Lone Hiill Reissue Program

[JSngry]

This one is a travesty. How rapid the descent from labor of love to outright theft ...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009SQ4P...7381423-0515060

And yet, there's a bit of unintendec dark humor in this Amazonian offer:

Buy this album with The Complete Blue Note Recordings ~ Herbie Nichols today!

Complete Studio Master Takes (Herbie Nichols Trio) The Complete Blue Note Recordings

Buy Together Today: $70.47

[Morganized]

Question: Do we KNOW that Lone Hill is pirating the stuff, or are we assuming it?

Two points -

1. It's my understanding that there are some countries with a 35 year copyright law.

2. Lone Hill isn't just putting out material from little, out of business labels. They're putting out material held by EMI, Sony, etc. Why wouldn't those companies go after them if there's a legality issue? And it's not artists who won't sell at all, it's Chet Baker, Count Basie, etc. And they're using cover art from the original releases in their booklets, original liner notes, etc.

Has anyone ever contacted Lone Hill to find out the basis of these releases? What do we know here, and what are we assuming?

Finally someone is beginning to ask the relevant questions. To begin with, Is anyone here really certain who owns these companies? Could it be possibe, the "legits" and the " non legits" are actually owned in whole or in part by the very same folks? I am sure that is something they may not desire to reveal, but is anyone on this Board privy to the vast corporate ownership of all of these various entities. Most of these huge international corporations have so many various corporate subsidiaries and sister corporations it would take a forensic accountant to trace where all the nickels go. Has anyone tried to trace the nickels? It probably would remind you of a giant pachinko machine!. Don't mean to be cynical here but I sure don't know who owns these corporations. I think there are folks here that are presuming some things that may not be true.

And about the 50(Eur) vs. 70(US) year copyright law that seems to trouble so many here. Since in the majority of cases the artist is dead by the time the material goes into the public domain, are we not really arguing about whether the public gets the continued benefit of his/her art......vs. some corporation, and to a much lesser degree, his/her heirs. Part of that discussion should include your views on the social relevance of an Estate Tax and should any society allow wealth( of any nature) to be continually passed from one generation to the next or should society expect its citizens/heirs to go out and create their own art and their own wealth. Just a question.

I raise these issues because they would appear to be germaine to any discussion regarding the posted topic. These companies are villified on a regular basis on this Board, but does anyone really have all the facts? Do we even know who owns them? If it should turn out that at least some of the legits and non legits have some type of common ownership then I ask you, who is the real villan then? If you owned one company that had to pay royalties and another that did not....well....????

Be careful what you presume. Until all the facts are determined I think I will just be thankful someone is keeping this great music alive !!

[david weiss]

Question: Do we KNOW that Lone Hill is pirating the stuff, or are we assuming it?

Two points -

1. It's my understanding that there are some countries with a 35 year copyright law.

2. Lone Hill isn't just putting out material from little, out of business labels. They're putting out material held by EMI, Sony, etc. Why wouldn't those companies go after them if there's a legality issue? And it's not artists who won't sell at all, it's Chet Baker, Count Basie, etc. And they're using cover art from the original releases in their booklets, original liner notes, etc.

Has anyone ever contacted Lone Hill to find out the basis of these releases? What do we know here, and what are we assuming?

Finally someone is beginning to ask the relevant questions. To begin with, Is anyone here really certain who owns these companies? Could it be possibe, the "legits" and the " non legits" are actually owned in whole or in part by the very same folks? I am sure that is something they may not desire to reveal, but is anyone on this Board privy to the vast corporate ownership of all of these various entities. Most of these huge international corporations have so many various corporate subsidiaries and sister corporations it would take a forensic accountant to trace where all the nickels go. Has anyone tried to trace the nickels? It probably would remind you of a giant pachinko machine!. Don't mean to be cynical here but I sure don't know who owns these corporations. I think there are folks here that are presuming some things that may not be true.

