Miles Davis

[twm]

In one of these threads (not sure if it was on this board or not), I siad how much I enjoyed Miles Davis recordings from the 1950s and 1960s. For anyone who was intrigued, this must be worth considering:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miles-Davis-Classic-Albums-10CD/dp/B004UVCOZ4/ref=pd_ybh_5

Ten CDs for the price of one regular commercial CD! What a superb bargain!

I'm currently comparing the contents with the CDs I have  and those that i do not have, before buying it myself. I suspect it'll stil be worth my while buying it.

[twm]

Yes, I did order the Miles Davis box ... 

... along with another Miles CD (the soundtrack for a French film), a DVD of called "American Folk-Blues Festivals" (that includes some material filmed on two blues tours where I went to shows) and a really cheap Sonny Boy Williamson CD (basically of his first two Chess albums - that's Sony Boy Williamson No.2, by the way - and I saw him live several times, too) ....

.... but, if you want to try out some classic Miles but don't wish to pay as much, you could do no worse than try this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Real-Miles-Davis/dp/B0051J4R1I/ref=pd_sim_m_h__48

OK, it's a selection of tracks rather than complete albums but these are classic tracks from some really wonderful albums and you get 3 CDs for

[Justme]

Thanks for the hint! I'll look into that.

[vgonis]

I have bought 3 or 4 boxsets of this kind, Django Reinhart, Edith Piaf,  and I think Miles as well, but I am too tired to look through my CDs right now. !0 CDs for 9.99 Euros, but that was 5-10 years ago. (yes, 5 years seem such a long time looking back, but they have passed like a blink.) Anyway, I think it had something to do with the difference in the copyrights legislation, between Europe and America (50 years and 70 respectively). Unfortunately, and with no obvious reason other than protecting the big companies, they have passed laws all over the world that increased the copyrights time to 90-100 years, with some exceptions (the Sonny Bono law-it is a travesty of a law...) Anyway this means that all music prior to 1923 is free and new music will not be available free of copyrights untill2024. Of course it is still a matter of the record companies to force new laws that further increase the copyright years. It is a shame, because the original thought from the lawmaker was to help the contributors (composers, artists, producers, etc) gain some money from their work, up to 50-70 years from the original release date, thus ensuring an income for the rest of the life of the contributors and their children (that have somehow been deprived of their parents when creating the music). The 90-100 years newer law, under the new ways of selling and distributing music, clearly helps mostly the record companies. So it is another 20 years for the recordings of Robert Johnson(yes we all have them, but still...)   
Back to the original topic, I think that there were many boxsets, mostly Jazz, circa 40ies, but I had not the money to buy them all.And even if I had, I wouldn't have the time to listen to all of them. But from what I have, they are quite a buy.

[twm]

All the more reason to bag these sorts of releases while we can.

Just arrived today were three CDs and a couple of books [not from Amazon]. Two CDs were by T-Bone Walker and Bessie Smith respectively and at a price of

[vgonis]

Just went through the CDs. It looks like a different thing, cover and company -wise, and since there is no track list, at Amazon, I am not quite sure if it is a re-packaging or a completely different thing. Anyway, the company is mcps distributed by Membran and the individual CD titles are: Dig, The serpant's tooth, Tune up, Walkin', Green HAze, No line, Four, Bye bye Blackbird, Half Nelson, and My funny Valentine. Most probably not the same since I see only 10 albums, while the boxset at Amazon has 20! It is quite a buy!

[twm]

"mcps" is the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical-Copyright_Protection_Society

What it means, I think, is that some royalties should be paid through "mcps", as indicated in the link. I think (but I'm not sure) that the original recording company will not get anything and the performing artist may get a basic rate and not the rate agreed between the artist and the recording company. I stress that I don't know this for sure.

[twm]

I wrote thr previous post in a hurry, on the way out of the house, so here's a bit more.

The MCPS is linked to the PRS (Performing Rights Society) and they collect composers' royalties and the like.

The other orgnaisation is the the PPL(Phonographic Performance Limited) which collects the royalties (or fees) for the record companies when one of their recordings is played on radio, TV or in some other punblic way. Here are the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performing_Rights_Society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonographic_Performance_Limited

Rather than individual compsers or record companies having to get in the revenues from the public performance of their works (which would be a difficult not to say impossible task for individual people or companies), these organisations gather all such revenues and then distribute them.