Fresh Sound & Lone Hill Reissues Discussion

[AllenLowe]

well in that case I can open my local museum which I have curated from the finest of European artists. I call it the Portland Louvre, and here's my first exhibit:

[David Ayers]

While they are at it they could maybe use local musicians to dub in a few extra notes and add some spice to jaded classics. Hey they added John Coltrane to this one!

Edited September 20, 2010 by David Ayers

[mikelz777]

well in that case I can open my local museum which I have curated from the finest of European artists. I call it the Portland Louvre, and here's my first exhibit:

It absolutely infuriates me that the Leonardo da Vinci estate won't be making any money off of this!!

[AllenLowe]

I will, however, be paying a royalty to Mr. Bean.

[mikelz777]

I will, however, be paying a royalty to Mr. Bean.

Hey, just like the Fresh Sound and Lone Hill (etc.) buyers will be paying "royalties" to them rather than the original artist.

[Chas]

No.

When generic drugs are cheaper it's because, not having any R&D costs, and hence no compensatory patents which eliminate competition, the companies that make them can't collect monopoly rents. "Subjective disadvantage" carries no explanatory weight whatsoever in the pricing of generic drugs.

Let's phrase it differently then.

A drug seller will ask the highest price he can get on the market, whatever his costs are.

Generics are cheaper because the maker can't ask the same price as the original, because at identical price, the buyer will prefer the original (although it may not be better than the generic).

Look, a generic drug is fungible in a way a generic CD is not, and so any putative preference for "original" as opposed to "copy" with respect to the latter, cannot be analogized to the former.

The high price of a brand name may indeed be related to monopoly rents from a patent. But once the patent runs out, the difference in price should be explained primarily by the willingness to pay of consumers.

On the contrary; the elasticity of demand is lower than the elasticity of supply.

[David Ayers]

Look familiar? Look again...

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Believe me, this is all going to end very soon. The minute The Beatles hit 50 years, all hell will break loose. There is no way that the EU is going to stay at 50 years with The Beatles catalog on the line. Just like Mickey Mouse did to the US PD laws, The Beatles will push the EU out to 75 years.

[A Lark Ascending]

The vast bulk of music made 50 years ago is of little or no interest to the vast majority of people, certainly not to a paying public. So extending the copyright in the EU would only benefit a select group of people (or more likely their estates or those who now own the rights). Dave Brubeck might get things regularly reissued but would Sonny Stitt's recordings appear? Most music would languish as unprofitable to put out unless, by chance, it was used in a movie. The idea of public domain gives lesser known things from the past some chance to make a showing against more recent music, helping develop a potential historical interest in the music.

50 years has always seemed time enough to me for people to reap their rewards. There's nothing to stop them (or those who represent them) putting out 'official' versions that add things that are not present on the PD issues. It might make better use of those minds who are currently brainstorming how to repackage 'Kind of Blue' or Bitches Brew' in five years time. Had the Beatles catalogue gone PD in 2009 I somehow doubt it would have dented the sales of those boxed sets. Maybe the individual albums.

If the EU does buckle to the industry pressure (and it is industry pressure, nothing to do with concern for artists) I hope they invoke the 'use it or lose it' idea that was being mooted some time past. 'You've got your monopoly for the next 25 years, now do something with it for the general good.' Or does that fly in the face of the natural law of the market?

[Big Beat Steve]

Believe me, this is all going to end very soon. The minute The Beatles hit 50 years, all hell will break loose. There is no way that the EU is going to stay at 50 years with The Beatles catalog on the line. Just like Mickey Mouse did to the US PD laws, The Beatles will push the EU out to 75 years.

That's all quite possible. Some parliamentary initiatives have already been launched in that respect so something might well be cooking.

But this door swings both ways:

NOTHING except eternal buyers' greed and extreme laziness and unwillingnes on the part of the distributors of the "real thing" forces ANYBODY to pay ripoff releases that duplicate, triplicate well-known reissue stuff such as KOB and other big names.