And about the 50(Eur) vs. 70(US) year copyright law that seems to trouble so many here. Since in the majority of cases the artist is dead by the time the material goes into the public domain, are we not really arguing about whether the public gets the continued benefit of his/her art......vs. some corporation, and to a much lesser degree, his/her heirs. Part of that discussion should include your views on the social relevance of an Estate Tax and should any society allow wealth( of any nature) to be continually passed from one generation to the next or should society expect its citizens/heirs to go out and create their own art and their own wealth. Just a question.

I raise these issues because they would appear to be germaine to any discussion regarding the posted topic. These companies are villified on a regular basis on this Board, but does anyone really have all the facts? Do we even know who owns them? If it should turn out that at least some of the legits and non legits have some type of common ownership then I ask you, who is the real villan then? If you owned one company that had to pay royalties and another that did not....well....????

Be careful what you presume. Until all the facts are determined I think I will just be thankful someone is keeping this great music alive !!

Well, I have some knowledge of these companies and I can answer some of your questions for certain as you bring up some troubling things.

First off, these companies have no, none, zero ties to any major labels or the corporations that run them. These companies are small operations, 2 or 3 people tops usually. Fresh Sound probably has 3 people working in the office (including the owner) and maybe a few more working in the warehouse where the CDs are stored and shipped from. They do not license anything from any major labels. The only perhaps legitimate thing I know of with a major label is that Fresh Sound/Absolute Distribution might legitimately distribute RCA product in Spain and legitimately license RCA recordings from BMG. Other than that, anything that was on a major label that is released by these guys are not legitimately licensed . They do have the copyright law on their side if it's over 50 years old (or 35 years if it's Andorra I'm told) but that is just for that country. The companies selling this product in the US are probably technically more guilty. I don't know why the major labels don't go after these people. I guess they just don't think it's worth their time. It would probably be difficult to track them down, sue them in their country etc etc. They don't even have addresses on their CDs so we don't really know what country some of these labels are operating out of. If the majors really wanted to go after people, their best bet again would be the places selling these products in this country. The Miles Davis estate goes after these guys all the time and the stuff disappears from the shelves.

That said, Fresh Sound has legitimately bought the catalogs of some labels and has legitimately licensed some stuff. They do do a great job with some of these re-issues and come from a place of love and knowledge when putting some of these things together. They have also bought live tapes from people and released them but just because they bought the tape from someone doesn't give them the right to put it out without clearance from the artists or their estates. As for the estate issues you raise. Are you suggesting that a shady record label should benefit more from an artist's recordings then his or her heirs? At least if it was released legitimately the estate would see some money. And since a lot of these artists didn't make a lot of money, there's a pretty good chance that the wife or children of these artists could use the money. Do you have children Morganized? Will you cut them out of your will and tell them to create their own art or wealth or would you like them to be taken care of?

Most major labels don't think it's worth the effort to re-issue most of their jazz catalog. They are part of major corporations that have a philosophy that they have to make a huge profit on everything they do. Most jazz titles don't fit this model so I guess it's good someone is making this stuff availible but it doesn't make it right. It's a wrong but there are much bigger wrongs out there to keep you up at night or distract you enough from feeling guilty about enjoying some great music released by a questionable label.

Edited January 17, 2007 by david weiss

[mikeweil]

1. We shouldn't throw all of these Spanish/Andorran labels into one basket - although they are all distributed by Fresh Sound, they are operated by different companies.

2. Some take advantage of the differing European copyright regulations, some don't seem to give a damn.

3. I read somewhere that the majors are aware, but considered that starting a lawsuit would cost them more than the license fees they would get out of it - most of it is collectors' stuff, with one or two thousand copies pressed, I assume.

4. Some issues are extremely rare stuff one is glad to hear after many years of search, so being tempted is only natural, epsecially when considering the much higher prices of Japanese issues, no matter how hard they are to find.

5. I take issue, too, against their (please consider the generalization) editing and programming policies. Stealing some rare material like the Uptown Mingus box is simply unethical. Others like the Herbie Nichols box are superfluous.

