Stomp Off 1001 - Dickbaker.org

In that same book on page 257 thefollowing is stated in the chapter The OliverCopyrights:Zulu’s Ball, melody by J.O., arranged byAlvin Robertson; E57446, 25 October1923, Joseph Oliver, Chicago.Notice of use: 25 October 1923, JosephOliver, Chicago.Renewed: 30 October 1950 by StellaOliver (W): R69317.Oops, this may be is further evidence forRobinson, beyond just the record label. Alas,John Gill says he searched for this piece at LCon an earlier visit; he found the copyright card,but they were unable to locate the lead sheetthat would have been sent with the registrationapplication.Ultimately, I decided to go with Oliver-Robertsonand accept the theory that “Robinson”was mistaken for Robertson. As I wrote to BillHaesler (who had suggested that thecopyright “corrected” the Robinson on therecording card and record label)& John Gill:I don't necessarily read that as "corrected,"Bill. In the past six months of intensivesearching through copyright books from1890 to 1970, I've found a lot of copyrightregistrations that include an arranger'scredit. In fact, if you open my working draftof the index (in sig below) and search for thecharacter string "arr." you'll find a bunch ofthem. But nobody considers arrangers tobe cocomposers. In the back of mostannual copyright books there's analphabetical index of all the names cited inthat book as composers, lyricists, orcopyright registrants. Arrangers are not inthat list and not credited as contributors tothe compositions.And you very rarely see an arranger'scredit on a record label, although it has beendone.So as far as I'm concerned, the copyrighttells us only that Oliver cited Zue Robertsonas the arranger.Of course, we can now ponder overwhether the "Robinson" on that recordingcard and the Gennett label was reallyRobertson misspelled or misheard. It'scertainly possible, even likely. But that's along way from proven, especially sinceRobinson is such a common name. If therecording card had said Robartson, I'd behappy to declare it a typo for Robertson.But even as I write this, I can't help thinkingthat the Robinson on that card (which isundoubtedly the source for the Robinson onthe label) is in fact a "mishearing" ofRobertson that occurred when the engineeror A&R man or some other Gennettfunctionary in the recording studio askedJoe Oliver who wrote the tune. Oliver lateridentified Robertson as an arranger when heregistered the copyright, but the"published"* recording gave cocomposercredit to Robinson/Robertson.__________________*"Published?" As noted above, I've spent alot of time looking at registered copyrights,then at the published sheet music orrecords, noting more than a few differencesbetween what the copyright registrant putdown and what went on the "published"product that was delivered to the public. Iconsider the published information to bedefinitive, even if it conflicts with thecopyright information, since the world atlarge bought the sheet music or therecording; it did not burrow fanatically intomusty archives like I've been doing. So ifRobinson/Robertson was on the onlypublished version of that tune--Gennett5275--then the title is Zulus Ball and thecomposers are Oliver-Robinson/Robertson,period. Of course, "published" in this case isa bit of a stretch, since the recording wasrejected and never distributed by Gennett;but still, that one magical copy got out with aproper Gennett label, and it has beenreissued and rerecorded ever since. That's"published," isn't it?January 2014 afterthought: About thatdamned apostrophe. In favor of it is thecopyright registered by King Oliver himself--presumably, that’s what he named the tune.Against it is that one miraculous record label, asingle freak copy that got loose of a recordthat was never pressed and sold. One couldeasily argue that more people have seenreproductions of that record label than haveseen the copyright listing in Library ofCongress files.Oh, hell, let’s just split the difference and listthem as alternative titles.Zwei dunkle Augen, zwei Eier im Glas!(Friedrich Hollaender)Frederick Hodges 1333Hmm...the copyright is eggless:Zwei dunkle augen; tango aus der revue, Beiuns um die gedachtniskirche rum, text andmusik von Friedrich Hollaender, of Germany;pf. arr. by Otto Lindemann. © Jan. 30, 1928;1 c. Jan. 7, 1929; E for. 1900; Rondo-verlag,G.m.b.H., Berlin.Well, I can’t find any online refs to it thatinclude the Eggs, and the German version ofhis name is Holländer, as you’d expect. (He’sin this index already for “Johnny.”)11/6/13 asked Frederick to copy sheet musicfor me. He sent copyright page and 2nd pageof music, which matches what we have aboveexactly, including “English” spellingHollaender. Copyright is Rondo-Verlag, Berlin,1928, but the pages are numbered 10 & 11and there’s no cover, so I suspect that thiswas taken from a folio.Zymurgy Rag (Robin Frost)Matthew Davidson 1252CD had “Zymurgy Rag—The Last Word inRags.” But the “Last Word” phrase is just onthe hand-drawn cover page, more as acaption for the drawing than a subtitle, and it’snot on the copyright page, which is 1988 byRobin Frost.(And if you stop to think about it, making thatphrase part of the title, or even a subtitle,would logically force you to shorten the maintitle to just “Zymurgy.”)________________________*Pseudonyms:Hyman Arluck = Harold Arlen’s real nameBarney & Seymour = Theron C. BennettAlex Belledna = Edna Belle AlexanderRaymond Birch = Charles L. JohnsonBismer = John NesbittGeorge Brooks = Fletcher HendersonGeorge Brown = Billy HillLarry Buck = Lawrence Dubuclet.Buckley = David WilbornSidney Carter = Charles N. DanielsRibé Danmark = J. Bodewalt LampeSelma Davis = Aletha DickersonJim Fisk = C. L. Barnhouse)Leo Gordon = George L. CobbCoot Grant = Leola B. WilsonWill Handy = J. Rosamond Johnson–Bob ColeHead = George ThomasJohn Henry = Perry BradfordNOTE that Bradford also used pseudonymJohn Perry, which we don’t have here.S. R. Henry = Henry R. SternHarry Herschel = Harry WarrenJoe Hoover = J. Russel RobinsonPaul James = James P. Warburg