George Coleman In Baltimore 1971 (Left Bank) out Nov 27/Dec 11

[JSngry]

If you know Coleman's "post Miles", there is a lot on here that is a high-level version of that, not really "new", but still, yeah, good stuff.. But the "Body and Soul" here goes to some really interesting harmonic places that I don't know are particularly "typical" for him (or for very many others...). That cut alone justifies the purchase of the CD afaic!

[bertrand]

Fowler in the liner notes throws out the tantalizing suggestion that Lee Morgan himself facilitated the release of one his Baltimore Left Bank concerts in Japan.

Unless someone else has secret info not in any discography, I believe that he is talking about Baltimore 1968 on Fresh Sound. It is not from Baltimore, and he should know that. It was organized by the DC chapter and took place in the DC suburbs.

I am pretty sure it was not released in Japan first, but will be happy to be proven wrong. I am 100% sure Lee was long gone when it was released.

 

[Dan Gould]

1 hour ago, bertrand said:

Fowler in the liner notes throws out the tantalizing suggestion that Lee Morgan himself facilitated the release of one his Baltimore Left Bank concerts in Japan.

Unless someone else has secret info not in any discography, I believe that he is talking about Baltimore 1968 on Fresh Sound. It is not from Baltimore, and he should know that. It was organized by the DC chapter and took place in the DC suburbs.

I am pretty sure it was not released in Japan first, but will be happy to be proven wrong. I am 100% sure Lee was long gone when it was released.

 

Yeah I noticed that and thought "WTF is he talking about?"  I have never seen any Japanese release of that Fresh Sound thing and certainly not anything that pre-dates it.

[bertrand]

If you knew Fowler, you would know that 'WTF is he talking about' is a thought that will often come to your head. The nonsense he was spewing at that panel I was on - yikes.

Another mystery - since when are Clifford Brown tunes public domain? I find that hard to believe.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Clifford Brown tunes are still many years away from public domain. I think there's another 30 years left.

[JSngry]

Oh my, I just looked at the packaging, and yes, when did that happen? Second Floor Music appears to be the publisher of Joyspring, at least. Did something happen with that?

Oh, Zevvers, you keep running into it...does it HAVE to be this hard?

[jcam_44]

I think Second Floor Music is Don Sickler’s publishing company. I admittedly don’t understand publishing all that well but maybe he bought the publishing rights to Cliffords catalog or controls them for a fee for the Brown family. It would make sense a publishing company could collect better than a family. 

[JSngry]

No matter who the company is...Public Domain? Mavbe, but only due to somebody not taking care of business:

https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain

1925 through 1963	Published with notice but copyright was not renewed8	None. In the public domain due to copyright expiration
1925 through 1963	Published with notice and the copyright was renewed8	95 years after publication date

Trying to find a recent recording to see how it's listed on that.

From 2017:

2015:

[bertrand]

Yeah, I was pretty sure it was Second Floor.

It is POSSIBLE something changed in the last few years, you never know.

This puts me in a bind - I actually worked part time for Sickler in the 90s, I would go to the Library of Congress to copy music. Nice side hustle with which I bought CDs. I stopped when my son was born for lack of time.

I still talk to him periodically, if only to find out how that Herbie Nichols project mentioned elsewhere is coming along. And he and his wife run the RVG studio.

If there is an issue, I won't be the one to raise it. I think it would be on Cory, not Zev. Cory is a nice guy and a smart guy, I find it hard to believe he dropped the ball. There is something else going on...

And your photos raise another issue - Donna Lee is by Miles. I brought something similar up in the Rollins discussion regarding Tune Up. Davis Weiss pointed out it is registered under Miles, so supposedly it has to stay that way. But Max announces it as Cleanhead at Newport in '58, and the Mosaic box attributes it to Vinson. Did Vince Wilburn sue Mosaic? I doubt it.

Try recording Walkin' and listing Jimmy Mundy as the composer. Let me know how it works for you.

Edited January 14, 2021 by bertrand

[bertrand]

To clarify - if someone pulls a 'Palo Alto' and this CD is yanked it was not my doing. The purpose of this disclaimer is to prevent being accused of such.

[Niko]

49 minutes ago, bertrand said:

To clarify - if someone pulls a 'Palo Alto' and this CD is yanked it was not my doing. The purpose of this disclaimer is to prevent being accused of such.

thanks, I just ordered... would like to add something to the jazz detective's new years' resolution...

[bertrand]

Everyone will order fast now for fear of it being pulled and I will have done them a favor

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by bertrand

[JSngry]

"Sandu", maybe not so much, but "Joy Spring" is still played and recorded somewhat "regularly". I can't imagine copyright being allowed to accidentally lapse.

But you never know!

[bertrand]

Something does not add up...

[JSngry]

Per an email response from C. Weeds, the Brown tunes ARE PD in Canada.

"Afternoon In Paris" still under copyright, "Joy Spring" now PD, go figure that one, eh?

