savoy records was nuts

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i think im going to be sick

[Big Beat Steve]

I think it's funny.

It's things like this that add the spice to history.

[Christiern]

How misguided can one be ? Thanks for posting that.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right.

Now as for that "sell records to colored people and not white people"? No clue what the heck they were thinking there. I never knew that the "colored people" had all the money in 1951.

[Larry Kart]

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right.

Now as for that "sell records to colored people and not white people"? No clue what the heck they were thinking there. I never knew that the "colored people" had all the money in 1951.

No, it's that "colored people" were one market by and large and "white people" were another in 1951, and if you could corner a fair portion of the former (and such cornering was possible, or easier to envision as possible, for an independent label like Savoy), you could make a good living. Examples abound.

[Big Beat Steve]

Very good point, Larry. 1951 still WAS a time when the indies in the "niche" markets ruled big and scared the wits out of the majors whenever it came to up-and-coming trends for the youngsters. And some of the best years (up to the advent and establishment of rock'n'roll from, say, 1954) were still to come for the indies. Lubinsky wasn't dumb.

And as for that organ thing, that statement really has to be seen in the light of the times (1951). And besides, no matter how big Milt Buckner was (or was to become) by many a yardstick, his attempts at grabbing a bite of the pop market were sort of disappointing. I for one find his (c.1955?) Capitol album "Rocking with Milt" and that companion album pretty tame (despite the promising title). O.K. enough bit it did NOT rock.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Big Beat Steve

[Kevin Bresnahan]

And as for that organ thing, that statement really has to be seen in the light of the times (1951). And besides, no matter how big Milt Buckner was (or was to become) by many a yardstick, his attempts at grabbing a bite of the pop market were sort of disappointing. I for one find his (c.1955?) Capitol album "Rocking with Milt" and that companion album pretty tame (despite the promising title). O.K. enough bit it did NOT rock.

Well, considering it's 2008 and Milt still hasn't commanded my hard-earned $$, I'd say Savoy knew what they were talking about then too.

If you ask me, most of this letter reads like a polite rejection letter. These days, you don't even get that courtesy.

[Chuck Nessa]

So all you folks think "nuts" is a negative thing?

[Big Beat Steve]

If what I've read about Herman Lubinsky is anything to go by, then "nuts" isn't the worst or oddest label you could have tagged on him. I guess it took a fair degree of nutsiness in those days to run an operation like one of those indie labels. :D

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i thought there was this other guy at savoy, Ozzie Cadenna, what about him- where the two partners, a la wolff & lion? or whats the story.

[Stereojack]

i thought there was this other guy at savoy, Ozzie Cadenna, what about him- where the two partners, a la wolff & lion? or whats the story.

Ozzie Cadena was an employee, not a partner. Produced many fine jazz sessions in the late 50's.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right.

Now as for that "sell records to colored people and not white people"? No clue what the heck they were thinking there. I never knew that the "colored people" had all the money in 1951.

No, it's that "colored people" were one market by and large and "white people" were another in 1951, and if you could corner a fair portion of the former (and such cornering was possible, or easier to envision as possible, for an independent label like Savoy), you could make a good living. Examples abound.

Indeed. Lubinsky ran a radio parts store in Newark and records were part of his business; black buyers were his mainstay. Influenced by Eli Oberstein, he started making records - for the black public - in 1939.

Having money is a relative kind of thing. What counts is finding enough people with spare cash to spend on luxuries like entertainment. The black population, a high proportion of them migrants from the rural south, felt a lot more prosperous in the industrial cities of the north where they wound up than they had been down south (and quite probably they really were). As a result, a much higher (than the equivalent earners among whites) percentage of their income went into luxury spending - processed hair, zoot suits, clubs etc and records.

Inner city economies are much more volatile than rural ones. So for most people there was an up and down and up and down race. But rent parties only work when there are enough people who can contribute. So on average, things were sufficiently better for the migrants for record companies to be supported. A very high proportion of the independent record companies set up in the post-depression era, up to the early fifties, were firmly focused on black music and the best of them (including Savoy) were able to put the majors entirely out of the R&B charts by the mid fifties.

The relative prosperity thing probably also applied to the white migrants into the midwest cities at the same period - Sid Nathan at King was catering to both sets of migrants - but I don't know much about that migration.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right.

Jimmy Smith didn't popularise the organ in the black community. He did popularise it in the white community, of course.

Wild Bill Davis was the man in the black community. His recordings for OkeH were the real start of the organ movement. He was followed quickly by Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner (though I've never been sure of how popular in the black community Buckner really was). Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis started the tenor/organ concept in 1951, but those recordings for Roost never sold, though they're interesting. But from 1956, his recordings with Shirley Scott on King, Roulette and then Prestige, leading up to the classic Cookbooks of 1958 were another very important factor in the spreading popularity of organ jazz in the black community.

It seems to me that JOS didn't get into targeting the black audience until the sessions, which I think were intended to produce juke box 45s, rather than an album, of 1958 and 1959, which eventually made up "Home cookin'", then in 1960, "Open house" & "Plain talk" (neither of which was issued at the time), and a month later "Midnight special" & "Back at the Chicken Shack". That's my impression; I know you know people at Blue Note, Kevin. Is there any knowledge there (now) of what market Lion and Wolff were aiming at with different recordings? (correspondence and stuff - or someone as long in acquaintance as Chris Albertson, who could come in here?"

MG

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I know you know people at Blue Note, Kevin. Is there any knowledge there (now) of what market Lion and Wolff were aiming at with different recordings? (correspondence and stuff - or someone as long in acquaintance as Chris Albertson, who could come in here?"

