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Dear David and C-mice,

Fret not, I'll GIVE ya'll copies of Willisau gratis so long as you don't support Werner's crackpot 'management' of his back catalog without polite protest. Give the money to Tony directly, I'm sure he'd do something more useful than what Werner "might" do "someday." Not taking away from his accomplishments (though does the world need more Ellery Eskelin anything, really?) but for whose benefit are

ALL Hat's John Cage recordings oop

ALL or nearly so Hat's Morton Feldman recordings oop

Christian Woolf, New York School, Joe McPhee etc etc...

Q1: who owns the rights to these recordings, Hat or the artists?

Q2: what were the artists paid to record, and what are/were their accounting/royalty schedules?

Q3: is there ANY reason besides intransigent ego that large chunks of the Hat catalog should not be reissued as is now occurring with Black Saint/Soul Note? NO CECIL NO PEACE! NO CECIL NO PEACE! NO CECIL NO PEACE!

Q4: sincer Wener was playing with a significant amount (if not "a lot" in larger economic sense), other people money before, is not his stubbornness on this issue a little strange?

If you're interested in orange and grey Euro jazz sure, wait around for Werner's tarot to come up aces... If you care about music/culture, support a label like MODE which does great work AND keeps their entire catalog available for OOP items as FLAC + .pdf.

Only remaining past Hats I need are Braxton's Dortmund 1976 and the ever elusive 4 cd Willisau set.

I just might cave one day and drop the $150 people want for Willisau.

$150? I want $1000 for mine. I'd pay $150 just for a second copy... ;)

Edited by MomsMobley
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I fully agree. Funds limit what I can get, but I will buy just about anything he does.

I have 25 or so hatOLOGY, a few LPs and several Hut CDs. I pick something up whenever I see a deal.

I have way more than that. New York's a dangerous place; as long as you have the means, you have access to anything you want.

Dear David and C-mice,

Fret not, I'll GIVE ya'll copies of Willisau gratis so long as you don't support Werner's crackpot 'management' of his back catalog without polite protest. Give the money to Tony directly, I'm sure he'd do something more useful than what Werner "might" do "someday." Not taking away from his accomplishments (though does the world need more Ellery Eskelin anything, really?) but for whose benefit are

ALL Hat's John Cage recordings oop

ALL or nearly so Hat's Morton Feldman recordings oop

Christian Woolf, New York School, Joe McPhee etc etc...

Q1: who owns the rights to these recordings, Hat or the artists?

Q2: what were the artists paid to record, and what are/were their accounting/royalty schedules?

Q3: is there ANY reason besides intransigent ego that large chunks of the Hat catalog should not be reissued as is now occurring with Black Saint/Soul Note? NO CECIL NO PEACE! NO CECIL NO PEACE! NO CECIL NO PEACE!

Q4: sincer Wener was playing with a significant amount (if not "a lot" in larger economic sense), other people money before, is not his stubbornness on this issue a little strange?

If you're interested in orange and grey Euro jazz sure, wait around for Werner's tarot to come up aces... If you care about music/culture, support a label like MODE which does great work AND keeps their entire catalog available for OOP items as FLAC + .pdf.

Only remaining past Hats I need are Braxton's Dortmund 1976 and the ever elusive 4 cd Willisau set.

I just might cave one day and drop the $150 people want for Willisau.

$150? I want $1000 for mine. I'd pay $150 just for a second copy... ;)

Back on the producer vs. artist soapbox, I see.

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How about answering the questions?

So Werner gave X Artist Y _____ $$$ when to do what?

Do the artists ever earn back these costs? Who? When?

And then what? Hard to earn your way out of 'debt' for a product that's not available, isn't it?

Or are all these records pressed once and gone forever-- or until he 'feels' its OK to put out again?

That's nonsense, especially when Lufthansa or Swiss Bank or whomever was footing the bill.

How is it New World's two great Cecil Taylor have pretty much always been available and Hat's disappear faster than my hair and come back even more slowly?

There's an implicitly exploitative relationship going on here because while Werner X. continued to build his brand/legacy, VERY important works of numerous artists first barely existed and then disappeared. Granted, Werner X. had all kinds of distribution issues to contend with but so did everyone else.

Just becaue it's 'jass' doesn't mean these people are unlimited founts of creativity (far from it, usually) so seeing that shit go down the black hole of history to the point ya'll are even thinking of paying TOP $$$ for used copies is ridiculous.

A ** TRULY ** generous man concerned about world musical culture would GIVE Joe McPhee all his recordings back; Anthony, Cecil etc etc. (The classical ensemble stuff is a little trickier.)

Is there a reason this hasn't been done or-- to my knowledge-- hasn't been contemplated?

I'm not saying I'm right but I damn well want some answers before giving Hat any wampum.

Support BIS records also, which keeps its ENTIRE catalog available.

Edited by MomsMobley
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While Moms is typically forceful in his rhetoric, he raises a few good points, but ones I get the feeling have much less dastardly explanations. I do think what Black Saint has managed to do raises the stakes for a label like Hat. But I'm also sure Chuck could give a pretty convincing rundown of how it's not that easy.

