Fantasy Records to be part of Universal?

[Ronflugelguy]

Originally Posted by -=Rudy=-

I know Milestone was pumping out releases through the 90s, mostly more modern recordings of jazz and/or Latin.

I have a feeling I should buy up every Cal Tjader title I don't yet have before they disappear. Ya never know.

You got it! All those OJC's etc. may become collector's items. Glad I already have a good amount of them.

[Steve Hoffman]

Let me state this in the clearest possible way. Here is my advice to you jazz lovers (and future jazz lovers) and I won't even charge you $200.00 an hour.

Go here:

www.fantasyjazz.com

Take a look around. If you see anything that strikes your fancy, buy it NOW, not later.

Once the catalog is sold, the vaults will be moved, the digital parts will be trashed, and the "new" versions will be sonically compromised with over-EQ'ing and digital compression.

Get what you want (or what you think you MIGHT want, NOW!)

I would say that over 99.6% of all the OJC CD's from the Fantasy labels (Prestige, Contemporary, Riverside, Stax, etc.) were mastered from the true master tapes and the mastering was very "passive" which is what we like. The vault people at Fantasy know what they are doing. In the 90's it was Lisa Gifford and now it's the very capable Stuart Kremsky. Once the vault is moved to someplace like Edison, NJ or Hollywood, all heck is going to break lose. We've seen it happen before.

So, once again, my free advice is to get your Fantasy labels CD and LP titles NOW, while you can. I'm not talking about the SACD's here, I'm talking about the "Original Jazz Classics" (OJC) CD's and LP's. If you can't find the LP's in the stores, Tom Port at www.DCCBlowout.com has a bunch as does probably Acoustic Sounds and other dealers listed on my home page. The price of these OJC CD's and LP's is low and the quality for the most part is high.

Heed this advice NOW while you still can..

[-=Rudy=-]

Originally Posted by Ronflugelguy

You got it! All those OJC's etc. may become collector's items. Glad I already have a good amount of them.

I have probably 2/3 of his CDs on Fantasy so far...but at least I have a vinyl copy of all of his albums. (Probably, what, 60-70 recordings?) Concord had his albums on CD fairly quickly in the 80s, DCC took care of the Skye albums, and Fantasy has been steady in reissuing his albums, working on the more obscure albums lately. Verve is the only disappointment: they've released only about half of them, not including a couple of my favorites.

The only issue I have with Fantasy is when they do a two-fer release, they leave off a song or two to make them fit on the disc. The problem is, with all of the LPs he'd released originally, it's VERY hard to find any at the used record shops...and the ones I *do* find usually are not in the best condition either. (Verve's vinyl wasn't all that great.) So having Fantasy release at least a majority of the music is a good thing. If that were to go away...

[Steve Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Steve Hoffman

Let me state this in the clearest possible way. Here is my advice to you jazz lovers (and future jazz lovers) and I won't even charge you $200.00 an hour.

Go here:

www.fantasyjazz.com

Take a look around. If you see anything that strikes your fancy, buy it NOW, not later.

Once the catalog is sold, the vaults will be moved, the digital parts will be trashed, and the "new" versions will be sonically compromised with over-EQ'ing and digital compression.

Get what you want (or what you think you MIGHT want, NOW!)

I would say that over 99.6% of all the OJC CD's from the Fantasy labels (Prestige, Contemporary, Riverside, Stax, etc.) were mastered from the true master tapes and the mastering was very "passive" which is what we like. The vault people at Fantasy know what they are doing. In the 90's it was Lisa Gifford and now it's the very capable Stuart Kremsky. Once the vault is moved to someplace like Edison, NJ or Hollywood, all heck is going to break lose. We've seen it happen before.

So, once again, my free advice is to get your Fantasy labels CD and LP titles NOW, while you can. I'm not talking about the SACD's here, I'm talking about the "Original Jazz Classics" (OJC) CD's and LP's. If you can't find the LP's in the stores, Tom Port at www.DCCBlowout.com has a bunch as does probably Acoustic Sounds and other dealers listed on my home page. The price of these OJC CD's and LP's is low and the quality for the most part is high.

