Random Music Thoughts

Unsomnambulist said:
variety.com

The True Story of Erroll Garner, the First Artist to Sue a Major Label and Win

In a landmark 1960 case that is largely forgotten, jazz pianist sued Columbia Records for releasing music without his approval — and won.
variety.com variety.com
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Great story!
Kelley points out another factor in the dispute, which started in 1958, when the Saturday Evening Post wrote a negative portrayal of Garner, a self-taught master improviser who couldn’t read music. “They portrayed him as a happy, naïve guy,” Kelley says. “They said he was out of touch with reality. When asked about Bach, the writer said Erroll thought it was some kind of beer. They said he was illiterate and set Garner up as someone who had nothing to do with money and didn’t care. The mainstream press saw him as an idiot savant.” In contrast, Kelley says that the black press, where his battle was a headline story, heralded him as a sober, articulate, intelligent David-who-beat-Goliath. I feel this can be seen as a civil rights case as well as a precedent for artists.”
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While Garner’s Octave output didn’t have Columbia’s marketing muscle, it did give him the freedom to record new music, including live shows. This year the Octave Remastered Series, issued by Mack Avenue Records, was launched with the rerelease of all 12 Octave Garner albums, with restored master takes and newly discovered unreleased songs. “You can hear how Erroll plays with a freedom on these albums,” says Lockhart, the senior producer of the series. “For ‘Dreamstreet,’ his first album on Octave, he was discussing repertoire with Martha. While Erroll played an ‘Oklahoma!’ medley at his concerts, he had never recorded it. He wasn’t sure, but Martha said, ‘You can do whatever you want now.’ So Erroll jumped at the chance and recorded [‘Oklahoma!’ songs] ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, ‘People Will Say We’re in Love’ and ‘Surrey With the Fringe on Top.’ He didn’t have to ask a label for permission.”

The Octave Remastered Series began in late September with four Garner albums and will continue with reissues monthly through June of next year.
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axolotl said:
Until now, I had never thought of degenerative disc disease in adults to be comparable to disc rot in CDs.

It's not, but I still hadn't thought of it until now.
Click to expand...

There is also the phenomenon of "bit rot" on both mechanical and solid state storage devices. If you're backing up a collection, it's another worry. And I worry about it more than the 30-40 odd CDs I've managed to hang on to.

Don't know what the mitigation would be other than keeping a known good cold backup of your most important music. :(
 
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