6. It seems clear they use existing CDs for their sources, just re-sequence etc. In those cases where they use LP sources, the sound sucks - i.e. the Wes Montgomery/Jon Hendricks CD.

7. The latter is an example that there is hardly any influence on the majors' reissue policy - Cuscuna reissued the Hendricks after the LoneHill was out.

My personal summary: I base my buying decisions on sound, ethical issues and rarity - and do not generalize. We know about the majors' approach, so insisting on reissues they most likely will never do is stubborn. Of course I'd prefer a Mosaic or Water etc. reissue, but life is short, and funds are limited - I opt for an ethically based mixed calculation.

One afterthought: The worst thing, of course, is that tehy probably do not pay royalties ....

Edited January 17, 2007 by mikeweil

[mikefok]

Here raise another not-so-sensible question:

What if those big music companies ,which retain the copyright of those great jazz work, remain silent, inactive and indifferent in reissue project out of business reason?

Are they taking away our right to enjoy the world heritage?

[david weiss]

There is also a chance that the majors will eventually make all this stuff available through ITunes or some other downloadable format as the costs would be minimal and it would be just adding more titles to the list as it where. I think at the moment there are still some difficulties with this, some hurdles to get over but at some point in the future this will probably be the way all this stuff becomes available (My idea would be downloads and vinyl re-issues for people who still like to own things and hold it in their hands)

[mikeweil]

Vinyl reissues have the disadvantage that they will probably not include any bonus material.

And I have issues with the sound quality of downloads: I want them only in red book standard quality or better. But I'm afraid standard procedures for treating pop downloads will creep in for convenience - so be prepared for compressed files ...... I don't like the way they usually sound.

[Big Beat Steve]

I fully agree with what Felser and Morganized just said. Too much of what's been said against Lone Hill and Fresh Sound does not give the whole picture, and there is nothing wrong with minor labels, and the 50-year copyright limit laws make this legal in a good deal of the world where the record buyers for this kind of music are. No point in debating this ...

I can understand those who bemoan that labels such as Lone Hill that seem to rip off other recent releases. I recently checked out the Parker/Gillespie Town Hall concert CD on Uptown and was slightly surprised to see that the material (although a fairly recent issue) already seems to crop up on two other (European?) labels.

That said, as a customer (not a record reseller) I'd certainly not go for a Lone Hilll release if a better produced and/or more complete release of the same material is available elsewhere on CD - for the simple reason that in many cases (at least over here in Europe) the price difference between Lone Hill and what some here call more "legit" (whatever that may mean in view of the 50-year copyright laws in Europe that are just that - laws and therefore perfectly LEGAL, like it or not!) isn't that big!

Overall I haven't seen too many of the Lone Hill releases yet though I will always be grateful to Fresh Sound and similar repro reissue labels that reissued a HUGE amount of cool 50s jazz LP's back in the VINYL days that NOBODY, but really NOBODY (least of all in the USA where for ages they have been as shortsighted as they come in their reissue policies) ever cared about and that NOBODY would EVER have reissued anywhere else on LP! And I really cannot see that all of this was illegal because at that time (the 80s) the 50-year limit had not been reached AND Fresh Sound usually put their full address on the sleeves, making them easy to track down. Besides, Jordi Pujol isn't exactly an unknown quantity (incuding in political circles).

As for the "Japanese" reissue programs, come on now! Jap reissues may be halfway affordable in the States but over here in Europe whenever any reissue says "Japan", the prices go through the roof and you are being ripped off in a big way by almost anybody who resells these! Not really very affordable in the long run ...

A final word on royalties in conjunction with the 50-year limit (and this also applies to the reply by David Weiss above): Like it's been said above, in many cases the original artists are long dead, and it is a question of ethics indeed whether their material is to benefit the heirs of their heirs (!) forever, i.e the generation AFTER their children.

