anyone even know of him these days? ... In an age when the saxophone was not exactly a major instrument in popular music, Gardner was the Kenny G. of his time ... a rather backhanded compliment I know ... but he sold lots of records in his time.
......My father wanted me to develop a tone like his as the "ideal" for an alto player .... I wanted to sound like Art Pepper!
Garth.
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Some might say too much high end and have even speculated about RVG having some high frequency hearing loss.
Older people always have increasing high-frequency hearing loss. Some more than others, though.
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This is taken from my notes .... I am not sure which site I got it from ...
Thanks for finding the source Couw; I will now make the correct citation in my notes ... I am usually careful with sources ... in my business you can't be too careful.
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The first two bans (1942, 1948) I am aware of. However the 1958 ban is new to me. Did it have any effects like recording sessions being put to a stop?
This is taken from my notes .... I am not sure which site I got it from ... it should answer your question.
A Brief History of the Recording Musicians Association
In an attempt to protect the live music industry, AFM President Petrillo ordered a ban on phonograph/transcription recordings in 1942. In 1944, the ban was lifted as the AFM had negotiated fixed royalties for each album produced by the record companies. By 1951, the royalty payment amounted to 5% of the overall budget for TV productions, which led to "track libraries" being produced overseas to circumvent the royalty payments. LA musicians were losing work, and even Desi Arnez was pleading their case to AFM officials in New York.
Petrillo in 1955 began to divert the $25 payment for film reuse on TV from the recording musicians to the new MPTF program; the total roylaties diverted came to almost $2 million. Full-time recording musicians, receiving no pension, royalty, or reuse payments, and unable to ratify their own contracts, now became upset over the loss of these funds to the MPTF program, and in 1956 began a revolt led by Local 47 VP Cecil Read. Before the revolt would end, the leaders would be expelled from the AFM and they would make national news, seeing their cause reported in the LA Times, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and others.
During the 1958 motion picture strike, these "renegades" formed the Musicians Guild of America. If the AFM would not represent their interests, they would form their own union to represent their needs. An NLRB election gave representation rights at the major studios to the MGA, taking them away from the AFM. The new AFM leadership took this, as well as the formation of the Recording Society of NY, as a wake-up call, and began to follow suit, eliminating the 5% TV royalty tax and creating a pension plan. The AFM won back representation rights to the studios in 1960 and began talks to reunite with the MGA recording musicians, offering the Special Payments Fund, a recording advisory committee, and the ability to ratify contracts as incentives to put an end to the dual unionism.
The RMA of NY was formed in 1969 to offer more input from recording musicians during negotiations. When the AFM "gave back" 25 years of progress through negotiations in 1982 by making a sweetheart deal to legitimize nonunion rates at San Diego jingle house Tuesday Productions, recording musicians used this as a rallying cry to form a national RMA, eventually with chapters in NY, LA, Chicago, Nashville, and Toronto.
The RMA exists to unify recording musicians and coordinate their efforts. They lobbied for and were eventually given AFM Conference Status in 1987. Some of the goals the RMA has worked toward since its founding are:
* Oversight of the AFM-EPF, forcing it to be a better performer
* Publication of a national directory and scales in 1971
* 1994 creation of Low Budget Contract to keep scoring from moving overseas
* Creation of EMSD in 1990
* Testifying before Congress over Digital Performance Rights in Sound Recording Act in 1995
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Many Thanks Couw .... Hmmmmmmmm .. this does not make it a very economical prospect if I want to buy 10 or so .... Continental Airlines was running a special airfare to Paris or London for $329 return if I booked before midnight tonight ... that might be a better deal for me..
Seriously though, at E4,99 plus E4,00 for mailing the total of E9,00 is about $11.74 each .. still cheaper than here, without mailing. Are there magic German phrases that will alert me to which of the sellers do not ship to the U.S.?
It is interesting that I have not been able to locate a U.S. source for those Sonets yet. I tried all of the usual places, including Cadence and World Records, without success. Has anyone out there found a source yet?
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Pardon a dumb question ... I would like to replace many of the Sonet LPs I used to own with these new CDs .. so I checked out the Amazon.de site .... there they all are for E7,77!! (Except for the Buddy DeFranco I wanted .. sniff, sniff). My question is ... some are available for E4,99 for "used" CDs .... will these smaller, private sellers mail to the U.S. or is this on an individual basis? Anyone have an opinion? What is the average mailing price of a CD from Germany?
