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----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Smolian" <[log in to unmask]> > When a performer has a bad day in the concert hall and he recorded without > being aware that it is a "recording session." A radio broadcast was made > with the expectation that it would vanish at the end of the broadcast. The > idea of recording from the audience, out of balance, etc., was clearly so > illegal that many never considered it at all. Until the miniatrre tape > recorder, that is. > > This obsession with making public every performance instance can be one > reason for the "tightening up" of performances that might otherwise be more > relaxed, intended for the hearing of the paying audience only. Are we > becoming an intrusive "recorderrazzi"? > > This is clearly an ethical issue. Having said this, I confess to enjoying > musical performance gossip as much as the next guy. > Nonetheless, we are "collectors" (as the association's full name will indicate...) and as such we want a copy of EVERY performance, if only to compare them with similar existing performances (i.e. "Did xxx's approach to conducting yyy change over the years...?"). In jazz, the desire to collect ALL performances of a given work/artist is even greater...if only because each individual performance can be completely different from its predecessor/successor...! Of course, my own "Barr's Ninth Law Of Music" (You're never as good as you want to be, or as bad as you think you were...) can explain why artists often try to control which of their performances are to be released to the public. Anything that, in their minds, fails to attain "perfection" (usually an unattainable goal, btw...) should NEVER be heard by the public! Then, add the industry assumption that someone who can obtain an on-site taped copy of a given item will therefore NOT purchase the equivalent commercial recording of same... And you are left with the cliche'd meeting of "Irrestible Force" and "Immovable Object"...! The odd thing is here that I have a collection of about 200 cassette tapes of live performances of my own blues band...and find it fascinating to listen to them and hear my skills improve...! Steven C. Barr