MG

The only person who might know is Cuscuna. "Blue Note" the company, just went through a rather large workforce reduction. I don't know if anyone is even technically working for Blue Note any more.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I know you know people at Blue Note, Kevin. Is there any knowledge there (now) of what market Lion and Wolff were aiming at with different recordings? (correspondence and stuff - or someone as long in acquaintance as Chris Albertson, who could come in here?"

MG

The only person who might know is Cuscuna. "Blue Note" the company, just went through a rather large workforce reduction. I don't know if anyone is even technically working for Blue Note any more.

Ah well. What happens to stuff like correspondence and accounts material when a record company gets taken over? I'd have thought it would be kept somewhere.

MG

[AllenLowe]

Lubinsky = Goniff ******

******that's a Yiddish word, for all you goyim out there - look it up on google -

[Big Beat Steve]

Lubinsky = Goniff ******

Predictable ...

Another quote from some other music source mentioning Savoy and Lubinsky that immediately comes to mind is "a legendary cheapskate"

But at least he outrecorded and outlived others in the same position who probably weren't any better (e.g. John Dolphin).

[Brad]

That's a hell of a letter. At least, he's perfectly candid.

[JSngry]

Milton Goniff, isn't he the cat who drew Steve Canyon?

Or am I thinking of Ray Goniff, the trombonist turned easy-listening staple?

[clifford_thornton]

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right.

Jimmy Smith didn't popularise the organ in the black community. He did popularise it in the white community, of course.

Wild Bill Davis was the man in the black community. His recordings for OkeH were the real start of the organ movement. He was followed quickly by Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner (though I've never been sure of how popular in the black community Buckner really was). Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis started the tenor/organ concept in 1951, but those recordings for Roost never sold, though they're interesting. But from 1956, his recordings with Shirley Scott on King, Roulette and then Prestige, leading up to the classic Cookbooks of 1958 were another very important factor in the spreading popularity of organ jazz in the black community.

It seems to me that JOS didn't get into targeting the black audience until the sessions, which I think were intended to produce juke box 45s, rather than an album, of 1958 and 1959, which eventually made up "Home cookin'", then in 1960, "Open house" & "Plain talk" (neither of which was issued at the time), and a month later "Midnight special" & "Back at the Chicken Shack". That's my impression; I know you know people at Blue Note, Kevin. Is there any knowledge there (now) of what market Lion and Wolff were aiming at with different recordings? (correspondence and stuff - or someone as long in acquaintance as Chris Albertson, who could come in here?"

MG

Really glad you are back, MG!

[AllenLowe]

well, there are crooks and there are CROOKS - especially in the music biz, Big Beat - and Lubinsky was definitely one of the worst -

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

well, there are crooks and there are CROOKS - especially in the music biz, Big Beat - and Lubinsky was definitely one of the worst -

Lubinsky interests me quite a lot, but I've read little about him. Where did you get your info from Allen?

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right.

Jimmy Smith didn't popularise the organ in the black community. He did popularise it in the white community, of course.

Wild Bill Davis was the man in the black community. His recordings for OkeH were the real start of the organ movement. He was followed quickly by Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner (though I've never been sure of how popular in the black community Buckner really was). Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis started the tenor/organ concept in 1951, but those recordings for Roost never sold, though they're interesting. But from 1956, his recordings with Shirley Scott on King, Roulette and then Prestige, leading up to the classic Cookbooks of 1958 were another very important factor in the spreading popularity of organ jazz in the black community.

And I should also have mentioned Doc Bagby, who was A&R director for Gotham, producing many gospel sessions and playing organ on some in the late forties/early fifties, then joining with Jaws to produce the first regular working tenor/organ combo (as opposed to a pickup studio group). Check out Jaws' 1954 Birdland gig on Roost, also featuring Sonny Stitt, for some nice Bagby.

MG

[Chuck Nessa]

Jimmy Smith didn't popularise the organ in the black community. He did popularise it in the white community, of course.

Wild Bill Davis was the man in the black community. His recordings for OkeH were the real start of the organ movement. He was followed quickly by Bill Doggett and Milt Buckner (though I've never been sure of how popular in the black community Buckner really was). Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis started the tenor/organ concept in 1951, but those recordings for Roost never sold, though they're interesting. But from 1956, his recordings with Shirley Scott on King, Roulette and then Prestige, leading up to the classic Cookbooks of 1958 were another very important factor in the spreading popularity of organ jazz in the black community.

It seems to me that JOS didn't get into targeting the black audience until the sessions, which I think were intended to produce juke box 45s, rather than an album, of 1958 and 1959, which eventually made up "Home cookin'", then in 1960, "Open house" & "Plain talk" (neither of which was issued at the time), and a month later "Midnight special" & "Back at the Chicken Shack". That's my impression; I know you know people at Blue Note, Kevin. Is there any knowledge there (now) of what market Lion and Wolff were aiming at with different recordings? (correspondence and stuff - or someone as long in acquaintance as Chris Albertson, who could come in here?"

MG

I think you misunderstand the urban black market in the US. When I worked at the JRM in the '60s, the vast majority of JOS sales (80%) were to working class blacks. The Sermon and House Party were at the top of the list. These were folks buying second and third copies because the others had been damaged at parties. This was primarily a white store.

The singles business was a blues and r&b market at the time.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

does EMI now own/ have access to the Lion/Wolff non-tape related blue note archives--- eg. print material, sales figures, et al? or is this material long since vanished from the archives?

for i was just listeining to the al lion thank you speech (thank you for it again btw), he gives his sincere thanks to Ike Quebec for all his help and guidence....

....can you guys expand upon what we know about Ike Quebecs role in blue note as A&R head? was it ikes job to expose al to musics that he should be hip to? or was al hip anyway on his own?

who can expand this post and tell us about ike quebecs role

later, Duke Pearson took over this role. What is known about him and his role in the company.