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Re: [ARSCLIST] One more discography question
The answer re Majestic may be a bit more detailed than this one I'm providing,
but its assets were divided between Mercury and Eli Oberstein..or Mercury had
first refusal, taking artists like Eddy Howard, Alfred Newman (who eventually
owned all his masters) and some spoken word and kiddie records. Obie may have
owned the material he put out on Majestic (via Hit, via Varsity and Royale
before that) to begin with, and it began to appear immediately on the
resuscitated Varsity label.
As to who owns it now..who owns the various Obie labels, which eventually
became part of Pickwick? What went to Mercury should now belong to Universal.
dl
Tom Fine wrote:
Some of the earliest records done by Norman Granz for Mercury, not the
live transcriptions of Jazz at the Philharmonic, but actual studio
recordings, were done around 1947 in NY. Such records as begin the 8900
"Be Bop Series" on Mercury 78's. All the recording info I can find on
the NY records just say they were recording in NY. I'm wondering if
anyone knows for sure if they were done at Majestic Studios. I think at
least some of them, such as sides by Flip Phillips and Willie Smith (the
sax player, not the Lion), were done at Majestic because they were in my
father's record-album books that he amassed while chief engineer at
Majestic in its late years. I would assume if Mercury sides were in
album books with Majestic and Keynote sides, they were all recorded at
the studio, probably by him, but I can't find any reliable discography
info beyond "recorded in NY." John Hammond specifically talks about
working at Majestic for Keynote sides in his autobiography. This was
before Keynote and Mercury got together.
There were later records done for both Granz and Hammond by my father at
Reeves, but in 1947 I am pretty sure he was still at Majestic, before
that company went out of business.
A related question is, who owns what was Majestic nowadays?
-- Tom Fine