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This is an interesting, if threatening thread. For someone like me, honing my jazz tastes in the fifties, the battle was more along the lines of Contemporary, Pacific Jazz, and Verve vs. Prestige, Blue Note and Riverside, with Atlantic, Columbia, Capitol, and RCA somewhere in the middle. I loved the smaller esoteric labels like Mode, Bethlehem, Signal (God! I could retire on all of my originals if I still had them), Fantasy, and Savoy. I once owned the entire Andex catalog -- no big deal, there were only about 12 of them, and a few dogs too.
I know I am leaving out many labels like Metrojazz, Mercury, Liberty, Decca, Roulette, etc ... but the battle lineup I indicated was my limited vision of the jazz world at that time ... and in far off Cape Town, many of those labels were just not available to me. I used to read about all of these great albums in Metronome and Downbeat and feel sick with desire to own them. Ordering albums directly from the U.S. was very difficult at that time, and incredibly expensive. Two 12" albums took most of my 15 year-old allowance! I once spent my tennis lesson money on buying the latest Buddy DeFranco album, and I had to fake going to lessons for a month .... tennis anyone?!!
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I hope that this is not self-serving, but here is a short account of the Petrillo AFM incident that I wrote as a "sidebar" for a book on the history of popular culture which has not yet been published. It might be useful as a background for those on this board who know nothing of the history of this event.
The AFM Recording Strike, 1942-1944
One of the strangest events in the history of the American recording industry was the strike by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) from August 1942 to November 1944. The history of the this strike starts in the mid-1930s, when the unemployment of musicians had increased dramatically due to the use of talking motion pictures and the decline of vaudeville. The fact that the Depression caused people to stay at home and listen to the radio and the increasing use of juke boxes in public places had added to the demise of live music. When he had been the head of the Chicago local of the AFM, James Caesar Petrillo, recognizing the harmful impact that "canned" music would have on the members of his union, had forced the radio industry to employ union musicians to manipulate turntables and program commercial records in radio stations. However, when Petrillo was elected as the president of the national AFM he decided to bide his time before seeking to redress the grievances of the musicians.
As the battle between ASCAP and BMI was being waged in the late 1930s and early 1940s Petrillo patiently waited to see how the courts would rule on the issue of royalties and fee payments. Eventually he decided that the best place to attack would not be the radio stations or live music locations, but the record companies. The AFM was a relatively powerful union in 1942, and no live performance where admission was charged could be given anywhere, even by high school or amateur musicians, without the consent of the union. Petrillo approached the leaders of the recording industry in early 1942 asking for a flat rate to be paid to his union for each record pressed. His threat was to keep all musicians out of recording studios if the union's demands were not met. The recording industry doubted that he could make good on this promise, and they rejected the offer.
When the members of the AFM gathered in Dallas for their annual convention in June 1942 the mood was militant, and Petrillo outlined his plan of attack. Union musicians would not be allowed to make any more recordings after a specific date except for those intended for the war effort or for use in the home. This basically meant that all recording would stop because the record industry could not control their product once it was shipped from their warehouses. No one in the recording industry seemed to take this threat too seriously, however an order went out to every AFM local in the country that after July 31, 1942 all recording engagements should be refused. This order applied to everyone in the union, from the pianist at the local bar to the piccolo player in the Philadelphia Symphony. The result was that on August 1, 1942, the recording studios at Columbia, Decca and RCA Victor were effectively shut down.
It took a little while before the effects of the ban were noticed because record companies usually had a sizeable amount of back material "in the can" which they could issue. However, the public was used to having a wave of new material issued each month. The record buyers quickly discovered that music that they heard on the radio in live performances and in the theater could not be found in the record stores. The musical Oklahoma! had been a smash hit on Broadway, but there were no records of its popular songs available, except on live radio broadcasts.
The silence in the studios continued, and the record companies were beginning to feel the pinch. While some smaller companies did sign with the AFM, the "big three" remained steadfast in their opposition to the strike. The record companies had hoped that President Roosevelt would intervene on their behalf because of the need for morale-building entertainment during the war, but even this did not work. The first of the "big three" to give in after thirteen months was Decca, which had no more product to release. The company signed a contract with terms specifying royalties from a quarter of a cent to five cents on every record sold, payable to the AFM for help to its members. The first major project that Decca undertook once the ban was lifted was to record and release the original cast recording of Oklahoma! which then sold 1,300,000 albums at $5 each.