Heed this advice NOW while you still can..

My last warning!

[Steve Hoffman]

Reread what I wrote earlier. Didn't mean to lecture, but that giant catalog is in jeopardy of being whittled down to about 100 releases very soon. Grab what you want now....

Sorry to be so depressing..

[RDK]

I'm wondering, though, if they (Uni) may move these on-line. Most of these OJCs are available for (legal) download at emusic.com already. That's great for those who accept that mp3s can sound okay - most of the emusic stuff sounds pretty good - but if Uni does get a hold of this catalog I agree with Steve that they're likely to drop a lot of titles. Especially the more obscure titles.

[MikeP5877]

It ain't just the Fantasy stuff that's in danger. Concord is (was) a great label also. If you want to hear artists like Karrin Allyson, Pancho Sanchez, Susannah McCorkle, Keely Smith, Joey DeFrancesco, etc... go out to www.concordrecords.com

[Claude]

Originally Posted by RDK

That's great for those who accept that mp3s can sound okay - most of the emusic stuff sounds pretty good

But only after they upgraded the mp3s to a better codec (and higher bitrate). Up to 2002 or so the mp3s from emusic.com were all done at 128kbs with the Xing codec. The sound of these files is horrible, which is mainly due to the poor codec.

But these mp3s were cheap (no quantity limitation back then, I downloaded more than 2000 albums during a 3 month subscription ($45)).

I guess Universal would pull from emusic.com at least those titles that they intend to keep available on CD or that they want to offer for $1/track on iTunes or other download stores, which generates more profits than the emusic subscription service.

[CT Dave]

Originally Posted by Steve Hoffman

My last warning!

I had a vision of the "Lost In Space" robot waving his arms wildly as I read this.

[-=Rudy=-]

Originally Posted by Steve Hoffman

Reread what I wrote earlier. Didn't mean to lecture, but that giant catalog is in jeopardy of being whittled down to about 100 releases very soon. Grab what you want now....

Shoot...if I could afford to do it, I would. Having all those titles in print was a really big attraction for Fantasy. It's a rotten shame it could be Universalized in the near future.

On the bright (?) side, remaining stock could be dumped into cutout bins. Hopefully they wouldn't send them to the shredder, like Warner does.

[GuyDon]

I just purchased the last 5 or 6 Big Joe Turner titles I didn't have. Although this is some of the best music Fantasy offers, I know the majority of his albums will be among the deletion casualties.

[bmoura]

Originally Posted by -=Rudy=-

Shoot...if I could afford to do it, I would. Having all those titles in print was a really big attraction for Fantasy. It's a rotten shame it could be Universalized in the near future.

On the bright (?) side, remaining stock could be dumped into cutout bins. Hopefully they wouldn't send them to the shredder, like Warner does.

At this point Fantasy is owned by Concord - not Universal. And the Concord folks tell me they don't plan any changes to the materials in the vault. So I think we'll have to sit back and watch how the merger goes.

As a side note, Concord says they have released over 1,000 albums to date. So they're certainly no slouches when it comes to having Jazz catalog in print !

[indy mike]

Hmmmm - best pester Marshall about an AF Little Richard set again...

[-=Rudy=-]

Originally Posted by bmoura

At this point Fantasy is owned by Concord - not Universal. And the Concord folks tell me they don't plan any changes to the materials in the vault. So I think we'll have to sit back and watch how the merger goes.

As a side note, Concord says they have released over 1,000 albums to date. So they're certainly no slouches when it comes to having Jazz catalog in print !

If anything, I thought Concord was just working on a distribution deal with UMG, not ownership. From my experience collecting Cal Tjader recordings, Concord has been #1 with having titles released on CD, Fantasy second. Thanks to DCC, Tjader's Skye recordings were saved from obscurity. Verve, under UMG (Universal), has fared the worst--there are still a half dozen albums out of print, and we're lucky to get a new title every few years. They seem more content on churning his back catalog via ill-conceived compilations, rather than proper album reissues.

[namretsam]

Hey everybody. LISTEN to Steve here. He is spot on about how you better buy it NOW or it could end up being NEVER.