The record changer (Jan-Dec 1952)

r ml. x background to bootlegging charles edward smith "See if yuh kin git some black-market shellac, pappy, an' if'n yuh caint git theyut, git black-strap molasses." That's the sort of talk you might expect to hear back in the hills where they bootleg the biscuits. But the hills are the steel and stone canyons of our large cities and the biscuits are the lumps of material popularly called "shellac," from which bootleg records of blues are pressed. Pressed, labeled and sold on the open market. For it seems no way has been discovered (at this writing) to protect legally a recorded performance. Even if a way should be found, that in itself won't end the Prohibition era in the field of hot music. For so long as the major recording companies neglect the blues-conscious public, the blues will be bootlegged — and bought. And it will be called record piracy. To what extent a record company, or any commercial organization, will dignify a catalog with what must be largely prestige items is a moot question. It is assumed that such items will both pay their own way and have promotional value for the entire list. The suggestion that the major record companies accept a position of custodianship for recorded hot jazz performances must be regarded as unrealistic. Unless it were presented as something more than a gratuitous notion, it would quite likely meet with tolerant smiles from those who stand to profit more from the exploitation of a current crooner than from the rediscovery of a Bessie Smith. But there would be sympathetic interest, in small doses, from those individuals who have fought through the years for even that small space granted jazz reissues in big budgets. One curiously under-mentioned squawk has been that of the hot jazz collector, and at least his is an historically relevant rhu barb. For the bootlegger gives the public no clue to the original label or to the facts behind a reissue. The collector must rely upon the never quite infallible ear of the critic, to tell him whether this is the first master, the second master, or the acetate test that the office boy filched from the wastepaper basket. Admittedly, if he has read the right reviews or talked it over with fellow collectors, he might be able to identify a specific performance (and hence ascertain the original master number) without too much trouble. But let's suppose he's fairly new to hot music or the recording is one of those puzzlers. Then, no matter how good his chances are, he's buying a pig-in-a-poke. And it's quite unnecessary; reissues can and should refer to original labels. CONTENTS BOOTLEGGING 3 KENTON GOES RIGHTEOUS 5 BOB GILL 6 TIN ROOF ANTHOLOGY 8 BRUNSWICK CATALOGUE 9 STAR STUDDED SHELLAC 12 INTER-OFFICE MEMO 13 MILDRED BAILEY 13 BEHIND THE COBWEBS 14 RECORDS NOTED 15 7 b & 3 But probably the impetus to a thrashing out of the whole question will come as the result of bootlegging itself. This bootlegging, it should be noted, is far from piracy in the same sense as, for example, in the field of popular songwriting. There, hacks have been hired to "p.d." tunes: to twist copyrighted tunes sufficiently out of context so that, while such a song sleuth as Sigmund Spaeth might know from whence they come, from a legal point of view they are in "public domain." But it is a confusing and deplorable situation where the head of a small record company is at best regarded as a Robin Hood of the waxworks, who steals from the rich to give to the poor. To the big companies it is little more than a minor nuisance. But when the minor nuisances add up to a major injury they may be expected to do something about it. And the costs of a lawsuit, no matter how it might turn out, would be prohibitive to the small fry. At any rate, it is pertinent to speculate on how this came about and, above all, how it might be remedied. For there is no doubt that an understanding of the problem would benefit the entire industry. During the early days of collecting, beginning in the 1920's, the innocent basis for bootlegging was laid, and by the collectors themselves. Many records were hard to come by. While for every rare Gennett by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band you'd find, you'd come across a hundred Louis Armstrongs or Bessie Smiths, it would be euphemistic to describe even these easy-tofind sides as in "poor" condition. Your sole consolation was that early jazz was like folk music, a people's music, and the grooves were sometimes all but gone, only because people who had loved it had listened to the records again and again. Many a collector and many a critic, therefore, heard one of the memorable great performances of jazz for the first time from a beat-up record where the surface noise made more cacophony than an imitation Dixieland band. Getting together a good collection meant endless trips to junk shops, smelly cellars, second-hand furniture stores and Salvation Army retail outlets. If you were flush you could "buy in" items with which to build up a collection. But then you hadn't the true collector's "kick" of having come upon the thing yourself. Collectors who paid $25 or $50 for single records were, like the rest of us, more prone to gloat over one they picked up for a few cents in some dusty back room. But to round out a collection, — and to provide it with really playable The Record Changer is published monthly by Changer Publications, Inc., 125 La Salle St., New York 27, N. Y. and is copyrighted 1952 by Changer Publications, Inc. For subscription and collectors' advertising rates see the information blanks in another section of the magazine. For commercial advertising rate card write our New York Office.