 

[ejp626]

That is pretty surprising, as the Canadian copyright is going to be much more closely aligned with US copyright (after all the renegotiations of NAFTA).  Maybe it hasn't come in force quite yet but will soon.  At any rate, so for this very brief window, Canada is the new Andorra?  These CDs will be pressed here and then leaked across the border?  I mean there are jazz fans in Canada, but not enough to make a lot of these pressings worthwhile...

[bertrand]

How does that affect US distribution, I wonder? You didn't give Cory my name, I hope...

[Brad]

In the US, the general rule for musical compositions created and published or registered before 1978 is that the copyright lasts 75 years from the date the composition was published with a copyright notice or on the date of the registration if it was registered in unpublished form. In addition for pre 1978 compositions, if the copyright was still in effect on October 27, 1998, the length of copyright was extended another 20 years, thereby providing a total of 95 years in protection. 

[JSngry]

7 hours ago, bertrand said:

 You didn't give Cory my name, I hope...

Nope. Just an email with me asking him a question myself.nothing more.

[JSngry]

Got a little more detail for Cory (seems like a really nice guy, btw)...and apparently Canadian copyright expires 50 years after the death of the author, no exceptions or renewals: https://www.copyrightlaws.com/duration-of-copyright-in-canada/

Now, that doesn't explain (to me) why a song like "Body & Soul" is still listed with an active publisher, but there's probably some back-end reason for that. Cory did say that he ran all the tunes through the "mechanical rights organization", so he's doing what appears to be due diligence.

Still seems weird to me, but weird doesn't mean wrong.

[bertrand]

Cory is a very nice guy and a great musician, no doubt about it. I am sure he did due diligence, but the discrepancies between the copyright laws are really problematic. The copies sold in Canada may be fine, but wouldn't any copy sold in the US be subject to US copyright laws? Maybe not - maybe what counts is the country of origin. As long as the laws of the country in which the CD are pressed were followed, then everything is good. I doubt it is that simple. And, as you said, the 'Body And Soul' does not line up.

I am not even sure what Zev's role in any of this is. It goes back to the mystery of what agreement he has with Fowler. I definitely know from an email he sent me which I alas lost that he thinks himself as some sort of Left Bank curator, and that any release from Left Bank should bear his name in some sort of executive producer situation or something. I think he used the word 'courtesy', but I was getting the vibe that he thought it was mandatory.

So what if I meet a guy who says: 'psss - I was in the audience for the last Coltrane gig, I made a tape, can you pitch it to Ravi?' and I pitch it to Ravi and he pitches it to Universal (Coltrane was signed to Impulse at the time of his death) and they decide to put it out (pitch-corrected, pun intended) and Zev is not involved at all. Does he still get executive producer credit?

PS: This is a strictly hypothetical question, I do not have a tape of the gig. The odds are very slim that it was recorded, but it is impossible of course to prove it wasn't. We will never know.

Edited January 16, 2021 by bertrand

[Brad]

If you sell a product that does not comply with the laws of the country in which it is sold (even though it’s legal to do so in the country of manufacture), theoretically the seller has liability. However, since we're talking about a limited number of CDs economically it doesn’t make any sense to try to stop sales.  Obviously it would be a different story if we were talking about a product that sells in the thousands, 

[ejp626]

12 hours ago, JSngry said:

Got a little more detail for Cory (seems like a really nice guy, btw)...and apparently Canadian copyright expires 50 years after the death of the author, no exceptions or renewals: https://www.copyrightlaws.com/duration-of-copyright-in-canada/

Now, that doesn't explain (to me) why a song like "Body & Soul" is still listed with an active publisher, but there's probably some back-end reason for that. Cory did say that he ran all the tunes through the "mechanical rights organization", so he's doing what appears to be due diligence.

Still seems weird to me, but weird doesn't mean wrong.

Again, this is definitely changing, if it hasn't already done so, so he may want to recheck with his legal team down the road.

[bertrand]

53 minutes ago, Brad said:

If you sell a product that does not comply with the laws of the country in which it is sold (even though it’s legal to do so in the country of manufacture), theoretically the seller has liability. However, since we're talking about a limited number of CDs economically it doesn’t make any sense to try to stop sales.  Obviously it would be a different story if we were talking about a product that sells in the thousands, 

Sickler made a stink about the Clifford Brown Aebersold book and had it pulled, from what I heard. I am not sure what the issue was. I doubt that was a best-seller.

19 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

Again, this is definitely changing, if it hasn't already done so, so he may want to recheck with his legal team down the road.

I would hate to see Cory get in a pickle. He is a real nice guy.

[ejp626]

9 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Again, this is definitely changing, if it hasn't already done so, so he may want to recheck with his legal team down the road.

Actually, going to that website https://www.copyrightlaws.com/duration-of-copyright-in-canada/

they do note the upcoming changes, which will come into effect around 2022-23, so Cory is in the clear, but Canada has only another 2 years or so to be the North American Andorra.  Better get cracking...