Sunday Wax Bits

Reprinted from http://jazzman.com

By now, I'm sure you've heard that the National Jazz Museum in Harlem has acquired nearly 1,000 discs recorded from radio broadcasts in the late 1930s by engineer William Savory [pictured]. The bounty includes previously unreleased transcriptions by Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and other jazz giants. Many of the recordings are reported to be historically significant.

What you may not know is that a firestorm has been raging among the jazz cognoscenti since the news first broke in mid-August. At issue is whether the recordings will ever see the light of day commercially. There appears to be a hornet's nest of U.S. copyright issues looming. In addition, there's the very real threat that whatever the museum does release digitally will immediately be pirated by European record labels and sold here for less.

Why? European record labels aren't up against the same copyright restrictions that U.S. record companies face. In Europe, creative works enter the public domain after 50 years, which means anything recorded earlier than 1961 can be re-packaged and issued with lower overhead. In the digital age, the difference in audio quality between using a master and a clean analog or digital copy is good enough that consumers don't fuss, giving the European labels a huge advantage over American labels that devote time and dollars to reissues.

Jazz insiders have tended to divide into two camps over the Savory copyright issue: Some argue that copyright royalties on the Savory material should be paid to family members of the original artists, while others feel the music's importance transcends such things and the recordings should not be left gathering dust on a shelf because of the copyright issue. I tend to side with the second camp.

As someone who creates daily, I'm a big believer that original works should be protected. But the current length of time a work is protected by the copyright law seems overly extensive and antiquated, especially in light of the more liberal European laws. What's more, creative works under U.S. copyright laws were never intended to be annuities for artists' great-grandchildren. Comes a point when the music needs to be available to one and all—without the crippling cost of royalties and red tape.

As for those who slam the European labels for issuing out of print American albums, there seems to be a disconnect and some xenophobia. These labels have satisfied American jazz fans and enriched our culture at a time when our own major labels stubbornly refused to do so. It's fair to say that many jazz fans would know little or nothing about artists such as Red Callender, Sonny Criss, Bobby Scott, Med Flory, Joe Maini and so many others if it weren't for the European labels.

What's more, many of the same people who disparage the European labels think Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were clever for using the chord changes to Tin Pan Alley standards to create new songs. Funny, I don't hear anyone screaming that the families of Ray Noble and George Gershwin are owed a few bucks today.

Seems to me the National Jazz Museum has two choices if it truly wants the music out there: Seek a grant and release the recordings as a rolling series of free downloads at its site with hopes that the generosity and publicity generated will convert into higher visibility and museum donations. Or the museum should meet with Spain's Fresh Sound to cut a deal that would allow the European label to issue and distribute the music worldwide. The royalty issue would be skirted, the museum would get a cut from sales, and Fresh Sound would be left to worry about combating the platter pirates.
http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/08/sunday-wax-bits-3.html

Used with permission by Marc Myers