Besides, many of those 50+ year-old reissues date back even further and were made at a time (especially in the 78 rpm era or in the R&B field) when the artists certainly never received ANY royalties from their work as they had been pressed into signing recordings contracts that netted them a flat fee for a session only. Now do you really think present-day "legit" owners of those labels would now all of a sudden go about crying out loud about the shadiness for their predecessors and go on to track down the heirs of the artists and ruefully pay them royalties that may have been their due for decades?

Do you really think that this would be so in each and EVERY case where it might be called for? Or would they just say "A contract is a contract" forever?

And since ethics is mentioned so often here, how about the ethical side of buying LEGIT reissues of Count Basie's late 30s Decca material, for example? As you all know Decca's Dave Kapp (or whoever of his underlings did the negotiations) managed to screw him in a big way by getting Basie to sign a contract for recording 24 sides (including MANY of his later classics!) for a flat fee of §750. Even John Hammond managed to get only marginal improvements on this! Is it ethical to make the heirs and successors of Dave Kapp's doings benefit from this?

Does anybody really have to feel THAT guilty about buying non-legit releases under THESE cicrumstances?

The same goes for the practices of other label owners, too, such as Herman Lubinsky at Savoy or the Bihari at Modern/RPM.

Also, I'd really like to see what "legit" U.S. companies have been doing in this respect in the PAST during the entire period when reissues started hitting the market. Starting in the late 70s and all through the 80s, Jonas Bernholm from Sweden reissued a HUGE amount of fantastic R&B on his Route 66 label as well as its subsidiaries (Juke Box Lil, Mr R&B, Saxophonograph, etc.). He made a point of paying the artists royalties and the royalty fees paid to the RECORDING artists (NOT the original labels!) were clearly indicated on each release. From a source close to him at the time I understand he usually went so far as to ADVANCE the royalties for a production run of 2000 LP's to the original artists at the time of release, and it is said that this came as a god-send to many artists featured on these LP's such as Amos Milburn who was severely ill at the time.

Again, you U.S. forumists who are so concerned about legit-only releases - my question is: What did U.S. companies do at that time? The Kent label being non-shady? Aw c'mon!

In short, the ethics issue of royalties might often backfire if you look closer at what happened when the recordings were made.

Just my 2c

Edited January 17, 2007 by Big Beat Steve

[david weiss]

I fully agree with what Felser and Morganized just said. Too much of what's been said against Lone Hill and Fresh Sound does not give the whole picture, and there is nothing wrong with minor labels, and the 50-year copyright limit laws make this legal in a good deal of the world where the record buyers for this kind of music are. No point in debating this ...

I can understand those who bemoan that labels such as Lone Hill that seem to rip off other recent releases. I recently checked out the Parker/Gillespie Town Hall concert CD on Uptown and was slightly surprised to see that the material (although a fairly recent issue) already seems to crop up on two other (European?) labels.

That said, as a customer (not a record reseller) I'd certainly not go for a Lone Hilll release if a better produced and/or more complete release of the same material is available elsewhere on CD - for the simple reason that in many cases (at least over here in Europe) the price difference between Lone Hill and what some here call more "legit" (whatever that may mean in view of the 50-year copyright laws in Europe that are just that - laws and therefore perfectly LEGAL, like it or not!) isn't that big!

Overall I haven't seen too many of the Lone Hill releases yet though I will always be grateful to Fresh Sound and similar repro reissue labels that reissued a HUGE amount of cool 50s jazz LP's back in the VINYL days that NOBODY, but really NOBODY (least of all in the USA where for ages they have been as shortsighted as they come in their reissue policies) ever cared about and that NOBODY would EVER have reissued anywhere else on LP! And I really cannot see that all of this was illegal because at that time (the 80s) the 50-year limit had not been reached AND Fresh Sound usually put their full address on the sleeves, making them easy to track down. Besides, Jordi Pujol isn't exactly an unknown quantity (incuding in political circles).

As for the "Japanese" reissue programs, come on now! Jap reissues may be halfway affordable in the States but over here in Europe whenever any reissue says "Japan", the prices go through the roof and you are being ripped off in a big way by almost anybody who resells these! Not really very affordable in the long run ...