And besides, all those remastering geeks among those of you out there who keep drooling forever about the umpteenth re-re-re-reissue and re-re-re-remastering of this or that so and so much-bit engineering trickery of this or that reissued-to-death platter on this or that major predictably collectible label and cult engineer make it all so easy for those ripoff labels. Because ANYBODY who follows this kind of debate on forums such as this here and sees how easily all those remastering and bonus tracks geeks will gladly dump their previously bought CDs because "upgrading" is all the rage will easily see that there is a huuuuge bite of the cake for them because the more reissue variants there are, the more anybody except the very, very shrewdest buyer will be confused forever and fall for any "bonus" trap that there is, for example. S they knwo pretty well where to go to cash in.

OTOH, where things will REALLY hurt (if the "Beatles-triggered" copyright extension comes through) is when all those countless reissues that thankfully were done (BIG THANK YOU to Fresh Sound!) because NONE of the bigger label conglomerates ever gave a rat's ass about those semi-obscure and never-reissued items by artists known mostly to very advanced collectors only - but valuable music cherished by those in the know it was anyway. Things like that are likely to dry up and only the big, big, big names will continue to be listed. Because those who officially hold the rights (if any) to the other, more specialist items will never bother to reissue any of that anyway because there just ain't enough bucks to be made.

So those of you who complain oh so loudly about ALL aspects of those "Andorran" labels have been warned!

(Oh, but I forgot - those specialist reissues of niche products don't feature Miles or Trane or Mingus et al. and they are not on BN or Impulse or the like - so why would many of those engaged in this kind of debate care anyway?)

But oh yeah - if the "Beatles-triggered" copyright extension should come to pass, then say Goodbye to your cherished Proper boxes too! No more cheap way of filling in your stuff from the 78rpm era that many of those dudes whose core jazz interest begins with hard bop only favor when looking tentatively into earlier periods of jazz but could never be bothered to pay at full price (shady label practices notwithstanding).

BTW, and finally - has anybody ever given some serious thought to how long this royalty stuff is supposed to go on anyway? I am all in favor of enforcing the 50-year rule and making sure artists get their money during that entire time frame but isn't that PLENTY, PLENTY, PLENTY time for those artists who at one time way back when (50 years was a long time ago after all) happened to perform something to make some more from what they did one day way back then? No real need to pamper subsequent generations just the same way IMHO. About time their kids and grand-kids etc. get busy earning some money of their own! Just like people in other professions are quite naturally required to do too.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[John L]

No.

When generic drugs are cheaper it's because, not having any R&D costs, and hence no compensatory patents which eliminate competition, the companies that make them can't collect monopoly rents. "Subjective disadvantage" carries no explanatory weight whatsoever in the pricing of generic drugs.

Let's phrase it differently then.

A drug seller will ask the highest price he can get on the market, whatever his costs are.

Generics are cheaper because the maker can't ask the same price as the original, because at identical price, the buyer will prefer the original (although it may not be better than the generic).

Look, a generic drug is fungible in a way a generic CD is not, and so any putative preference for "original" as opposed to "copy" with respect to the latter, cannot be analogized to the former.

The high price of a brand name may indeed be related to monopoly rents from a patent. But once the patent runs out, the difference in price should be explained primarily by the willingness to pay of consumers.

On the contrary; the elasticity of demand is lower than the elasticity of supply.

The question here is not one of the elasticity of demand or supply, but of different demand for differentiated products in the eyes of some consumers.

[JSngry]

While they are at it they could maybe use local musicians to dub in a few extra notes and add some spice to jaded classics. Hey they added John Coltrane to this one!

Just checking...you do know that Coltrane was on that record originally, right?

[Claude]

Believe me, this is all going to end very soon. The minute The Beatles hit 50 years, all hell will break loose. There is no way that the EU is going to stay at 50 years with The Beatles catalog on the line. Just like Mickey Mouse did to the US PD laws, The Beatles will push the EU out to 75 years.

