The Complete Sonny Rollins RCA Victor recordings set.

[Hardbopjazz]

Does anyone here have the Complete Sonny Rollins RCA Victor recordings set? I was listening to disc 3, track 4, Just Friends. There seems to be some sound flutter or distortion with the cymbals at the start of the tune. Anyone else hear this? It lasts for about 15 seconds. 

I also have the the single CD of this, "Sonny Meets Hawk!" The flutter/distortion is on that one too.

Edited November 10, 2016 by Hardbopjazz

[Dave Garrett]

I think you meant disc 4, track 4. I just checked my copy and it is present there as well. 

[Hardbopjazz]

Yes, disc 4. The booklet says some of the masters tapes couldn't be found so an alternate source had to be used. 

[Luciano]

Please from which original album are:

52nd Street Theme (Alternate) 1      (take 5 of the Second CD)

Four 1   (Take 6 of the second CD)

Thanks

[JSngry]

https://www.discogs.com/Sonny-Rollins-The-Alternative-Rollins/release/4035668

[Luciano]

Thanks JSngry

for the JPG also

[paul secor]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

https://www.discogs.com/Sonny-Rollins-The-Alternative-Rollins/release/4035668

I've always wondered how French RCA managed to release those extra tracks. Sonny (or Lucille) seemed to be very unwilling to have anything outside of what his contract called for released (as was the case when Impulse issued an album which wasn't part of his contract with them). If there was a settlement made, I wonder why the same couldn't have been done to release the extra tracks of the group with Don Cherry legitimately.

[erwbol]

7 hours ago, Luciano said:

Please from which original album are:

52nd Street Theme (Alternate) 1      (take 5 of the Second CD)

Four 1   (Take 6 of the second CD)

Thanks

 

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

https://www.discogs.com/Sonny-Rollins-The-Alternative-Rollins/release/4035668

Also known as After The Bridge in Japan. The most recent budget reissue from 2015 (SICP 4192~3) contains a brand new DSD remastering from 2014. It is still available here:

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/SICP-4192

and here

http://www.ebay.nl/itm/SONNY-ROLLINS-AFTER-THE-BRIDGE-JAPAN-2-CD-Ltd-Ed-C94-/352082812057?hash=item51f9c55c99:g:~QwAAOSwPe1ULOGf

 

Edited June 12, 2017 by erwbol

[erwbol]

2 hours ago, paul secor said:

I've always wondered how French RCA managed to release those extra tracks. Sonny (or Lucille) seemed to be very unwilling to have anything outside of what his contract called for released (as was the case when Impulse issued an album which wasn't part of his contract with them). If there was a settlement made, I wonder why the same couldn't have been done to release the extra tracks of the group with Don Cherry legitimately.

Especially since Sonny is now happy to release all sort of mediocre post-sixties stuff in bootleg sound.

Of course we have seen some great stuff in the Jazz Icons Live in Denmark '65 & '68 DVD. I wonder if that release required Sonny's approval.

[JSngry]

They were released by French RCA w/o Sonny's permission. Some guy found the tapes and figured hey, why not, they're ours. The outcome of that was a lawsuit or some other binding agreement that the released items would be allowed to stay in proint, but nothing else from the RCA vaults would be released unless and until agreed to by Sonny.

Somewhere in an old Coda magazine there is a discography of all known Sonny Rollins RCA sessions, released and unreleased. There is a buttload of the latter, iirc. The lineups are mouthwatering, and even knowing full damn well that most of it is likely...."frustrating"...I would still love to hear it.

 

 

[erwbol]

What is the chance that contractual/legal situation changes after Sonny has passed? 

[JSngry]

Or even as he continues to live? The whole Road Shows series was unthinkable not that long ago...my own hunch is that between the loss of his wife and his own creeping frailties, sonny might have begun the whole "documentation/legacy" thing.

OTOH, I don't know that the whole RCA experience went down well with him...large advance, pressure to be a "star" and have a "hit" (some of it self-applied, apparently), not sure if that's a period he'd want to put sunshine on.

[Mark Stryker]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

They were released by French RCA w/o Sonny's permission. Some guy found the tapes and figured hey, why not, they're ours. The outcome of that was a lawsuit or some other binding agreement that the released items would be allowed to stay in proint, but nothing else from the RCA vaults would be released unless and until agreed to by Sonny.

Somewhere in an old Coda magazine there is a discography of all known Sonny Rollins RCA sessions, released and unreleased. There is a buttload of the latter, iirc. The lineups are mouthwatering, and even knowing full damn well that most of it is likely...."frustrating"...I would still love to hear it.

 

 

What I'm most interested in are  additional tracks from the sessions that led to "The Standard Sonny Rollins," which as I have gotten older has become pretty much my favorite "official record company" Sonny after "LIve at the Village Vanguard." I also would LOVE to hear the session reels to see if whole takes remain of the stuff that got heavily edited such as "Three Little Words."

