[Dixielandjazz] "Jedge Blues is Blues" - was - Straight, No Chaser -

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Jan 12, 2012, at 4:05 PM, Bill Haesler wrote:

> Stephen G Barbone wrote [in part] in reply to my dear mate Pat the  
> lad:
>> Then again; "Blues is Blues Jedge" ask Bill Haesler who said that  
>> and when.
>
> Dear Steve,
> Was it you?
> On 2 December 2010 when, during a slow day, you posted a YouTube  
> link to Philly Jo Jones Sextet 'hard bop blues' - "Blues For Dracula"
> to the DJML and TradJazz list.
>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3d8C6xnmU
> Or were you quoting from Lenny Bruce's original "spoofy tribute  
> routine to Bela Lugosi" used by Lenny's mate, Philly Jones?
> *>)
> Kind regards,
> Bill.

Dear Bill:

List mate Jack Mitchell gets the cigar. It was at the copyright trial  
of Livery Stable Blues, and involved virtually the same tune, Barnyard  
Blues. ODJB went to great lengths to show how the tunes were different.

Nick LaRocca claimed the band members of the ODJB wrote Livery Stable.  
After they recorded it, however, Alcide (Yellow) Nunez and Ray Lopez   
registered the copyright for it so they actually owned it.

So, ODJB wrote and copyrighted a tune called Barnyard Blues and the  
issue of copyright and copying was joined since the tunes were very  
similar.

Yellow Nunez got his 15 minutes of fame when he testified. "Jedge,  
Blues is Blues"

The case was thrown out of court, neither party getting either  
copyright.  Partly because the judge thought that musicians who could  
not read music could not compose anything new and maybe in fact, blues  
is blues. VBG

BTW, the other side of that ODJB record was also involved in a  
copyright suit. The Dixieland One Step was claimed by composer Joe  
Jordan to infringe his copyright of That Teasin' Rag. That charge was  
also dismissed.

Cheers,.
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband