I think, in both cases, those who are interested in the music tracks need just wait around a couple
of years and they will appear on dirt-cheap multi-CD sets from Asia or places like Majorca (sp?).
All of this music is long out of copyright most places in the world. Sure, the gray-market/pirate
sets may not be legally for sale in the US, but third-party sellers via Amazon will make them
available. The music is too obscure for any big guns lawyers to go and fight the pirates. So, bottom
line, the artifacts and books, and the care and research they represent, are limited-edition items,
but the music will pop up all over the place if there's any demand for it.
If I ran a university library, I would want to pay Bear Family for a package that included PDF of
the book, digital files of the music and a site license to make them available via the library
website. The idea of having a physical book and CDs locked away in a place to which people need to
travel is very 20th century and I'm not sure how much stomach there is to invest in such things in
these times.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dr Rainer E. Lotz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2014 3:20 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] [Virus Error] PARAMOUNT and BLACK EUROPE
> Interesting thread.
>
> Given the strictly limited print-run of 500 copies I am convinced that the value of the box will
> increase over time. A couple, three individuals told me that they had this in mind when doing the
> purchase.
>
> Maybe I am biased, but I am of the opinion that no archive, institution, library, university that
> has a serious interest in black studies could afford NOT to purchase BLACK EUROPE. Thus, access to
> the general public should be assured in all states of the US, even though the institutions may
> decide not to lend out the books, or the box.
>
> As well, I am sure that the two books will serve as valuable source material for future research
> on the subject matter. They are a virtual who-is-who and biographical dictionary for people of
> African descent in Europe, information not presently available elsewhere.
>
> Furthermore I am sure that the CD tracks accompanying the book will be of immense interest to
> musicologists, linguists, ethnologists etc. because the majority of the tracks have NEVER been
> commercially available anywhere since they were originally recorded some 100 years ago. As far as
> I am concerned, the recordings by African-Americans are of particular importance as they serve as
> "missing links" in the prehistory of jazz and blues. Musics recorded only in Europe and not in the
> US.
>
> With regard to the previously re-issued recordings: Compare those LPs and CDs with BLACK EUROPE. I
> bet you will discover subtleties and nuances, briskness and speed corrections that make them far
> superior to anything available elsewhere.
>
> The secret is, of course, that no expenses were spared to locate the best surviving artefacts, and
> then again no expenses were spared either to ensure state-of-the-art restoration and digitisation.
>
> Compare this with the much discussed PARAMOUNT box. Though packed rather nicely, the sound quality
> is absolutely miserable. I am afraid what happened is that no serious effort was undertaken to
> locate the best original 78s, and then to apply 21^st century technology and expertise to restore
> them. Instead, most of the tracks on the PARAMOUNT LPs were apparently lifted (you could perhaps
> call it "bootlegged") from DOCUMENT CDs. We must eternally be thankful to Johnny Parth to have
> made the blues rarities available to the public at large on his Document series. But he did that
> in the last century, or rather millennium, sometimes using cassette copies, of tape copies of
> transfers from poor-minus 78s. It takes a lot of chuzpe to release them "as is" in 2013. We know
> where the original 78s are, thus an incomparably better job could have been done. Why, oh why
> wasn't Richard Weize approached to do this...
>
> By the way; if any of you experienced similar problems as Mike Biel in placing a last minute order
> at the special subscription price, contact me off-list and I'll see what I can do.
>
> Dr. Rainer E. Lotz
> Rotdornweg 81
> 53177 Bonn (Germany)
>
> Tel: 0049-228-352808
> Fax: 0049-228-365142
> Web: www.lotz-verlag.de
>
>
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