Is Alfred and Francis turning in their graves

[Hardbopjazz]

Do you think with Norah Jones success blue note will try to sign more artists like her and less jazz artists?

At least, I hope all the money she is making for BN means more RVG's and Conn's in those series.

Why sign artists like Van Morrison and Al Green unless you want to go in other directions. I know BN in the business of making money.

[Rimshot]

I find this whole thing somewhat humorous. If poor Norah Jones was signed with Columbia or Atlantic, I think a lot of traditional jazz fans would listen to her music, raise an eyebrow and think that it was pleasant enough music and she has a pleasant soulful voice that might be well suited to a more "hardcore" jazz genre.

But the fact that she happens to be recording under a jazz icon label, she is ridiculed. Norah Jones music is what it is.If you don't like it, don't buy it. Blue Note is making a ton of money from her right now and I find her work far less objectionable than the plethora of crap that is on other labels. Chill out a bit. Blue Note is still a jazz label, but it's also a business. At least they aren't signing Brittany Spears or Snoop Dog.

They are reissuing some classic jazz recordings and they are stil signing new jazz artists.

I kind of enjoy a lot of what Norah Jones is doing. There's another great vocalist songwriter out there that is best known as a "Hip Hop" artist, but who can on occassion turn in a performance that will bring to mind classic Nancy Wilson and that is Jill Scott.

.......I know....I probably just lost you there.

[Soulstation1]

snoop dogg on blue note, i'd buy it

[Christiern]

• I think the point is not whether Norah Jones' music has merit--of course it does. The point is, as I read it, whether or not the current powers at Blue Note are diluting the label's good jazz image. Personally, I think that adding artists like Jones, Van Morrison and Al Green to the roster indicates a mind-set that counters that which made the label so successful and widely revered.
  
  Many years ago, when another company (I believe it was United Artists) took over Blue Note, the label's jazz integrity suffered a blow, but it eventually got back on track and has since thrived, largely on the catalog Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff built.
  
  Yes, it is about making money, but I don't see that as an excuse to sacrifice artistic integrity. The argument one hears is that the commercial success of artists like Norah Jones makes possible the maintenance of a reissue program. Hogwash. The commercial success of pop and borderline jazz artists on the label only benefits the true jazz fan if the profits from such side trips are put into the production of new jazz sessions; the reissue program is self-sustaining, because the material has already paid for itself and the profit margin is high. If reissues were not profitable, they would only be produced by a small group of dedicated independent labels.
  
  So, I think Lion and Wolff would indeed take a dim view of their label's new direction away from jazz.
  

[Dan Gould]

I tend to agree with Chris, particularly when one considers how rare Alfred and Frank recorded vocalists, putting out vocalists of undeniable quality but questionable jazz content as Norah and Al Green (no way will I ever put "vocal quality" and "Van Morrisson" together!).

Also, the thing about Norah supporting reissues-I'd only see that as the case if the reissue program doubled its output or more obscure reissues appeared. But that hasn't happened.

Her pop success is going straight to Capitol's bottom line. The advantage for Blue Note is that it may help cover the cost of the Wynton signing.

[jazzbo]

In my opinion Blue Note the contemporary label hasn't been BLUE NOTE since the lp releases that Cuscuna put out from the vaults. The reissue series I fully view as something else entirely. And it seems to be a separate entity in ways that Chris notes. Norah and Van and Al aren't a fit with what we may nostagically want Blue Note to be, but they're an evolutionary fit to my ears to the label, a fit to my ears understandable when looking at many another new release that Blue Note has put out in the last fifteen years.

So the company has changed, so this isn't the same company that Al and Frank founded and led to glory. I've never viewed the releases from the digital age in that same way, never held them up to that standard, I guess I haven't because they're quite lacking to my ears for the most part. I long ago readjusted and don't equate the name with the glories of the past. If Riverside or Transition or Prestige had lasted til now, what would they be signing and promoting? Hard to say, but I wouldn't be too surprised if they too would court the success of a Norah Jones, or sign big names from the past that are sort genre-hopping such as Van or Al. . . .

[Eric]

From a business perspective, having profitable artists like Jones allows the jazz guys to get a "free pass" from time to time. The beancounters will lay off and with any luck, that will mean the sustainability of the reissue program. For me, that is a good thing. The jazz guys may or may not capitalize on that opportunity, but at least it is there.