Both Columbia and RCA Victor continued to hold out, but at the end of two years both companies were getting to the bottom of their stockpiles. Another factor was that Decca Records was beginning to make serious inroads into their markets especially with juke boxes, and on Armistice Day 1944, both companies signed agreements with the AFM on terms similar to that reached with Decca. Almost immediately RCA Victor was recording songs from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis, and Columbia began its long association with the Philadelphia Philharmonic.
The ban itself has some peculiarities, for example, Petrillo did not consider the harmonica a "musical instrument," and therefore groups such as the Harmonicats were able to make records and accompany singers. Some vocalists such as Frank Sinatra made records accompanied by "a cappella" vocal groups. The recording industry did, however, continue to turn our "V-discs" for the war effort, and much of the big band music that has survived from this period has been taken from this source. There were further strikes by the AFM in 1948, and later in 1958 but nothing on the scale of the infamous two-year ban during World War II.
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As an admirer of the detective novels, I purchased a copy of the book on jazz exiles, and found it to be quite fascinating. Moody lets the exiles mostly tell their own story, and I had my eyes opened as to how much difficulty many of them had, and the reverse racism encountered by many of the white musicians. Essentially most of these people found that their "novelty" appeal wore thin after a while, and the jobs, and their pay packets began to get slimmer over time. The club owners and concert audiences were always looking for the latest "thing" ... This accounts for the fact that so many of them came home to the U.S. after encountering difficulties in Europe. Moody does not offer much in the way of historical or sociological interpretation, but the book does make a genuine contribution to the jazz literature.
Garth.
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Garth -- I recall mentioning the Levitt RCA's to Michael Cuscuna several years back as a possible Mosaic set, but Cuscuna felt that there might be too few potential buyers. So far there are least two of us, because all I have are the Riverside and "Insight." BTW, when the whole Wyntonian era began to manifest itself, particularly Wynton's lame compositional salutes to THE TRADITION, I often though of Levitt, who could quite naturally work deep and subtle homages to the jazz past into music that also was undeniably his own and was damn good music too.
It constantly amazes me what does, and, of course, does NOT get reissued. I guess it is an imposition of my own tastes, but I wonder who makes these decisions, and what marketing data they have to justify their actions. Hmmmmmmm... I could just as easily be talking about the films released from Hollywood .... Which bright-eyed studio exec greenlights some of them suckers??
Regarding the Levitt RCA albums, I am surprised that RCA in Europe has not reissued them in their rather active jazz reissue series (ref. the Fresh Sounds website).
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I don't think this one's been mentioned yet ... at least in this thread. (Missed it, if so.)
Yes .. I have always loved this album; but what about reissuing his three great albums on RCA. Some of it appeared on "The Arrangers" CD, but a nice two-CD set would contain all of this wonderful and very dynamic music...
INSIGHT Rod Levitt Orchestra R.C.A. Victor
SOLID GROUND Rod Levitt Orchestra R.C.A. Victor
FORTY SECOND STREET Rod Levitt Orchestra R.C.A. Victor
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I have always been intrigued by Moondog's music, and I saw him on the streets of New York several times over the years. I like some of his pieces more than others .. but there are some wonderful pieces. I wonder how much Lincoln Continental paid his estate for the rights to use his Charlie Parker tribute "Bird's Lament" as the theme for all of their TV commercials. I almost freaked out when I first heard this as the background to a bunch of yuppies driving around in their Lincoln SUV. What perverted (or enlighted) commercial director played that subtle joke on the mass of the viewing public? I think that Mondog would have loved it!
Garth.
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Hmmmmmmmm .. I lived in Philly for four years, 1968-72, while I did my graduate work .. there was nothing like that there then! Very impressive ... what are the acoustics like?
Feb 15 RVGs
in Re-issues
Posted
I have dealt with CDUniverse extensively over the years. Their preorder service is very reliable, BUT I have had new releases arrive before, on, and after the actual release date. You have to take into account the delivery from the manufacturers, and the vagaries of the U.S. Postal Service .... My suggestion ... calm yourself for a day or so Brad ... they will arrive. Seriously, I have not purchased a CD from Borders or B&N or any other retail outlet in Houston for about four years now. Ordering online assures me that I will get what I want without having to go through the "special order" at full price routine ...
I went through the latest Jazzmatazz this morning .. and now CDUniverse have about 25 albums on preorder for me extending up to April ....