Sunday, January 23, 2005FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JAN 30, 2005
Jazz Journalists Association Presents Jazz Matters: "Artists Copyright vs. Corporate Copyright"
The Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit organization, will present a panel of experts who specialize in copyright issues on Wednesday, February 16, from 6-8 pm at the New School Jazz Performance Space, 55 W. 13th St. in New York. The event is free and open to the public and is the first in a series of four presentations planned for Spring, 2005. Panelists include Gary Giddins, author of "Weatherbird" (Oxford University Press) and former jazz critic for the Village Voice; Jonny King, Copyright and Trademark Attorney, jazz musician and author of "What Jazz Is" (Walker 1997); Norman Schreiber, former Vice President of Contracts, American Society of Authors and Journalists and 25-year veteran magazine journalist; and Gail W. Boyd, President of Gail W. Boyd, P.C. and Gail Boyd Artist Management.
Ongoing developments in intellectual property law continue to highlight the debate over the rights of artists, the entertainment industry, the media and the public to gain access to and use creative works. Recent cases regarding peer-to-peer file sharing on the internet, an author's right of attribution, and the extended term of copyright protection have all touched on the sensitive allocation of rights among those who create works, those who exploit them, and those who seek to enjoy them. This panel has selected knowledgeable commentators from the legal, artistic and journalistic community to discuss the struggle to protect and encourage creative authors while guaranteeing the public access to their creative output.
Nearly 25 years ago, Martin Williams called Gary Giddins "probably the most impressive journalist ever to have written about music." Born in Brooklyn, New York, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College in Iowa, and began working as a freelance writer the following year. In 1973, he joined the Village Voice, and a year later introduced his column "Weather Bird," which he ended in December 2003, closing a 30-year run during which he received international recognition and won many prizes, including an unparalleled six ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for Excellence in Music Criticism.
Giddins' writings on music, books, and movies have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, The Atlantic, Grand Street, The Nation, and many other publications. He presently writes music columns for Jazz Times and Tracks, and about movies for the New York Sun. His first book, Riding on a Blue Note, appeared in 1981, and was followed by Rhythm-a-Ning, Faces in the Crowd, and critical biographies of Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong that he adapted into documentary films for PBS; he subsequently won a Peabody award for writing the PBS documentary, John Hammond: From Bessie Smith to Bruce Springsteen. He won a 1987 Grammy Award for his liner notes to Sinatra: The Voice, and was nominated on two other occasions.
In 1986, Giddins and the late pianist-composer John Lewis introduced the American Jazz Orchestra, which presented jazz repertory concerts for seven years[~]in all, more than 35 concerts. He also produced four concerts for Festival Productions at the JVC Jazz Festival.
In 1998, his classic Visions of Jazz received the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism--the first time a work on jazz has won a major American literary prize. In 2001, he was featured in Ken Burns's Jazz and published his widely acclaimed biography, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, which won four prizes, including the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the Theater Library Association Award for the year's best book on film and broadcasting. Giddins has held teaching posts at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, and New York University. In 2003, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Jazz Journalist's Association. His current book, "Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century," a collection of essays and reviews written between 1990 and 2003, was published by Oxford University Press in November 2004. Oxford will publish a selection of his film and literary writings in 2005.
Jonny King is a working professional jazz musician and a copyright and trademark attorney in New York City. King has 25 years experience as a touring musician, composer and arranger. He has been a member of the Joshua Redman Quartet, OTB and the Eddy Harris Group and has also led his own bands in major New York City venues. His compositions may be heard on albums featuring many of today's major performers and he was previously been signed to Enja Records and Crisscross Records, with his Enja recordings earning 4 1/2 stars from Downbeat Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, King is a practicing intellectual property attorney at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, one of the country's oldest and most established IP boutiques. King has represented clients in various industries, from music to consumer products and pharmaceuticals. He has been closely involved in a number of ground breaking disputes regarding the use of music on the internet. King is the author of articles and regarding intellectual property and wrote "What Jazz Is" (Walker 1997), a primer in jazz from a musician's point of view.
Norman Schreiber is past Vice President of Contracts for the American Society of Authors and Journalists and a 25-year veteran magazine journalist and author of "The Ultimate Guide to Independent Record Labels and Artists," among other works.
Gail W. Boyd is President of Gail W. Boyd, P.C., an entertainment law firm, and Gail Boyd Artist Management, a wholly owned company of the law firm. She is a graduate of DePaul University and DePaul University School of Law. She was a founding partner in Boyd Staton and Cave, the first African American female law firm in New York. Boyd has specialized in entertainment law since 1976 and in jazz since 1979. Boyd is the former Vice Chair of the Entertainment, Sports, Art Law Committee of the National Bar Association. She also chaired the Entertainment, Sport, Art Law Committee of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association and served as a member of the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Entertainment Law. Boyd is an attorney and board member of the International Women in Jazz and served as a member of the Jazz Jam Committee of the National Association of Recording, Arts and Sciences.
In 1968, Boyd had the privilege of acting as production coordinator for Quincy Jones producing a concert in Central Park. She has also served as production coordinator for more than ten jazz CD and recently co-produced a gospel album for the choir of Emmanuel Baptist Church.
As a lawyer, Boyd has represented Betty Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, and Randy Weston. Artists currently represented by Gail Boyd Artist Management are: John Clayton; the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra; the Clayton Brothers Quintet; Don Braden; Terri Lyne Carrington; Babatunde Lea; Bujo Kevin Jones, and Elio Villafranca.
The Jazz Journalists Association is a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit organization of internationally-based writers, editors, photographers, broadcasters and media specialists who institute collegial and educational programs for the appreciation, documentation and promulgation of jazz. As of January 2005, JJA comprises more than 400 members, mostly in the US and Canada, but also in Australia, Europe, the UK, Japan, Mexico, Moscow, South Africa and South America. For more information, see the JJA website at www.jazzhouse.org.
For more information on the Jazz Journalists Association or the Jazz Matters panel on February 16, contact Dawn Singh, 857-544-0739 or dawn@dawnsinghpublicity.com. The next Jazz Matters Panel will be Wednesday, March 23. Lois Gilbert is Jazz Matters Producer and Owner of Jazzcorner.com (www.jazzcorner.com) Contact her at: lois@jazzcorner.com
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Gary Giddins
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