Remember, this is the label that post-Sidewinder, opened many an album with the obligatory "funk" tune. Hardly a purist move and not all that different from what is going on today in the grand scheme of things. Plus, at least the pop artists (Green, Morrison, Jones) have achieved respect and artistic integrity in their own fields.

Eric

[Christiern]

If Riverside or Transition or Prestige had lasted til now, what would they be signing and promoting? Hard to say, but I wouldn't be too surprised if they too would court the success of a Norah Jones, or sign big names from the past that are sort genre-hopping such as Van or Al. . . .

Both Riverside and Prestige released non-jazz albums, which may be one reason why they never attained the near-legendary status of Blue Note. There was a purity about BN, otherwise the question that sparked this thread would not have been asked.

Riverside issued pop material, sound-effects, comedy albums, etc. Prestige's catalog included such items as Billy Dee Williams singing cabaret songs, Burgess Meredith reading Ray Bradbury stories, an album of Hermioney Baddley's comedic monologues, and even an odd Flamenco session.

Had Riverside and Prestige survived, they would probably have an equally eclectic catalogue today, and we would think nothing of it.

[JSngry]

What was up with those Riverside "car race" records anyway? Did they really sell?

[Alexander]

What was up with those Riverside "car race" records anyway? Did they really sell?

One of Spalding Gray's monologues ("Booze, Cars, and College Girls") mentions his buying and loving car race records as a kid. I thought it was a little weird when I heard that, but I guess they sold to gearheads and kids who were too young to drive. It's kind of funny to think of it in this age of Nascar, but weren't most of the celebrity race car drivers of the 50s and 60s Italians? And wasn't Italy (home of Ferrari) the car racing Mecca of that period?

[JSngry]

From what I know of the Riverside racing records, they were of American races - Sebring, Daytona, etc. Might have been some others though.

I've come across some over the years, some cheap, and some not. On occasion, I've almost bought them as curiosities. but I always pulled back just in time. Even geeks have thier limits!

[Christiern]

• The rarest one was a virtual race between two Mercedes cars. Bill Grauer sent a couple of guys to Gemany to record the engines of these two extinct cars. The tapes were then edited to fake a race that never could have taken place (guess you had to be there ). They ended up with 6 minutes, the result was issued on a $5.99 one-sided, red vinyl Judson (like "Riverside," named after a telephone exchange) disc and advertised as "a buck a minute." If it sold 6 copies I would be surprised.
  
  The race (let's make that racing ) discs reflected a passing consumer fascination with stereo/hi fi sound. I don't think the sales figures were impressive.
  

[catesta]

Yes, it is about making money, but I don't see that as an excuse to sacrifice artistic integrity. The argument one hears is that the commercial success of artists like Norah Jones makes possible the maintenance of a reissue program. Hogwash. The commercial success of pop and borderline jazz artists on the label only benefits the true jazz fan if the profits from such side trips are put into the production of new jazz sessions; the reissue program is self-sustaining, because the material has already paid for itself and the profit margin is high. If reissues were not profitable, they would only be produced by a small group of dedicated independent labels.

So, I think Lion and Wolff would indeed take a dim view of their label's new direction away from jazz.

As usual, very well said Chris.

[Dr. Rat]

Both Riverside and Prestige released non-jazz albums, which may be one reason why they never attained the near-legendary status of Blue Note. There was a purity about BN, otherwise the question that sparked this thread would not have been asked.

Personally, outside of chemistry, I hate everything that is pure. I am suspicious of anything that claims to be pure. I am suspicious of anyone who applies standards of purity.

I've always thought there was tons of bad motive wrapped up in "Blue Note's legendary status," having a lot to do with naive ideas about "authenticity" levened with plenty of racial stereotypes and sometimes weirdly twisted white guilt.

Lion came out of the first generation of jazz purists: the early 1940s trad revival. A lot of the same stupid BS that got written then about Bunk Johnson and friends is what gets written now about Blue Note.

Blue Note is essentially an imprint and a bunch of valuable copyright holdings. There are some good folk who work there, but that's pretty much just our good fortune.

The degree to which we might associate "Blue Note" with something greater is, well, strictly ideological. Either you've been taken in by the branding (pioneered by Wolff) or you've got purity on the brain.

Blue Note can't have artistic integrity: it isn't an artist. It's a collection. If it has some sort of integrity it is editorial integrity, and that's a much different matter, a matter demanding a lot more tolerance for difference and a much greater sense of the market.

Chris is right about the reissues: they wouldn't be done if they were real money losers. But I have to think that records that sell--Norah Jones, Van Morrison, Al Green--give the people at Blue Note the flexibility to make some that won't sell, and much of their contemporary jazz catalog probably sells poorly.

--eric

Edited February 16, 2004 by WNMC

[Dan Gould]

I've always thought there was tons of bad motive wrapped up in "Blue Note's legendary status," having a lot to do with naive ideas about "authenticity" levened with plenty of racial stereotypes and sometimes weirdly twisted white guilt.

Please expand on this with specifics.

[Dr. Rat]

Here's a site dedicated to hard bop that has some pretty interesting things to say: click here

Now it focusses mainly on hard bop and how it was attacked on the modernist side by the free jazz adherents. On the other hand, hard bop adherents were every bit as vehement in attacking west coast jazz as being feminine and effete.

This from a piece by James Rozzi:

"I'm talking about Tristano and the Prez followers," Prestige Records founder Bob Weinstock states with one of his surprising bursts of animation. "You know, Gerry Mulligan, Getz, Zoot, and Al... the West Coasters. They got away from Bird and the original bebop played by the giants. Personally, I think it was too much for these white musicians; that's why they went with the Prez style. Just like...after listening to years and years of jazz, it seems to me that it would be easier to play like Prez than it would be to play like Hawk or Ben Webster. It's much more intense. I don't think the white musicians had that intensity. But there were a lot of good players doing that, and as a style unto it self, I loved it. I just don't think they were in the same league. The true giants were the Birds and Dizzys."

Author-journalist Ira Gitler, in summing up what likely may have brought Weinstock to these conclusions manages to include a great many jazz aficionados in his description: "He enjoyed the spontaneity, urgency, and hotness of jazz because he started with the much earlier jazz and then worked his way up to liking the modem. But he kept one thing as a common denominator: it really had to have that feeling, the swing, the heart."

Or, using a lower common denominator, how about this, from a likewise- minded "student of jazz" who grew up in the New York of the 1930s, 40s and 5Os? "I remember going to Birdland and hearing Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. They all had nice suits on. One group in particular had really nice suits on. You know, every time I hear a lot of those Blue Note Records (Blakey was recording for Blue Note at the time), I always envision them in those same suits because they play so fixed and so tight and arranged... Herbie Hancock too, all of them...even though they all play such great solos. Herbie Hancock could have been in the same suit Horace Silver was in... or Bobby Timmons."

If these quotations can be considered standard fare of jazz buffs who were weaned on the black jazz sounds of 52nd Street, the year 1990 finds, as a direct result of West Coast jazz of the 1950s, a substantial number of jazz buffs who believe that jazz was as much, if not more, a white phenomenon. It is important to note that this Californian jazz developed naturally with original intent fixed more on a comfortable extension beyond existing jazz than what could, in retrospect, be summed up (exceptions withstanding) as a side ways deviation- into a style of tightly arranged, squeaky-clean ensembles and oft-subdued, ever-accurate solos. This is the essence of said highly perfected form of jazz with mass appeal which, as articulately stated by Mark Gardner in the liner notes to The East/West Controversy (Xanadu 104) was paradoxically triggered by "a New York nine-piece outfit led by an Afro-American." This white jazz, a.k.a. West Coast jazz is generally agreed upon as having had its inception with The Birth Of The Cool nonet, which had only two engagements in its short lived performance career at the Royal Roost (NYC) in September of 1948. It is serendipitous that Pete Rugolo of Capitol Records caught the band on one of these occasions and had enough clout to talk the Capitol brass into recording them once the then-imposed American Federation of Musicians recording ban was over.

Wolff was instrumental in exploiting and forwarding and defining the whole ideological complex of "hard bop" and while the East/West thing is probably pretty much dead, I think it is this moment which is most important in defining the Blue Note legend.

I think its Ted Gioia who talks about the way the album covers tell the story of the East Coast/West Coast conflict. The West Coast covers being obviously market driven (girls on beaches) the East Coast covers being artistic, but no-nonsense, serious, focussing on the artist, gritty, sweaty even, focussing on craft and work and masculinity. And they are, very prominently, black.

Written all over the East/West controversy was the dichotomy:

east=male=heterosexual=black=artisinal

vs.

west=female=homosexual=white=effete

The deep appeal of the top side of this dichotomy to a certain kind of left-leaning male was I'd argue an essential part of Blue Note's gaining the legendary status referred to above.

Now, I'm not talking about the music, and I'm not talking about what Wolff intended, I'm talking about the social context and how that context expressed itself through BN and how BN came to influence that social context.

I don't really ahve enough time now to get too deep into this, but I think I can provide some more specifics later,

--eric

[Joe M]

The way I see it, Blue Note today reflects of the tastes and musical direction of its boss (Bruce Lundvall) just as much as it did back in the 50's and 60's. The only thing is there's a different guy running the show now, so of course he's going to do it his way, and part of that means paying the bills. The good thing is, no matter what they put out today, good or bad, jazz or not, the legacy of the 50's and 60's output is secure, what happens today is simply a different story.

Plus, keep in mind, the market is different today, it's more about who your audience is, and I think in Lundvall's mind, they typical Blue Note customer is not the hard core hard bop head (not enough of them to make it happen $-wise), but rather a well educated, upper middle class person with some disposable income, someone who is willing to spend a few dollars to buy a record rather than download it off of a file sharing site, etc. That person probably likes jazz, owns Kind of Blue and Time Out, and enjoys music by the likes of Cassandra Wilson and Norah and Van Morrison, etc.

In a way, I think Lundvall is looking at the model of a label like Nonesuch, a label that can release some serious enthusiast recordings (Richard Goode's output for the label on the classical side, Bill Frissel on the jazz side) and mix that in with other music that isn't really stylistically similar but attracts the same listeners (Wilco, Caetano Veloso, etc), or at least listeners that fit the same demographic profile.

As far as Lion and Wolff being upset, well, they aren't around now, but I think even if they were upset, they'd be just as happy to know that their legacy still lives on in the music, and the people who love it, regardless of the company that owns the tapes.

Hey, at least Blue Note isn't trying to do what the guys at Columbia are doing with their "jazz" program. Wait till you hear their new "jazz sensation" - Nellie McKay, the sticker on the cd compares her to "two of pop cultures polar opposites - Doris Day and Eminem." (I'm not kidding - she combines the worst aspects of both!) They're trying to push it to jazz radio right now, so just be glad it's Norah that Blue Note people have to put up with and not this cabaret/hip-hop from a 19 year old white girl "piano prodigy" garbage.

[7/4]

Written all over the East/West controversy was the dichotomy:

east=male=heterosexual=black=artisinal

vs.

west=female=homosexual=white=effete

Yin/Yang Bop?

[Dr. Rat]

Written all over the East/West controversy was the dichotomy:

east=male=heterosexual=black=artisinal

vs.

west=female=homosexual=white=effete

Yin/Yang Bop?

Yin/Yang is more dialectical: there's process, there's transformation, there's one side contaminating the other.

Hard bop/West Coast (at least as conceived by the more enthusiastic proponents) is more dichotomous: absolute lines drawn.

At least I think, I'd have to go back over the record.

--eric

[7/4]

I don't think so. They were both playing Jazz. -_-

[Dr. Rat]

I don't think so. They were both playing Jazz. -_-

I figured jazz was the place for dichotomous argumentation. Isn't it?

--eric

[JSngry]

I don't think so. They were both playing Jazz.  -_-

I figured jazz was the place for dichotomous argumentation. Isn't it?

--eric

I don't know what that means, but sure, why not?

[7/4]

[JSngry]

east=male=heterosexual=black=artisinal

vs.

west=female=homosexual=white=effete

The deep appeal of the top side of this dichotomy to a certain kind of left-leaning male was I'd argue an essential part of Blue Note's gaining the legendary status referred to above.

Now, I'm not talking about the music, and I'm not talking about what Wolff intended, I'm talking about the social context and how that context expressed itself through BN and how BN came to influence that social context.

Well, considering where "the right" was during those years, that's kinda like saying that your average rock-and-roll fan of the same years was a white teenager wanting more excitement than their "social destiny" offered them at the time. It's true, but I'm not sure that there's any "deep" relevance to it because it's so obvious, and, I'd argue, an inevitability.

If we follow this POV to it's logical conclusion, how do we not end up saying that all white folks (including musicians) who dug hard bop over cool were posers motivated more by "white guilt" than a genuine appreciation and affinity for the music? I can go there up to a point, but only to a point. There has been (and is) that element to the overall jazz culture, and always has been, But labels like "white guilt" and "left-leaning"? To successfully paint with a brush that broad requires that LOTS of masking tape be applied beforehand!

[Chuck Nessa]

Geez! Another thread to avoid for my blood pressure. I do not want to get nasty.