News

Upon publication of the Legrand jazz I emailed Speakers Corner president Kai Seemann to let him know about it. He responded.

This is a very interesting and ultimately confusing story we will stay on top of until all of the questions are answered but here's what he told me:

He claims my facts regarding ownership of the recording are wrong. Seemann says that in fact, Philips owns the recording, which today is owned by Universal Music and that his reissue's cover art is the actual original artwork.

That would mean that Philips convinced Columbia Records to use its studios and its premier jazz talent Miles Davis and the others to record this album, which Philips then licensed back to Columbia. That's a curious turn of events, especially since Columbia had released previous Legrand albums but it's also possible that those titles were also licensed by Columbia from Philips!

Now here's where it gets really weird! Seemann says that the tape he used was "the original master" stored in Paris and that Speakers Corner was "directed to it" by Michel Legrand's manager!

The tapes went to Willem Makkee (shown in the photo of him I took at the Berliner cutting facility some years ago) who cut lacquers at his Greenlight Studios. That's the first news we have that Mr. Makkee, far from retiring when he left Berliner, is still cutting. That's good news!

Seemanns says he will ask Mr. Makkee if he agrees that the tape is "pseudo stereo."

I offered to digitize my Columbia original if necessary but so far that offer had not been accepted.

Mr. Seemann was cordial in his response, but he asked why I did not drop him a note in advance before publishing the review. What do you think? Should we publish first and notify? Or ask first and publish later.

We'll let you know what Mr. Makkee has to say about this curious case!