Welcome
Fortunately within the EU, the 50 year period of copyright on material issued in and upto the 1st half of the 20th century is expiring, moving this material into the public domain.
In combination with electronic distribution, it is possible to share this culturally valuable material where it would not be commercially viable.
- it is therefore primarily intended to promote the appreciation, the preservation and aid research.
The modest intention of this blog is to allow me to highlight some of this material, to perhaps encourage others to discover and enjoy.
If it creates a valid awareness of our rights to access this material, which has often long out of print or available only in very limited numbers, then all the better.
Background
There is a strong difference in the interpretation and enforcement in different countries, particularly with recent legal cases on each side of the Atlantic highlighting these differences.Given the aggressive push by organisations and corporations within the United States, to enforce copyright laws (globally, often to their advantage and effectively erode our rights), it is particularly interesting given the attitude of the United States to others copyright during the 18th and early 19th Centuries.I recommend the article over at wikipedia, to get an overview of the situation, perhaps quite different than you might have thought from impressions given by the Music Industry and their lobbying organs - History of Copyright Law
"In Great Britain's North American colonies, reprinting British copyright works without permission had long happened episodically, but only became a major feature of colonial life after 1760. It became more commonplace to reprint British works in the colonies (mostly in the 13 American colonies). The impetus for this shift came from Irish and Scottish master printers and booksellers who had moved to the North American colonies in the mid 18th century.
They were already familiar with the practice of reprinting and selling British copyright works, and continued the practice in North America, and it became a major part of the North American printing and publishing trade.
Robert Bell was an example. He was originally Scottish, and had spent almost a decade in Dublin before he moved to British North America in 1768. His operations, and those of many other colonial printers and booksellers, ensured that the practice of reprinting was well-established by the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. Weakened American ties to Britain coincided with the increase of reprinting outside British copyright controls.
The Irish also made a flourishing business of shipping reprints to North America in the 18th century. Ireland's ability to reprint freely ended in 1801 when Ireland's Parliament merged with Great Britain, and the Irish became subject to British copyright laws.
The printing of uncopyrighted English works for the English-language market also occurred in other European countries. The British government responded to this problem in two ways: 1) it amended its own copyright statutes in 1842, explicitly forbidding import of any foreign reprint of British copyrighted work into the UK or its colonies, and 2) it began the process of reciprocal agreements with other countries. The first reciprocal agreement was with Prussia in 1846. The US remained outside this arrangement for some decades. This was objected to by such authors as Dickens and Mark Twain."
I don't want to get into a fiery discussion regarding opinion on copyright, I'd like to discuss the actual legalities of copyright law and how they effect material now entering the public domain in some geographical areas and how this effects us, given our present communications inter-connected-ness.
Terms of Use
This space for intended to create a place for encouraging the enjoyment and awareness of older music, often long out of print or available in very limited numbers - it is therefore primarily intended to promote preservation and aid research.Obviously depending upon your present country of residence, downloading and keeping material, in areas other than the EU may breach your country's laws regarding copyright infringement. As a specific illustration, the United States enforces copyright, some 90 years from the date of publishing, whereas copyright in the EU expires after 50 years of either performance or first publication.I therefore ask you to exercise discretion, I must presume you are adults and part of that is exercising a little self-rule, where applicable
- do not download material if you know it is illegal to do so in your country.
This blog is based within the EU and is therefore entitled to discuss and publish material in order to further that discussion.
From the liner notes;
"This is Gil Mellé's fourth LP. In the course of his remarkable series of enterprises for Blue Note he has previously presented a quintet and a sextet, both on BLP 5020, a second quintet with an altered personnel on 5033, and a carefully organized and rehearsed quartet with which, on 5054, he introduced a delightful sample of what (if we were given to slogans) we might describe as New Jersey Jazz.
It seems to us that Gil has progressed steadily in the course of these various excursions, and that with this new release he has found the most vivid and capacious format of all. Actually the group featured here is simply the quartet of 5054 with one man added, but that single addition is of such stature as to change the entire tonal impact of the unit.
The addition in question is the tuba player, Don Butterfield."
'nuff said.
For specific tracklistings, have a look at the excellent
Jazz Discography Project
3 comments:
Isn't Melle utterly amazing? [Well, I love chamber jazz, so to me he was quite a revelation]. I discovered him fairly recently. I have the complete Blue Note 50s sessions, vol 1 & 2. Do you know if he recorded much else that is worth tracking down?
He recorded for Prestige as well - try www.jazzdisco.org
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