Suggestions for Dutton Vocalion Multichannel SACD Releases

[van1]

Chicago may have fallen out with their producer/manager James William Guercio and parted company with him in 1978 because they felt he was too controlling and not paying enough attention to them, but he did one very smart thing for the band. When they signed with Columbia in 1969, their contract said that ownership of all their recordings would revert back to them in 25 years. So in the mid 90's Columbia lost the rights to all of Chicago's material, and they started their own label, Chicago Records, and re-released all of their albums up to Chicago 15 on that imprint - the CDs were straight ports of the old Columbia masterings.

The Chicago Records thing was either too much work, or not making enough money for the band so some time in the late 90s or early 00s they shut down Chicago Records and signed a distribution deal with Warner Bros. - after that you started seeing the deluxe edition CDs (with the really loud compressed masterings and bonus tracks), the box sets, and more recently, the Quadio set which is on Rhino, WB's reissue subsidiary. I don't know if Chicago sold their catalog outright to WB, or if they're just in some kind of joint venture where Chicago retains ownership of their masters, but Warners now controls everything the band did because the albums from 16 onward were recorded for Reprise, which is a WB subsidiary.

Aerosmith is still firmly with Sony as far as I know, so if there were any reissues of their albums it would be through Sony Legacy (their catalog division, the equivalent of WB's Rhino) or Sony Japan, if they were going to go down the 7" quad SACD route.

Thanks Steelydave,
So you agree that I was 'technically' correct?

 

[JediJoker]

Aerosmith is still firmly with Sony as far as I know, so if there were any reissues of their albums it would be through Sony Legacy (their catalog division, the equivalent of WB's Rhino) or Sony Japan, if they were going to go down the 7" quad SACD route.

Well, the "early" Aerosmith, through Rock In A Hard Place, and then from Nine Lives onwards. The intervening records were on Geffen.

 

[key_wiz]

Interesting that the Chicago deal included them not only gaining the rights to all the sound recordings but all the artwork that went along with the albums as well.

I suppose it makes sense that it will all be included, but knowing how such contracts are often written, one could certainly imagine some jerk at Sony turning over all the tapes to the band but saying “good luck releasing that stuff without the artwork for the album covers!”

 

[ubertrout]

For whatever it's worth, US copyright law allows the artist to terminate their assignment and get back their copyright at 56 years. This sometimes leads to outright recapture, but more often leads to a renegotiation to the extent the band still has commercial life. This is obviously coming up for a lot of bands that make recordings in the early 70s in 5-10 years, so we might see some movement. The relevant code section is here, at section (c): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/304

 

[key_wiz]

For whatever it's worth, US copyright law allows the artist to terminate their assignment and get back their copyright at 56 years. This sometimes leads to outright recapture, but more often leads to a renegotiation to the extent the band still has commercial life. This is obviously coming up for a lot of bands that make recordings in the early 70s in 5-10 years, so we might see some movement. The relevant code section is here, at section (c): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/304

Probably easier in most cases to just renegotiate with the label that’s been handling the stuff for so long. They’d have to sign with SOMEone. As Chicago seems to have learned, owning your own label isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

 

[key_wiz]

Has anyone yet suggested Maynard Ferguson Conquistador?

Did he have any other quad releases it could be paired with?

 

[fredblue]

Has anyone yet suggested Maynard Ferguson Conquistador?

Did he have any other quad releases it could be paired with?

great suggestion!
just one Quad afaik but its a good one!

edit: licensing may be an issue, BGO put it out on a 3-fer CD set in the UK in 2015. may not be a problem! hope not!

"gonna fly nowwwwwww....
flyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"

Duh duh - DUH..!!!

 

[key_wiz]

great suggestion!
just one Quad afaik but its a good one!

edit: licensing may be an issue, BGO put it out on a 3-fer CD set in the UK in 2015. may not be a problem! hope not!

"gonna fly nowwwwwww....
flyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"

Duh duh - DUH..!!!

Maynard busting my eardrums with one of those high notes out of all four speakers!

 

[sjcorne]

Has anyone yet suggested Maynard Ferguson Conquistador?

