When I started listening to jazz, I discovered that the one label I could trust was Blue Note Records. The music and even the covers were distinctive. While the label had a number of jazz hits, like “The Sidewinder” and “Song for my Father,” some of my favorite albums were those I picked off the discount rack by artists I hadn’t heard of, such as Andrew Hill, Sonny Clark and Sam Rivers (whose Soho loft I was later to frequent for avant garde jazz).
Blue Note is celebrating its 75th anniversary and to commemorate the event, there is a 400-page hardcover book and 5-CD singles box set, both titled “Blue Note: Uncompromising Expression.”
The book was written by jazz critic Richard Havers and is the first official illustrated history of Blue Note Records. Wayne Shorter, Robert Glasper, and Blue Note President Don Was penned introductions to the volume.
The title comes from the label’s statement of intent at the beginning of its existence. Blue Note was started by German Jewish immigrants escaping the Nazis. Alfred Lion had heard jazz in Berlin and shortly after he arrived in New York, he attended the historic “Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall and soon afterward signed up some of the artists he had seen.
Lion was later joined in running Blue Note by his longtime friend, Francis Wolff, who arrived from Germany in 1939. Wolff turned out to be a gifted photographer and his photos were often on the album covers, many of which were designed by Reid Miles, who added Bauhaus-style typography. Later, the label enlisted Rudy Van Gelder, the legendary sound engineer, who initially set up a recording studio in his parents’ living room and later built his own studio.
The music progressed from traditional jazz (e.g., Earl Hines and Sidney Bechet) to bebop (Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell), to hard bop (Art Blakey, Horace Silver), to avant garde (Cecil Taylor and Sam Rivers). Many of the key artists started as sidemen but were then given their own opportunities to record and urged to compose new pieces (such as John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Freddie Hubbard).
After he had a heart attack, Lion sold Blue Note in 1966. Though Wolff stayed on for about five years, the label went into an artistic decline. The quality was restored when Bruce Lundvall took over and hit an unexpected bonanza when it signed up Ravi Shankar’s daughter, Norah Jones. Her popularity gave Blue Note a financial boost that allowed the label to obtain many other eminent artists, such as Rosanne Cash, Al Green and Van Morrison. Indeed, under Lundvall’s stewardship, Blue Note brought in a number of top vocalists (including Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson), something it was not known for during the Lion era.
Lundvall was replaced by Don Was, another jazz aficionado and also a musician, who continued Blue Note’s tradition of high quality. If you want an idea of how the label is doing, look at the Grammy nominations this year: 12 nominations, including three for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
Havers’ book meticulously documents the history of the label, the key individuals and information about the recording sessions. He sometimes comes across as more of a fan than a critic. While there are more searching analyses of the music, what makes this the most treasurable jazz book in years is the quality of the art work: the photos and album covers, reproduced in a hard-cover book with high quality paper. Just turning the pages and seeing these photos of Monk, Blakey, Silver, et al., just fills me with joy.
The accompanying 5-CD set is also a keeper. Compiling a singles collection struck me as a bit strange, since I always thought of Blue Note as an album label. However, it has had various hits over the years and some of these are recordings I had not heard before, such as Sidney Bechet’s “Summertime” and Earl “Fatha” Hines’ “Reminiscing at Blue Note.” I was not even aware that these artists had recorded for the label.
Of course, many of the hits were ones that I had often heard over the radio and own, such as Blakey’s “Moanin,'” Miles Davis’ “Tempus Fugit,” Monk’s “Straight No Chaser,” Lee Morgan’s “Sidewinder,” Milt Jackson’s “Bag’s Groove,” and Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man.” The one outstanding singer of the Lion era is Bill Henderson (on Horace Silver’s “Senor Blues” and with Jimmy Smith on “Ain’t No Use”).
The 75-track set is comprised of the following:
Disc 1: From Boogie To Bop 1939 – 1953
Disc 2: Messengers, Preachers and Hard Bop 1953 – 1958
Disc 3: Struttin‘, Moanin’ and Somethin' Else 1958 – 1960
Disc 4: Bossa, Blues and Hits 1961 – 1965
Disc 5: Can You Dig It? 1953 - 2014
The only dull pieces on the set are the first six on the “Can You Dig It?” These singles (by Donald Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey and others) might have sold well, but there are far superior Blue Note artists who are omitted from the set, such as Herbie Nichols, Andrew Hill, Jason Moran and Sam Rivers. And while there is a generous amount of Horace Silver, I don’t see how they can leave out “Song for my Father.”
That said, even serious collectors will not have some of these classic recordings, especially the earlier ones on “From boogie to bebop.” There is also a 78 page history by Havers and some of the photos of the artists.
The “Uncompromising Expression” book and the CD set confirm that Blue Note was, and still is, the gold standard among jazz labels.
