[Dixielandjazz] Royalties

[Mike Durham]

Steve Barbone wrote (extract):

>Jelly Roll Morton's royalties? I think ASCAP did not let him join until 
>shortly before he died. So, he never made much money at all on 
>royalties.....

>He may well have sold the licensing rights to his tunes for $100 each to 
>some one else. (Melrose?), because there was no way for him to collect, but 
>I do not know this for a fact.

- In fact, Jelly was admitted a couple of years before he died, to ASCAP's 
lowest possible category. He then left his royalties to Anita Gonzalez (tho 
some say she wrote his last will & testament for him), and her estate still 
collects them. However, the Melrose brothers wrote banal lyrics to many of 
Jelly's published tunes, and thus got half the composer royalties as well as 
the publisher's slice. Jelly was really mad about that (see the great book 
"Oh, Mister Jelly!" published by Jazzmedia aps).

Mike.

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