A final word on royalties in conjunction with the 50-year limit (and this also applies to the reply by David Weiss above): Like it's been said above, in many cases the original artists are long dead, and it is a question of ethics indeed whether their material is to benefit the heirs of their heirs (!) forever, i.e the generation AFTER their children.

Besides, many of those 50+ year-old reissues date back even further and were made at a time (especially in the 78 rpm era or in the R&B field) when the artists certainly never received ANY royalties from their work as they had been pressed into signing recordings contracts that netted them a flat fee for a session only. Now do you really think present-day "legit" owners of those labels would now all of a sudden go about crying out loud about the shadiness for their predecessors and go on to track down the heirs of the artists and ruefully pay them royalties that may have been their due for decades?

Do you really think that this would be so in each and EVERY case where it might be called for? Or would they just say "A contract is a contract" forever?

And since ethics is mentioned so often here, how about the ethical side of buying LEGIT reissues of Count Basie's late 30s Decca material, for example? As you all know Decca's Dave Kapp (or whoever of his underlings did the negotiations) managed to screw him in a big way by getting Basie to sign a contract for recording 24 sides (including MANY of his later classics!) for a flat fee of §750. Even John Hammond managed to get only marginal improvements on this! Is it ethical to make the heirs and successors of Dave Kapp's doings benefit from this?

Does anybody really have to feel THAT guilty about buying non-legit releases under THESE cicrumstances?

The same goes for the practices of other label owners, too, such as Herman Lubinsky at Savoy or the Bihari at Modern/RPM.

Also, I'd really like to see what "legit" U.S. companies have been doing in this respect in the PAST during the entire period when reissues started hitting the market. Starting in the late 70s and all through the 80s, Jonas Bernholm from Sweden reissued a HUGE amount of fantastic R&B on his Route 66 label as well as its subsidiaries (Juke Box Lil, Mr R&B, Saxophonograph, etc.). He made a point of paying the artists royalties and the royalty fees paid to the RECORDING artists (NOT the original labels!) were clearly indicated on each release. From a source close to him at the time I understand he usually went so far as to ADVANCE the royalties for a production run of 2000 LP's to the original artists at the time of release, and it is said that this came as a god-send to many artists featured on these LP's such as Amos Milburn who was severely ill at the time.

Again, you U.S. forumists who are so concerned about legit-only releases - my question is: What did U.S. companies do at that time? The Kent label being non-shady? Aw c'mon!

In short, the ethics issue of royalties might often backfire if you look closer at what happened when the recordings were made.

Just my 2c

The Fresh Sound LP issues were for the most part if not all illegal. I know for a fact the Pacific Jazz stuff was not authorized. Some were just dubs from LPs (not all of them clean either).

I'm not familiar with the Route 66 label but what was source he used to get these recordings if not from the original record companies. He probably licensed the recordings from the record companies. I believe all record companies in Europe have to pay an advance on publishing royalties when they release a record.

Yes many record companies ripped off artists for years but you seem to be condoning the continuation of this practice. Some of the wrongs have been righted over the years and even when a wrong isn't committed, sometimes a label will correct some things. Blue Note wiped the slate clean for all the artists that recorded for the label in it's heyday so they didn't have to recoup before they could collect royalties.

Also, maybe I don't understand how you are using the word ethics. I don't see how it would even be a question for the estates of these musicians to reap the rewards of the work their parents or grandparents did. Put yourself into this situation, wouldn't you want your children (or grandchildren) to benefit from any proceeds of any work (or investments you made) you did rather than anyone else. It's ridiculous to me that this question is even debated.

The 50 year copyright law is a strange law and not a fair one. It gives these companies the right to put out material that others legitimately own in their country without compensating anyone. This is criminal but it is the law. I wonder how such a law could be made. Just because it's a law doesn't make it right. That's the only ethical issue I see here.

[david weiss]

1. We shouldn't throw all of these Spanish/Andorran labels into one basket - although they are all distributed by Fresh Sound, they are operated by different companies.