Hard to say. The EU Commission proposal to extend the copyright duration is currently being barred by a blocking minority in the EU Council so slim that Luxembourg had the deciding vote. The music industry even mobilized Bono to make a personal phone call to our culture minister.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Claude

[David Ayers]

While they are at it they could maybe use local musicians to dub in a few extra notes and add some spice to jaded classics. Hey they added John Coltrane to this one!

Just checking...you do know that Coltrane was on that record originally, right?

Heh heh. Was he REALLY?

[JSngry]

If he wasn't, I wasted money getting an original Mercury cover to supplement my Limelight reissue which supplemented by Everest Archive Of Jazz And Folk Music copy of almost the whole album.

[Joe]

If he wasn't, I wasted money getting an original Mercury cover to supplement my Limelight reissue which supplemented by Everest Archive Of Jazz And Folk Music copy of almost the whole album.

Yeah, but do have this version?

Its adds 4 seconds of Cannonball taking in a deep breath to the opening of "Wabash"; unavailable on any other issue, as are the Orrin Keepnews annotations on that same 4 seconds (1 page per second, BTW).

[John L]

If he wasn't, I wasted money getting an original Mercury cover to supplement my Limelight reissue which supplemented by Everest Archive Of Jazz And Folk Music copy of almost the whole album.

There are plenty more covers to waste your money on:

Edited September 20, 2010 by John L

[JSngry]

If he wasn't, I wasted money getting an original Mercury cover to supplement my Limelight reissue which supplemented by Everest Archive Of Jazz And Folk Music copy of almost the whole album.

Yeah, but do have this version?

Its adds 4 seconds of Cannonball taking in a deep breath to the opening of "Wabash"; unavailable on any other issue, as are the Orrin Keepnews annotations on that same 4 seconds (1 page per second, BTW).

That's the Limelight cover, and yeah, I have it.

Can't say that I've noticed the extra breath though....

If he wasn't, I wasted money getting an original Mercury cover to supplement my Limelight reissue which supplemented by Everest Archive Of Jazz And Folk Music copy of almost the whole album.

There are plenty more covers to waste your money on:

Those covers are...no, I have what I need now.

But wtf kind of a label was/is Suite Beat?

[Dan Gould]

I don't know but once upon a time there were CD reissues on "Suite Beat" of Vee Jay LPs like the Young Lions set.

[Fer Urbina]

First step towards the solution of the "Andorran problem"?

:rsmile:

[ejp626]

Does anyone know what the story is regarding Lonehill's Saxes Inc. / Trombone Scene? This one has gone OOP apparently and is very hard to find, while Brookmeyer's Trombones Inc. is still around. It's hard to imagine a legal problem getting in the way, but maybe that is the case...

[brownie]

Don't think there is a problem.

That Lonehill reissue of the Saxes Inc. and Trombone Scene albums is available from Amazon.fr

Saxes Inc.

[ejp626]

Don't think there is a problem.

That Lonehill reissue of the Saxes Inc. and Trombone Scene albums is available from Amazon.fr

Saxes Inc.

Well, apparently not a legal problem if they are still offering the MP3s. But even at the Lonehill site, they aren't selling this, so I expect the 2-5 week delay is going to ultimately translate into Sorry, unavailable.

[romualdo]

Just picked up the new Freddie Gambrell Fresh Sound CD - contains both of his Pacific Jazz LP's (excludes the two 45 only sides & the single JWC 513 title)

Sound quality is excellent (sounds more like Japanese? CD rips than needle drops). Some of his original compositions have a "Herbie Nichols" feel to them.

[brownie]

Interesting that Freddie Gambrell CD which I purchased last week!

Surprised that the liner notes do not mention Gambrell's post-World Pacific career.

Federico Cervantes

Interesting read...