I can tell you what though, if I won the lottery it'd be deluxe 200 gram reissues and box sets for all!

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While Moms is typically forceful in his rhetoric, he raises a few good points, but ones I get the feeling have much less dastardly explanations. I do think what Black Saint has managed to do raises the stakes for a label like Hat. But I'm also sure Chuck could give a pretty convincing rundown of how it's not that easy.

I can tell you what though, if I won the lottery it'd be deluxe 200 gram reissues and box sets for all!

The owners of Black Saint and Soul Note sold their catalogues to Cam Jazz, a company which is more corporate in nature and thus has more money to keep recordings in print.

Personally, I find Moms' artist against the world take on things to be old, petulant and just plain naive. It presumes all artists to be wonderful human beings who only make wonderful recordings and who are forcefully taken advantage of by nefarious music industry personnel.

I couldn't take Braxton for awhile. I realized that was because a lot of people thought (in a blind, cult-like sort of way) he could do no wrong musically. When I accepted that a lot of what he has recorded just SUCKS, I was able listen to what he has offered with a much more open mind, and really learned to appreciate a large part of his catalogue.

Edited by JETman
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Yeah, and there's no such thing as a right to be able to listen to all of it, all the time.

Now whether that's a good thing or not is an entirely different question - but not one that Werner Uehlinger has to find an answer to.

Certainly I'd be more than happy to see more of the older titles in print, but then how much demand is there, really? We know of plenty of things with small runs that do remain in print for years (that's true for many hat titles as well), so it really seems keeping the backlist in print is hardly feasible for a small label such as hat.

Also while I am romantic enough to dig the idea of handing over tapes and rights to the artists, that would be suicidal. Remember, there's market and there's some rules (again: whether that's a good thing... etc), and if you want to survive, you have to play along mostly. Uehlinger seems to be fairly successful doing just that, at least in my book.

One more thing: I know many have little to no interest in recent recordings by hat - they just want all the Braxton, Taylor, Lacy et. al. in print all the time... that's really too bad, as there's plenty of good stuff that Uehlinger puts out! Furthermore, he still wants to focus more on releasing new music, instead of turning hat into mainly a reissue label. That's his call, after all. We can rant about it, we can be disappointed, we can ask questions (serious and silly ones) - but it's his label after all.

Talk about responsability and bringing stuff back to the public, keeping it accessible etc... those are important and difficult questions, to which I have no answers, and it seems no one has. Where are the majors there? What are they doing to keep the cultural legacy alive? Nothing. And they do swim in money (well, at least they did for some four or five decades). I guess one ought to be a bit more thoughtful in demanding these things from small record labels, that - again - see it as their goal to document current musical tendencies and developments, rather than turning into a museum of their own past.

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  • 1 month later...

"One more thing: I know many have little to no interest in recent recordings by hat - they just want all the Braxton, Taylor, Lacy et. al. in print all the time... that's really too bad, as there's plenty of good stuff that Uehlinger puts out!"

Very true, for example the recent Samuel Blaser disc. Also can't wait for the new Michael Adkins, which has been on the release list forever...

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"One more thing: I know many have little to no interest in recent recordings by hat - they just want all the Braxton, Taylor, Lacy et. al. in print all the time... that's really too bad, as there's plenty of good stuff that Uehlinger puts out!"

Very true, for example the recent Samuel Blaser disc. Also can't wait for the new Michael Adkins, which has been on the release list forever...

Thanks for the remind.

BUT there is a core of around a 75 they might always have available.

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I was lucky-when Tower opened their Dallas store in the mid-90s, they stocked it with a lot of inventory that must not have been selling at their other stores. I picked up the Willisau set, the Santa Cruz two CD set, several of the Taylor FMPs from the 1988 box, etc. It was awesome for awhile.

Edited by CraigP
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If by "bad thing" you mean to ask if there's reason for worry - I think no, as plenty of back catalogue items have been sold for very good prices (discplus.ch being the best source in Switzerland, not sure about the shipping costs for international orders, though).

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Just received:

Dear Friend,

John Cage turns 100 in 2012, and all manner of events are underway

for a worldwide celebration. Check out this aspect of johncage.org for

breaking news about events in the works – music, poetry, theater,

happenings, visual art exhibitions, publications, and more -- and for

an ever-expanding calendar of events, to which we contribute 3 CD

releaes this year.

Two CDs this Spring 2012 and one CD during Fall 2012.

May 25, 2012 releases:

hat(now)ART 152

John Cage (1912 - 1992)

Sonatas & Interludes (1946 - 1948)

James Tenney piano (new)

7 52156 015222

hat(now)ART 186

Katharina Rosenberger (1971)

TEXTUREN (2007 - 2011)

Wet Ink Ensemble (new)

7 52156 018629

June 15, 2012 releases:

hat(now)ART 173

John Cage (1912 - 1992)

Music Of Changes (1951)

David Tudor piano (remastered rerelease)

7 52156 017325

hat(now)ART 181

Makrokosmos Quartet

Round Midnight

7 52156 018124

With kind regards,

Werner X. Uehlinger

Hat Hut Records LTD.

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