One afterthought: The worst thing, of course, is that tehy probably do not pay royalties ....

You are right you shouldn't throw all the Spanish/Andorran into one basket but when they started cropping up I asked Jordi Pujol about them since he distributed them all and it seemed like a lot of them were run by relatives of his. I don't know about Lone Hill as I had already severed ties with Fresh Sound when releases from this label started appearing. I remember asking Jordi to remove the Jazz Factory or Discoforme rip-off release of the Mingus Uptown set from his web-site as it was a blatant rip-off and I think he actually did for a minute.

None of these companies pay royalties.

[Big Beat Steve]

I am not condoning anything. I am in agreement with practices where original ARTISTS THEMSELVES are compensated and I wouldn't condone ripoffs of other current or recent reissues that undermine the market of those who took the pains to reissue something in the first place. But if NOTHING AT ALL that you might call "legit" happens reissue-wise in that particular field for ages ... And many of those reissues that take advantage of a law (like it or not) are putting artists back on the map with collectors who otherwise probably would be largely unaware of them. This might prompt beneficial interest in those artists in other respects.

If those FS releases actually were that illegal, well ... Makes me wonder anyhow why none of the majors (such as the present owners of Decca) bothered one bit. Well, maybe I'll take one of those early F.S. Imperial reissues by Charlie Mariano whenever he gives a concert again to try and get it autographed; wonder if he will be trying to rip my head off ...

On the other hand, I have yet to see proof of the fact that the majors (that hold the rights) are correcting royalty situations throughout they handled unfairly in the past.

But yes, in a pinch it might boil down to a situation that says "If the RECORDING artists are not going to profit from this then the companies that cheated them in the first place are definitely not ging to benefit either."

I understand your argument about grandchildren, etc. but remember that a LOT of property rights, patents, etc. fall into the public domain after a specified span of time, and this is known to all those concerned from the outset.

If you consider the 50-year limit that unethical you might as well raise concerns about the U.S. 70-year limit and have this go on forever. I remember another debate (on the AAJ forum) on this subject of the 50 vs 70-year limit where somebody (from the U.S., I think) said this royalty rule certainly never was intended to avoid countless subsequent heirs' generations from having to stand on their own feet.

As for the Route 66 label, even in the era before everything went digital there was such a thing as dubbing from 78s AND remastering (at least that's what the record sleeves said). And I remember people referring to this label as being "bootleg to the detriment of the companies but to the BENEFIT of the ARTISTS".

[mikeweil]

If they are related, that explains some .....

I think the best we can do is stay alert and avoid the obvious ripoffs - what they did with the Mingus Uptown release was unacceptable. It does not shed a good light on any of those involved that they did or distributed it.

[Big Beat Steve]

Re-Uptown, that's why I mentioned the case of the Bird/Diz 1945 Town Hall release above. Ripping off more or less current releases is one thing, yet filling a TOTAL void is a slightly different affair.

On a side note: Are ALL Japanese reissues always 100% legit?

Edited January 17, 2007 by Big Beat Steve

[felser]

This one is a travesty. How rapid the descent from labor of love to outright theft ...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009SQ4P...7381423-0515060

Disagree totally. That set is master takes only of Blue Note and Bethlehem cuts, which is totally different than any other set that's been out on Nichols, which are the complete Blue Note with alternate takes, and the single Bethlehem album.

[Claude]

At the beginning, Lonehill was releasing stuff that was mostly unavailable elsewhere, now they seem to have gone over to public domain reissues like Disconforme's other sub-label Definitive.

[king ubu]

Very interesting discussion here! First time I think these labels and the issues going with them are discussed in such a way here!

As a result of this thread, why not have another thread where we discuss the actual releases, tell each other about gos and no-gos, blatant rip-offs, good ones, etc.? That would be nice, since Fresh Sound and Lone Hill (not so mention the other labels) reelase plenty of stuff all the time, and some kind of guide through these reissues would be highly welcome!