Tom Lord Discography lists these tunes as unissued from June and July 1964.

"LIttle Girl Blue," "Nothing ever changes my love for you," "Look for the silver lining," "Love look away," "Deep in a Dream," "Love Walked In," "Masquerade," "I Like the Likes of You," "When I Fall in Love,"

 Has anybody ever heard any of those tracks?

[Ken Dryden]

I was doing an interview with Sonny Rollins prior to his 50th anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall. He delighted in selling the bootlegs of his performances as downloads and I can't blame him, he's had enough music stolen by them. I also sent him CDRs of a number of good quality broadcast recordings that I had acquired over the years.

[Luciano]

I don't know if this is the correct way to thanks all Organissimo's fans who answere me in order to my request about Sonny Rollins, so: thanks to:

JSngry - 

paul secor 

erwbol

Mark Stryker 

Ken Dryden

Greetings Luciano

 

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

We have some music insiders here like Chuck so maybe they can clarify how it works with unissued material. I was under the impression from several conversations I've had over the years regarding the Blue Note vaults that since they paid for the music in their tape vault, they can issue it if they want to. I've often wondered if this is true.

[JSngry]

Issuing was not the issue, payment was. The way I heard it was that French RCA just put this stuff on the market without any appropriate payment to anybody, nor with a plan to ever pay anybody. Sonny either sued and won, or else got a settlement. Either way, the deal was no more vault material from RCA. The Village Gate stuff was lifted/stolen from the RCA vaults and was not a legitimate issue. There's still stuff in there, though, at least there's stuff logged as still being there.

[Chuck Nessa]

It is a complicated issue and not one size fits all. Generally, if the recording was made under a union contract the label is not free to issue extra material without compensation and/or permission in most cases. Union recording contracts are based on minutes of finished music for a fee. The rules for alternate takes are a bit hazy since the union rules were written in the days of 78s and second and third takes were used to replace damaged masters. Using that logic to claim "ownership" in the digital age is stretching it a bit. Many artists are happy to agree to alternates if it means more publishing money since publishing rates are based on elapsed time.

I paid the Art Ensemble $XX,000 for the previously unissued material in the box set I issued.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Chuck Nessa

[Kevin Bresnahan]

17 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

It is a complicated issue and not one size fits all. Generally, if the recording was made under a union contract the label is not free to issue extra material without compensation and/or permission in most cases. Union recording contracts are based on minutes of finished music for a fee. The rules for alternate takes are a bit hazy since the union rules were written in the days of 78s and second and third takes were used to replace damaged masters. Using that logic to claim "ownership" in the digital age is stretching it a bit. Many artists are happy to agree to alternates if it means more publishing money since publishing rates are based on elapsed time.

I paid the Art Ensemble $XX,000 for the previously unissued material in the box set I issued.

I understand the "get paid" part, but is permission really required or is it just a matter of courtesy? I've had many conversations with insiders at Blue Note and the impression I got was that they could legally release pretty much anything in their vault but they always get permission if the artist is still alive. Does the union contract specify that the label needs to get permission first?

[Chuck Nessa]

What is commonly done and what the contract says became 2 different things when labels suddenly wanted to fill up compact discs.

Unissued sessions are another issue.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Unissued sessions are another issue.

I remember this topic came up when Blue Note decided to release a bunch of unissued sessions in the Connoisseur Series in the late 90's. I asked Michael Cuscuna and Tom Evered how they were able to release these unissued sessions but couldn't release others, like Horace Silver's "Live at Pep's" or Wayne Shorter's 1970 session. The explanation I got was that they could if they really wanted to, but in these cases, the artists asked them not to.

In fact, Michael told me that he gave the master tapes for the "Live at Pep's" sessions to Horace so that he could destroy them himself, which seemed very weird to me at the time. Afterward, I figured that Michael wanted to prevent someone in the future from issuing a session that the artist himself clearly did not want issued because as they said, the label could issue it if they wanted to. I wonder if he did the same with Wayne's 1970 session tape?

[JSngry]

Whatever the conventions were/are, it would appear that Sonny's contract with RCA had enough loopholes that they (at least the French arm) thought they could do something that Sonny thought they couldn't, and the lawyers worked it out to basically say "no more of this, RCA". I don't know if the original French item was withdrawn from circulation, but I'm pretty sure that there was no further production of it. That material didn't see light again until the CD era (not counting whatever action there wa in Japan, that's a whole 'nother market).

Perhaps relevant, the contract that Sonny signed with RCA was by all accounts not a standard "jazz contract". Based on the size of the advance and the media hoopla, they had plans for him. So, god only knows what kinds of clauses and sub-clauses were in that thing.