[Dixielandjazz] Copyright - Redux

[Steve Barbone]

One of the first lawsuits involving a jazz copyright/authorship, 
involved "Livery Stable Blues". In Law School, my corporate law prof 
knew I was a Jazz Musician nights. So he dug out  the case and we 
studied it in class. As I remember it, refreshed by Dick Sudhalter's 
"Lost Chords":

Seems that Yellow Nunez had sheet music published with him and Ray Lopez 
as composers. This really pissed Nick LaRocca off and shortly thereafter 
he published "Barnyard Blues" (same piece) listing himself as composer. 
La Rocca then sued Nunez and Lopez, as well as their publisher for 
stealing the tune.

Lopez was band manager for Tom Brown's Band From Dixieland which had 
preceded ODJB in Chicago by about a year and they had, at that time 
used, Livery Stable as an audition piece for the joint that hired them.

Anyway, the trial took about 2 weeks with all sorts of crazy "expert" 
testimony. It was a circus and the Chicago newspapers papers had great 
fun with it. From describing the musicians as noisemakers, or poking fun 
at La Rocca's outlandish clothing, or quoting testimony by Nunez that 
"Jedge,  blues is blues". Experts also seriously discussed the 
differences? in the horse whinnies and/or chicken cackles of the two 
tunes. On the other side even testified that all blues were exactly the 
same and could be played at the same time and place because the music 
regardless of the blues tune, would harmonize correctly from a 
conventional musical perspective.

After a couple of weeks of this, the judge threw the case out without a 
decision. Seems he'd had enough of these crazy jazz musicians.

You have to laugh about it all, especially when factoring in Paul 
Whiteman's "Experiment in Modern Music". As Dick Sudhalter ("Lost 
Chords") points out, in 1924, Whiteman opened

"at Aeolian Hall with Livery Stable Blues. Whiteman clearly intended it 
as an illustration of how 'primitive' jazz had been before he and his 
orchestra came along to civilize it - but right away he was worried."

He then quotes Whiteman directly.

"The audience listened attentively to everything and applauded 
wholeheartedly from the very first moment. When they laughed and seemed 
pleased with Livery Stable Blues, the crude jazz of the past, I had for 
a moment the panicky feeling that they hadn't realized the attempt at 
burlesque-that they were ignorantly applauding the thing on its merits."

Hmmmmm. So what else is new? How many of us play it at the breakneck 
speed of the record thinking that we are being faithful to the original? 
Too many I fear, who did not learn that almost all the early ODJB tempos 
are faster than usually played live because of the 3 minute record 
limitation. And, since they were not improvising, the choice was either 
leave out one of those memorized parts or play it faster. They opted to 
play faster as I hear it, rather than attempt a variation.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
PS. Lopez and LaRocca remained bitter enemies for the rest of their lives.