[king ubu]

I just started such a thread here:

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=32061

[Bluesnik]

Just to clarify who's who...

AFAIK Disconforme, which is based in Andorra and includes Lonehill, Jazz Factory and a myriad other sublabels, is one company and Fresh Sound, with their Fresh Sound New Talent arm, an altogether different thing, although I'm always told they're connected. But connected as in sharing interests in third companies or joining forces for some projects, like the Jazz Messengers shop and web operation, or maybe even in exchanging investments in their respective portfolios. I've never known the exact root of that closeness and have always assumed they were close friends, but it's plausible that they're relatives.

So apart from some joint efforts, these are separate companies and I think one can feel that in their reissue policies. I have sympathy for Fresh Sound, whose reissue programs I follow with big interest (I'm a big West Coast fan...) and am not so fond of Disconforme.

As I see it, FS are operated out of a fan mentality, making available obscure or highly sought after pearls and they usually do it quite well. For me they are an important player in the reissue game, focusing on areas nobody else is covering. The Nocturne boxset (of which I was assured by JP a second part was in the pipeline) for which he worked with relatives of the deceased label owner, and many other projects like the Johnny Mehegan or Phil Sunkel albums or Bud Shank's Cool Fool release (reissuing some of his first and unavailable PJ releases with the artist's collaboration) are a good example.

Disconforme on the other hand work out of a more market oriented mentality, reissuing mostly big sellers on compilations at low prices and salvaging Mosaics, Toshibas and whatever gets in the way. They are centered on Bird, Miles and the big names, but also on lesser artists where a big demand exists, like the MIldred Bailey boxes. I also dislike the packaging of the Disconforme-group labels and prefer FS' methods. Plus FS is actually investing in new talent at grassroots level, something not many labels do nowadays. Just think who first released Brad Mehldau, The Bad Plus, Chris Cheek or Kurt Rosenwinkel ...

Granted, Lonehills, Disconformes et al. are poorly annotated. Not so FS releases in most cases. In some notorious occasions FS has collaborated with the artists and their estate. I don't know if that's the general practice, but in most cases they give accurate discographical and historic data and include interesting pictures. Maybe they lack some session info or insider details. And what I miss most is the exact release information, i.e. the official album release for each session. But they keep their releases as "album detached" as possible. That's the reason why they are mostly timeframe centered and why they abuse the "Complete ..." tag.

One thing I dislike and they both do (proving there is actually some interoperation between them) is repackaging under new concepts (and often "cross-repacking") material they have previoulsy issued. See the Shorty Rogers RCA albums FS had reissued now revamped into a S. Rogers boxset or the Lonehill Hal McKusick packages. But everybody else does that too. (For the record: most FS CD reissues have previously existed as FS vinyls. By the way, who remembers the Jubilee Hal Mc Kusick & Betty St. Claire album FS reissued back in the 80s?).

And a word about the vinyl FS reissues of the 80s: I cant' say for sure because I wasn't buying jazz in those days, but I have the feeling most of the first wave of vinyl reissues wasn't licensed and properly done. But as I say I'm not too knowledgeable about that.

I have wanted to make all this clear for a long time. Specially in light of the hatred these labels seem to command from stateside buyers. Although their rip off antics are objectable (see the cover of the recent Morgan-Shorter comp from Lonehill) these labels' activity is completely legal. What's not so legal is their distribution in the US where a different copyright law applies. Direct your hatred at the retailers who make money out of circumventing US legislation. Or just ignore them. Not even the big corporations care about that fringe market. So why be upset?

Could it be these non US labels are resented for cashing in on THE American artform par excellence and having better reissue programs than most US labels, or for uncovering gems American labels choose to ignore?

[Big Beat Steve]

Well said, Bluesnik!

Having bought a lot of those 80s and 90s vinyl Fresh Sounds I can assure you that many of these were done VERY well, and I doubt that all of them were that shady. RCA has been mentioned as part of a legit deal but the reissues from the Epic catalog also look to me like the mother company had a say in these reissues (hence comparatively modern-looking labels), and so on ...