It would be nice to hear a good sounding version of the quad mix! It looks mint, but it's the worst sounding SQ LP in my collection. Totally mushy right from the first note, with bouts of distortion. I have several of those '76/'77 Columbia SQ discs that are said to be bad distortion-laden pressings (Burton Cummings, Electrified Funk, Go For Your Guns), and this is by far the worst of the lot. The Q8 transfer I've heard is better, but still dull compared to other Columbia Q8's I've heard.

Very hopeful there's a pristine quad master waiting to be unearthed, as with the Chase debut album. My Q8 copy of that one was nearly unlistenable, so what a shock it was to hear it sounding as good as Mr. Dutton made it sound. That man has my ever-lasting gratitude...

 

[key_wiz]

It’s pretty amazing that there are as many good-sounding quad masters from the 70s lying around as it is. Considering they were mostly used only once or twice and then forgotten about, that they all haven’t completely deteriorated or were tossed in the 40-50 years since they were last played is a blessing in and of itself.

If we were to find out that many can’t be found or are in unusable condition would not be surprising to me at all.

 

[4-earredwonder]

It would be nice to hear a good sounding version of the quad mix! It looks mint, but it's the worst sounding SQ LP in my collection. Totally mushy right from the first note, with bouts of distortion. I have several of those '76/'77 Columbia SQ discs that are said to be bad distortion-laden pressings (Burton Cummings, Electrified Funk, Go For Your Guns), and this is by far the worst of the lot. The Q8 transfer I've heard is better, but still dull compared to other Columbia Q8's I've heard.

Very hopeful there's a pristine quad master waiting to be unearthed, as with the Chase debut album. My Q8 copy of that one was nearly unlistenable, so what a shock it was to hear it sounding as good as Mr. Dutton made it sound. That man has my ever-lasting gratitude...

Another must have QUAD title: Conquistador!

Jonathan, sorry to hear the vinyl is subpar [as were a lot of Vinyl Quads/CD~4s of the era].

Chase was brilliant, IMO. To hear it in such pristine sonics was a revelation. In fact, my latest batch of 12 D~V SACDs, although not all to my taste, were revelations of what those Columbia engineers achieved back in the early to mid 70's.

The Tomita Daphnis and Chloé was pretty astounding as well. Simply gorgeous.....as good, IMO, as any of the Japanese Tomita mch SACDs [maybe even better].

 

[edisonbaggins]

I'm sure it's already been said, but just to bump, the remaining Tomitas!

 

[4-earredwonder]

I'm sure it's already been said, but just to bump, the remaining Tomitas!

The Quadraphonic Discography lists a few more 'unreleased' Tomitas:

Firebird
Kosmos
Pictures at an Exhibition
The Bermuda Triangle

Some of the Denon Tomita Quads may have some of these tracks folded in with existing Tomita Releases.

 

[edisonbaggins]

The Quadraphonic Discography lists a few more 'unreleased' Tomitas:

Firebird
Kosmos
Pictures at an Exhibition
The Bermuda Triangle

Some of the Denon Tomita Quads may have some of these tracks folded in with existing Tomita Releases.

We do have Pictures on SACD, thankfully!
And Claire.
But how about some Kosmos, Firebird and Bermuda?!

Sent from my TA-1025 using Tapatalk

 

[edisonbaggins]

Some of the Denon Tomita Quads may have some of these tracks folded in with existing Tomita Release.

Hmm. Several Denon quads I didn't know about. I wonder if they're any good?

 

[sjcorne]

Hmm. Several Denon quads I didn't know about. I wonder if they're any good?

Yeah...I believe there's one called "Space Fantasy" that has part of Kosmos. Odd they chose to release abridged versions, but the good news is that the quad masters are accounted for and in good shape.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Hmm. Several Denon quads I didn't know about. I wonder if they're any good?

Mike, here's CDJapan's current listing of all the existing Tomita QUAD titles:

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/searches?term.media_format=&q=tomita+sacd

 

[4-earredwonder]

Here's one Tomita I don't have. Contains 1 mch SACD and 1 RBCD: http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/COZQ-1023

 

[Mesozoic Mike]

Here's one Tomita I don't have. Contains 1 mch SACD and 1 RBCD: http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/COZQ-1023

Just ordered this. Excited to hear this one.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Just ordered this. Excited to hear this one.

Those CDJapan bonus points are burning a hole in my pocket ... I'll probably order it as well.