The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168926   Message #4113935
Posted By: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
20-Jul-21 - 08:21 PM
Thread Name: Stinson Records Revisted
Subject: RE: Stinson Records Revisted
Goldsmith, Olmstead and all the rest refer to Disc Records as Moe Asch's second record label. Depending on how one parses Story Time Records and Asch-Stinson International &c it's more like the fifth or sixth to carry the Asch brand name.

Into all that chaos walked an unsuspecting Norman Granz with the Jazz at the Philharmonic series. Barton names JATP, Volume I as Stinson Trading Company's all-time best seller. It's certainly in the top two discographies along with Burl Ives' The Wayfaring Stranger.

Asch bought the rights to at least two songs from Grantz (How High the Moon & Lady be Good) in August, 1945. Four months later in December he resold the rights and the six masters he had prepared to Stinson Trading Co. without Granz' knowledge and without a record ever being pressed.

No two of the three parties agreed on who bought what from whom or for how much. Granz-v-Harris, and all its appeals & settlements, still gets cited in publishing case law. Google it and have fun.

At the end of the day Stinson Trading Co. pressed only the two songs mentioned above and only on the new Asch Records label, with its new and improved lefty logo. As above, controlled by Stinson Trading Co. alone, if only for fifteen months. The questionable represses & reissues & bootlegs that followed were another matter.

Granz managed to claw back the rights to all the rest of his music. Volumes 2-5 would appear only on Moe Asch's new Disc Records label.