Lindy Hop Jamboree's

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Nima · #1 Post by **Nima** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 9:35 am

I was at Herang this year for the first time and I came accross amix someone had made called "Lindy Hop Jamboree part 7" (Jumpin'). From what I hear they are mixes done by someone in germany and there is total of 10 of them. Anyone has any comments about the other 9 CD's in the collection?

Needless to say I love this CD and I am wondering where can I find the other versions. I doubt Amazon carries these.

Nima

#2 Post by **JesseMiner** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 2:11 pm

I posted the following on the old SwingDJs yahoo group back on Oct. 27th, 2000:

The Lindy Hop Jamboree series is put out by a German group called Boogie Baeren. There are 10 CDs total in the series, and each CD is a collection of classic big band swing tunes. The recording qualities are across the map, as the songs are taken from a large variety of sources. The pro of these compilations is that they bring together a great collection of hard to find and lesser known swing tunes. The cons are inconsistent quality and lack of any liner notes whatsoever (this would be incredibly helpful for me in tracking down the original album sources). All that is included is the track listing, song lengths and BPMs (actually T/M, measure/minute, which seems to be a common tempo measurement in Europe). The first four of the series are Lindyhop Jamboree #1 - 4. Each of these has a wide range of tempos, incrementally going from 120 BPM up to 200+ BPM. After that, the successive compilations have been broken up into two CDs, thus for #5 - 7, there is both a "Grooving" and "Jumping" CD. The "Grooving" has a tempo range of 120 up to 160, and then the "Jumping" continues up from 160 to 200+.

I have collected all of these over the years and enjoy them as a source of lesser-known big band swing. Not all of the stuff is of the best quality, but these compilations have led me to discover some fabulous albums, and in my earlier lindy hopping days, we would throw these on for our practice sessions.

These compilations were incredibly helpful a few years ago when it was hard to find great swinging music and there wasn't any support network like this website or so many knowledgeable DJs seeking out the music. I don't know if I would be as likely to track down these CDs today.

If you really are interested in tracking them down, I would recommend you check out the distributor Spindrift Records. They offer the best price I have ever seen for these CDs: $15/CD. Use their search engine, as it isn't obvious where to find the compilations on their site.

Jesse

Lawrence · #3 Post by **Lawrence** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 2:12 pm

They are illegal compilations done by a European and thus not commercially available in the U.S. They began in 1995 or 1996 or so, and are perhaps the most widespread illegal compilations of copyrighted music in the Lindy world.

Nima · #4 Post by **Nima** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 9:25 am

Lawrence wrote:They are illegal compilations done by a European and thus not commercially available in the U.S. They began in 1995 or 1996 or so, and are perhaps the most widespread illegal compilations of copyrighted music in the Lindy world.

Interesting you say that because this came to my attention when I was at Herrang this past year. It seems like a lot of DJ's have opted through this route and are selling their compilations in the Lindy Hop Shop.

However, most of this compilations were, well, not very good for my taste. There was a CD entitled "All that Fever" which had seven different versions of the song (I forgot which) amongst other repeats which titles contained the word Fever.

However people were buying them back and forth!! I guess copyright laws are not highly enforced in Europe.

Nima

scowl · #5 Post by **scowl** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 1:53 pm

It's possible that the recordings are illegal in the U.S. but are legal in other countries where the copyright on recordings only exists for 50 years after release. Many classic swing recordings fell into European public domain in 1995-1996. All recorded works except maybe some wax cylinders will have copyright protection in the U.S. for many more years thanks to the Sonny Bono Extension Act passed in 1998.

#6 Post by **JesseMiner** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:43 pm

Here's more of what I posted regarding the Lindy Hop Jamboree CDs on the old SwingDJs yahoo group back on Oct. 27th, 2000:

The CDs have a bootleg quality to them, though they are supposedly registered with GEMA (doesn't exactly answer how legal they are though).

GEMA is the German society for musical performing rights and mechanical reproduction rights. I assume that is something like ASCAP or BMI here in America.

So supposedly these complilations are licensed by the German organization GEMA, not just burned CDs that a DJ is selling.

Read more about GEMA here.

Jesse

scowl · #7 Post by **scowl** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 5:56 pm

The record company may have a legitimate GEMA license and may even be using it legally but there's no way to tell. Most European bootlegs in the early 90's carried GEMA stamps. Back then (and maybe now) GEMA was so disorganized that it couldn't keep track of which license holders were actually paying royalties for the records they were selling. Small record companies also had trouble remembering what they were selling and sometimes they would forget to send GEMA a check once in a while. The "copyright clearinghouse" idea that GEMA and SIAE in Italy were founded on become something of a joke in the record industry because it was impossible for people to know which CD's were legitimate releases.