Sure some of the covers look like they had been printed off actual album covers and not off original artwork filed somewhere in a record company's basement but so what ... We've seen a lot MUCH worse (though maybe legit) U.S. reissues such as those crappy, ring-wear prone 70s/80s U.S. Chess reissues with shoddy sleeve printing quality.

Beyond those major labels, the Fresh Sound reissue policy really is a case of filling voids that nobody else cares about. He..., is there ANY U.S. jazz expert out there who'd know offhand where the rights to the STEPHENY label lie today, and do ANY U.S. labels care enough about this label to reissue its output like one of those facsimile reissue labels in the style of Fresh Sound did with the Johnnie Pate LP's (to name just ONE obscurity that would otherwise have been forgotten for good except for some greedy eBay sellers who want to make even bigger bucks with an original copy)?

It might be useful to calm down this debate a little ....

[Swinging Swede]

As for the "Japanese" reissue programs, come on now! Jap reissues may be halfway affordable in the States but over here in Europe whenever any reissue says "Japan", the prices go through the roof and you are being ripped off in a big way by almost anybody who resells these! Not really very affordable in the long run ...

I think that it's a myth these days that Japanese CDs are expensive. The way to get them is to buy them directly from Japan, as many on this board do (from Hiroshi Tanno of Early Records in particular), in which case they are not expensive at all. There are many CD reissues priced at 1500 yen for example, and even if they have a higher price of say 2345 yen, that's fully comparable with many domestic CDs. Plus I've never had to pay duties when getting shipments from Mr. Tanno, which certainly helps too!

With the reissue departments of Verve and other majors imploding these days, I see myself increasingly turning to Japanese reissues to get new stuff. You can generally count on them being high quality products too, in terms of audio quality and reproduction of cover art and original liner notes.

[Swinging Swede]

AFAIK Disconforme, which is based in Andorra and includes Lonehill, Jazz Factory and a myriad other sublabels, is one company and Fresh Sound, with their Fresh Sound New Talent arm, an altogether different thing

I seem to remember that Chuck Nessa had different information, to the effect that it really is the same guys behind all these labels. Maybe he can weigh in on this...

[Claude]

I think that it's a myth these days that Japanese CDs are expensive. The way to get them is to buy them directly from Japan, as many on this board do (from Hiroshi Tanno of Early Records in particular), in which case they are not expensive at all. There are many CD reissues priced at 1500 yen for example, and even if they have a higher price of say 2345 yen, that's fully comparable with many domestic CDs. Plus I've never had to pay duties when getting shipments from Mr. Tanno, which certainly helps too!

Same here. I usually order 3-4 CDs at a time, and the final cost per disc including shipping (no customs taxes) is around 20 Euro, which is half the price many european stores are asking for the same discs.

[Big Beat Steve]

Beats me how you manage to smuggle them past the customs people ... Pretty much of a gamble over here with shipping to Germany ... and if you do have to add that it alters the picture ...

Good for you if it works for you but not something you can count on everywhere ....

Yeah, I figured on buying directly from Japan but if that guy who handled that particular reissue label can't even handle credit card payments or Paypal but wants something like IMO's that have the final prices explode right in your face with all the added bank charges then why bother? Shouldn't have guessed somebody from a high-tech country is that backwoodsy ...

[montg]

Maybe slightly off topic, and maybe a question that belongs in the stupid question thread:

If someone living in the US buys, let's say a JSP reissue, does it matter, from a legal standpoint, If the US person buys it from a US retailer versus a UK/EU retailer? If it's made legally in teh UK, and I buy it from UK source, have I broken any laws (I live in the US).

[Claude]

I´m not certain about US law, but in Europe, only commercial acts of importation (with the objective to resell the goods) violate intellectual property laws. Someone who imports the goods for his own use (i.e. very limited quantities) is legit.

If that applies in the US, a US store breaks the law by importing the european CDs and reselling them (which is a commercial operation), but a private US person who orders the CDs from a UK retailer is legit.