Concord Fantasy Tutti

What was rumored and reported in June is now official. Concord Records, founded by the late Carl Jefferson (one of jazz's most benign patrons), has closed on its purchase of the Fantasy Inc. holdings, "its huge library of masters, its studios and its publishing interests." That last one is the kicker, naturally. And so the new majority shareholder of John Fogerty's soul is nor Mr. People For The American Way himself, Norman Lear.

Besides potentially continuing the sad saga of self-plagiarism as a footnote to the First Amendment, though, this particular divestiture feels like the end of an era to this listener who built his jazz library on an OJC ("Original Jazz Classics") foundation. The fact that Universal Vivendi is now a partner, albeit just a distribution agent, in this enterprise isn’t exactly encouraging. And given that Concord itself has allowed major portions of its catalog -- not least of which its Maybeck Series of solo piano recitals -- fall out-of-print (OOP), I have to wonder, as respected "audiophile music restoration specialist" Steve Hoffman does, whether this portends major and alarming attrition for the Fantasy catalog as well.

That would be a tragedy indeed, not to mention a condemnation of American acquisitiveness, our wheeler-dealer infatuation with amassing a stockpile of wondrous Easter Eggs -- especially golden ones laid by geese of a different color -- and stuffing them into one basket. Should Concord reengineer biz practices in the wake of this $90 (or is it $80?) million USD stock exchange, we could lose massive quantities of Prestige, Riverside, Contemporary, Stax / Volt, Galaxy, Milestone, Takoma, and Specialty titles might be removed from circulation. We're talking here about some of the most important independent labels in American recording industry history. We're talking about epochal recordings by Miles, Monk, Trane, Rollins, Mingus, Bill Evans, and many others. We'd also be looking at the potential loss of obscure gems such as Webster Young's For Lady, Duane Tatro's Jazz For Moderns, René Thomas' Guitar Groove, Shorty [Baker] & Doc [Cheatham], or your favorite here. I certainly don’t expect Concord to begin throwing money at these sorts of reclamation projects any more. Nor do I expect Concord to be as risk-taking and innovative in the ways that Fantasy has been (e.g., the "Legends Of Acid Jazz" series).

In the interest of fairness, of course, I should say that the OJC series was not always the most consumer-friendly. $11.99 for a 38-minute disc! Then again, if you ordered direct and in bulk, you would get a discount and a shipping waiver, which meant it was easy to take chances on records that looked interesting on paper but, well, who knew how they might play out. More than sneakily encouraging a form of completism, however, the people running Fantasy have long seemed to understand that they are not just running a business. They are fulfilling critical curatorial obligations. Saul Zaentz may not be able to dance, but he was a robber baron in the most honorable sense of the appellation; what my father liked to call "an honest crook". As the era in which so many of these great records were made and first pushed to market recedes a little more with each passing day, and as the individuals intimately involved in the production and distribution of those old long-players pass away, facsimile reissues that retain the original artwork and liner notes (yes, even Ira Gitler's exercises in vacuity) assume a totally different and, I would argue, superior, significance. Under the current circumstances, we are able to examine these recordings "in state" and "in context". Should the new heads at Concord decide, for example, to take out the modestly selling OJCs that focus on Prestige's important Swingville subsidiary, our picture of that label's activities, not to mention the multi-layered, overlapping African-American music scenes of the time (late 1950's – early 1960's) in general, would become that much more incomplete. Just think about the European chop-shop label versions of some of the seminal bebop recordings you may have seen. Made from ripped-off digital or analog masters, sloppily annotated, with basic information pertinent to the origin(s) of the recordings often missing in order (I have to assume) to avoid prosecution, Proper, Classics, or the many-tentacled Fresh Sounds operation ultimately do both the music and the listener a disservice: they leave too much information about the music -- its origins, its legitimacy, its sequence and actual substance -- in doubt.

Come to think of it, why would Saul Zaentz want to sell such a valuable and apparently still-lucrative assets? Copyright may indeed be the key. EU copyrights have a lifespan of only 50 years. The next decade promises havoc for the Fantasy holdings overseas. Did Zaentz decide he could not compete with the Jordi Pujols of the world? Is this sale an acknowledgement that the costs and logistics of maintaining intellectual control of this "content" are projected to be too much, too great a threat to Fantasy's solvency? That seems a bit far-fetched. Especially as, in the wake of the Iraq War debacle, the appetite for American culture dissipates abroad and the target demographic for this kind of musical "sophistication" dwindles back home. Whether out of optimistic defiance ("I will survive!") or bitter resignation ("We can’t give this stuff away!"), Fantasy boarded the high-speed MP3 train early on. And if one thing looks to be sacred in this brave new world, it is that more and more Fantasy properties will be semi-locked down via Emusic.

No explanation of this sale is likely to be forthcoming, ultimately. And, whatever happens, the new owners will put a happy face on the transaction. For the time being, there's still an online order form up at the fantasyjazz.com website. And it is the giving season.

Splurge, baby.

~ This is Joe Milazzo, and I endorse this message.