Re: Intents & Purposes

In Reply to: Intents & Purposes posted by Ed Maurer on May 09, 1999 at 11:53:59:

I'm sorry that I've been unable to reply to your query re: INTENTS & PURPOSES sooner. With further regard to that recording, I hope the following will prove to be informational.

INTENTS & PURPOSES: the Bill Dixon Orchestra was recorded for RCA Victor Records in 1966/67 and commercially released in 1967.

Shortly after that, despite strong and encouraging reviews amidst a virtual paucity of advertising--the nature of the beast in those days--it went out of print in the United States.

In 1972, the recording was released in Japan on Japanese RCA Victor, and in 1976, when I performed at the Autumn Festival in Paris, France, it was released on French RCA Victor with both a new cover and new liner essay.

Over the years, and especially since the inception of the CD format for recording, there have been periodical rumblings and requests (made to me) from various interested listeners' and collectors' quarters about the recording being re-issued as a CD.

In the early 1980s, concomitant with my introduction to Italian audiences, I was briefly in contact with a producer (it might have been Ed Michel, I'm not sure) who was thinking of re-issuing it. We had telephone contact for a period of time (he professed strong interest and gave me some rather cogent advice) but nothing ever came of it.

A couple of years ago it was brought to my attention that ideas were being floated by two highly respected and successful music producers of creating a "box set drawing on material...produced for Arista in the Seventies..." for which they were also considering the inclusion of "some" of the material (not all) from INTENTS & PURPOSES. (Note: Ben Young, the compiler of the material for DIXONIA: a BIO-DISCOGRAPHY of BILL DIXON, initiated correspondence with these two producers /22 June 1997 and 8 October 1997/, and I have copies of this correspondence.)

With regard to my feelings, artistic and otherwise, concerning the possible splitting up of INTENTS & PURPOSES merely to accomodate a compilation of other works by other artists, one would have to have the insensitivity of a pirana fish in a sea of blood to not understand why I would not, if it at all rested me, want to have my work aurally displayed and placed within artistic confines that had had little to do with its genesis.

INTENTS & PURPOSES was conceived as a whole; the four compositions are philosophically and intrinsically linked. On the humanistic side, it was my third recording (I came to recording quite late) following two recordings that I did for the SAVOY label. It was, indeed, my first crack at a fuller artistic expression: I worked like the devil on that record and, as a consequence, I'm incredibly sensitive about it being displayed for listeners in any format other than the one I conceived. I have wanted to purchase the masters myself, but that has come to naught. I would rather it never be re-issued if it can't be done with the relevant amount of fidelity to the philosophy of its initiation.

Follow Ups: