Bad news for music lovers: Fantasy Studios, building closed. Get your OJC CD's now!!

Hi,

A travesty! Not only does a historic label studio come to an end, but also their tape library's staff knowing about what they hold and it's history. Steve is right about this. The crimes against great art in the name of higher profits. Get OJC reissues while you can, they will likely become collector's items.

 

This is sad. Are those OJC albums on vinyl likely to become OOP?

 

This sucks!

 

It looks like a lot of them already are. If you go to Acoustic Sounds or Music Direct, many of them have a status of "out of stock", "backordered", etc. and have been that way for quite some time.

 

Here are the ones I still have from the "VICJ" series of K2 20-bit Japanese mini-LP sleeve CDs done in the 1999-~2001 timeframe:

Mulligan Meets Monk (VICJ-60473)
Thelonious Monk Quintet (VICJ-60463/Prestige 7053)
Milt Jackson & Monty Alexander Trio - Soul Fusion (VICJ-60864)
Oscar Peterson - The Trio (VICJ-60849)
Portrait of Cannonball:Julian Adderley Quartet (VICJ-60493)
Basie & Zoot (VICJ-60872)
Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet (VICJ-60282)
Count Basie Orchestra - Prime Time (VICJ-60857)
Milt Jackson Sextet: Invitation (VICJ-60478)
Milt Jackson: Montreux '75 (VICJ-60851)
Basie Jam (VICJ-60856)
Ella Fitzgerald/Joe Pass: Take Love Easy (VICJ-60319)
Milt Jackson Orchestra: Big Bags (VICJ-60688)

I sold quite a few others when I bought their AP 45rpm counterparts, and I was thinking I'd sell off Mulligan Meets Monk, Basie Jam and Take Love Easy when I get those on 45 rpm. Maybe I'll hang onto them....

 

This post gives me the willies. Horrible situation. What a racket they have going, eh? Man this is a shame.

IIRC the exact same thing happened to the historic Corbis photo archive after Bill Gates bought it. It's gone in the mine, 'safe' but out of reach for everyone.

dan

 

Don't want to highjack this thread so I started a new one. Interesting article about Corbis in Iron Mountain:
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=116707

 

Those are Victor Japan CDs, not JVCs. They're from the same family, but not quite the same CDs.

The JVCs are older, some of them date from the mid- to late 1980s. I posted a small list of of those earlier JVC XRCDs in post #124. I'd like to know what Steve thinks of them.

 

It sounds like Stuart encapsulates all the knowledge. And now that's lost?

Why would Fantasy not have covered their *** in case Stuart left and made part of his annual performance evaluations a labeling process whereby he would label each tape reel to identify what it was, using a UPC bar code on each box, and subsequently have corresponding information in a computer data base? Obviously, Fantasy has a lot of tapes, but if they didn't assign archiving documentation to their vault keepers they were grossly negligent as a company. Their back catalog is their most important asset.

 

This makes sense, but it assumes that the senior management there would have had an understanding of the optimum set of practices needed to manage the tape library. It has not always been my experience that senior management (in any type of company) necessarily understands the specific needs of any one department. Senior management usually is comprised of guys with success in selling, period....they don't come out of the 'process' or production end of the company.

I'd guess that they likely really didn't know, and if they did know, their willingness to give Stuart the time on the job to get it done was not there. I'd guess Stuart already had plenty to do, and if your employer doesn't give you the resources (admin. assistants, etc.) to get it done, it's pretty difficult to be a hero and do it on your own time.

 

Steve, thank you for the deep insight

We love your stories!!!

 

B*****ks!!!!! Now I have to spend more money this month.

 

I've seen a few comments on this thread that the masters will be destroyed but is there really any evidence of this? If not, please don't give me a heart attack! I've enough heatlh problems.

Jake

 

The masters will be fine -- just very hard to access if at all, according to Steve and others.

Actually, I should qualify that. They'll be "fine" if stored properly.

 

Thanks, I read that in the earlier posts. I was just saying that I wish that people would think twice before posting such comments without providing any evidence.

Jake

 

I'll say this again and then shut up: the access problem is a direct result of Concord/Fantasy's failure to properly maintain its own materials. I'm sure the people they put in charge of this did great work (we've heard direct evidence that they did), but unlabelled or cryptically labeled boxes of tape that only one person in the organization understands is just foolish. Sending all the stuff to Iron Mountain and depending on their staff just compounds the problem. I'm sorry as hell that this is such a mess all the way around and it worries me that plenty of other labels are probably just as bad. I hate it for Steve and others who need these materials to do their work - we all suffer when this happens.

 

This is no attempt at a threadcrap.

In the last couple of years I've bought Fantasy label product that profoundly disappointed me. Top of the list were 2 discs - an Orrin Keepnews supervised 'Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets' where they played the 78's on a Victrola and mic-ed the Victrola from a distance (you can easily guess how bad this sounds). The other disc was the 2-lp-on-1-sacd Big Star, which sounds horrible: treble turned all the way up the point that you can't dial it out on playback. I had actually vowed to avoid Fantasy product in the future. Now, sadly, that decision may have been made for me.

 

After reading this thread, I have what is probably a dumb question, but here goes....Are there companies out there that specialize in the cataloging and storage of media - audio, film, etc.? It seems to me that there is a market for this type of thing and various labels, studios, etc. would jump at the chance to outsource this kind of thing.

Based on Steve's earlier comment, customer service would be the priority in a company like this where requests for material are handled quickly and efficiently.

There are probably some people in the job market that would make excellent employees for this type of business. Unfortunately, I don't have the dollars to start a company like this. Maybe someone on this board does.

 

This might be of interest to you:
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=605520&postcount=82

Not saying anything one way or another, but there's a possibility that the treble wasn't turned all the way up on that.

Sorry for the sidetrack... on with the thread!

 

If there isn't a company like this, there should be. There has to be a better alternative to Iron Mountain out there, where they will actually care for, and know about the music.

 

Thanks for the story, Steve. Always neat to hear how things are gone about. And an ending I wish you didnt have to tell . So sad.

 

Yikes. Bet it rips the hairs out of the ear canal.

 

Here is an interesting video on Iron Mountain's web page giving a tour of their Records Management:

http://www.ironmountain.com/services/tours/Records.asp

If the master tapes would only be catalogued before shipping to Iron Mountain, it looks like they can be easily retrieved. But that's the million dollar question - will they be catalogued correctly before being shipped? Based on the layoffs, it looks highly unlikely.

 

I've been bracing for news like this ever since Concord took over. I bet I've bought over 100 OJC CDs in the past year. I took their availability for granted for over a decade.

How long after Blue Note's (EMI's) purchase by a VC company will it take for them to realize that the LA tape storage facility is prime real estate too?

In general, Jazz music buyers are in a tough spot. Sales are down with no signs of it going in the other direction any time soon. It's gotten to the point where if I find something in a store that intrigues me, I buy it. I may never see it again.