Who gets the credit?
Topics/tags: Rants, intellectual property, short, rambly
Tonight I went to the annual Jazz Band Potato Bar
at Grinnell High
School. At this fundraising event, both the Middle-School Jazz Band
and the High School Jazz Band perform, and the Band Boosters sell food.
As always, I enjoyed listening to the music and watching the kids perform.
I appreciate the hard work the Band Directors do with these bands.
But I found one thing a bit frustrating. After the band played Hit The
Road Jack
, the Band Leader said That’s
I find that attribution troubling. The song Hit The Road Jack
by arranger
Billy Smith [1].Hit The
Road Jack
was written by Percy Mayfield (and made famous by Ray Charles).
Why didn’t he say That’s
? Both composing and arranging are important
tasks. However, if I had to choose which is more central to a song, I’d
have to say it’s the composer.Hit The Road Jack
by Percy Mayfield, as
arranged by Billy Smith [2]
We don’t say That’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, as arranged by Leonard
Bernstein.
We say something like That’s Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5
in C Minor as performed by The New York Philharmonic under the direction
of Leonard Bernstein.
We don’t say That’s
We say All Along the Watchtower
as arranged by Jimi Hendrix.That’s
Okay, we say All Along the Watchtower
by Bob Dylan and performed by Jimi Hendrix.That’s
Hendrix’s
, but more because we’re discussing
a performance than an arrangement. If someone adapted Hendrix’s version
of the song, we’d still call it Dylan’s song and might not even credit
Hendrix [3]. The performer wouldn’t say All Along the Watchtower
I just played Jimi Hendrix’s
, at least I don’t think they would.All Along the Watchtower
Nonetheless, I regularly see the arrangers, rather than the composers, credited in programs. I wonder why. One hypothesis is that because schools often purchase or rent the arrangements there may be requirements that the arranger receives appropriate credit. But that still doesn’t explain why the composer can’t receive credit, too.
Arrangements can be transformative. I think, for example, of John
Coltrane’s arrangement and performance of Rogers and Hammerstein’s
My Favorite Things
which goes far beyond the original [4]. I know
that Coltrane receives [5] only performance credit, and therefore
only performance royalties, even though significant portions of his
performance are newly created music. So a model that provides that
extra credit and compensation is valuable.
For students, arrangements are likely also essential. I expect that
it is unlikely that a group of two-dozen or so middle-school students
could each figure out their own part for Hit The Road Jack
. So
arrangers deserve both credit and compensation.
Nonetheless, in the end, the song’s the thing, as they say [6]. And credit for the song belongs to the composer [7].
[1] No, that wasn’t the name. I don’t remember the name of the arranger.
[2] I still don’t remember the name of the arranger.
[3] I think we should credit Hendrix. But it’s still Dylan’s song.
[4] I credit my Tutorial student AC for that particular example.
[5] Received?
[6] I’m not sure who says that, and my Web search reveals nothing. Nonetheless, it’s a phrase I feel like I’ve heard regularly.
[7] Or the songwriter, if you will.
Version 1.0 of 2019-01-11.