Bruce Lundvall interview

[brownie]

The Blue Note festival starts in Paris today.

Le Monde newspaper published in its latest edition yesterday an interview with Bruce Lundvall. It's in French and on this link:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-...6-359899,0.html

No english translation available.

[wesbed]

Here's an English version, translated from French to English using Google.

>translated article<

[brownie]

Westbed, thanks for the translation. And nice job from Google, too...

[Christiern]

Hilarious.

SNL's "news" yesterday announced that Norah Jones has turned 20, and her audience has turned 50.

It will be intersting to see how far Bruce takes the label away from jazz--recent signings don't bode well.

[JSngry]

I post this both to mock the results of "mechanized" translations (and rest assured, I would never mock a real person's attempts to navigate a second language. I know it's tough. But this is not the result of any person's work, so I think it's fair game) and because Lundvall makes some very good business points here. I still say that although most of the label's "real" jazz output these days doesn't particularly interest me, those for whom it does should be thankful that as shrewd an operator as Bruce Lundvall is at the helm. This guy and whatever music he throws his support behind WILL survive in some form or fashion.

However...

There are moe than enough unintentionally hilarious turns of phrase in this article thanks to the translation engine's literalness to entertain us for decades to come!

Bruce Lundvall, producer: "the jazz can bring back money"

"Blue Note France is, except the United States, the most active structure"|AFP - Vince Bucci/Getty Images

From the 4 to April 9, in Paris, a festival introduces the artists of division jazz of major EMI. Entretien with the president of the phonographic company Blue Note Records.

Producer, president de Blue Notes Records, most famous from the phonographic companies of jazz, Bruce Lundvall was born on September 13, 1935 in Englewood (New Jersey). In 1960, this graduate in trade and finance are engaged at the department "marketing" of the house of discs Columbia Records, of which he will become president.

He leaves it in 1982 for Elektra-Musician, label dedicated to the jazz, before joining, in 1985, Blue Note, division jazz of major EMI. Today chairman of the sector jazz and traditional of EMI, always president de Blue Note, Bruce Lundvall was in Paris to finish, with the organizers, the preparation of Blue Note Festival, envisaged in several rooms of the capital from the 4 to April 9.

For which reasons the first edition of a festival strictly devoted to the artists Blue Note does take place it in France and not in the United States?

The project is an initiative of Nicolas Pflug, person in charge for the label in France. It studied of it reliability and we were convinced. We already organized special nights Blue Note, and for the sixty years anniversary of the label, founded in 1939 per Alfred Lion, our artists were programmed in several clubs new-yorkais ( the World of January 20, 1999). Blue Note France is, out the United States, the most active structure in terms of signature of artists and of many musicians of the catalogue are French (Michel Petrucciani, Jacky Terrasson, the Prysm trio, Saint-Germain, Erik Truffaz...). It is thus finally rather logical.

There would be at Blue Note, there too, a French cultural exception?

Your country was always attentive with the jazz. Many musicians afro-American were accomodated there as artists. The first house of discs only devoted to the jazz was French - Swing, founded in 1937 per Charles Delaunay- . Then, it is that the team of Blue Note France is active, ambitious, has ideas and that they find a good echo near the public. All the discs signed here were published in the United States. What is not always the case with our other European branches or Japanese women where certain artists are very specific to the local markets.

The jazz is however supposed to have a capacity to like beyond the borders. Do you think that that is founded?

I do not know. There are pools, history, on which the amateurs of jazz find themselves. But, for example, the guitarist Stanley Jordan, one of the first to join Blue Note in 1985, had success in the United States and Japan and much less in Europe. The group Medeski Martin & Wood is very popular in the United States, and little known elsewhere, because it is related to the scene of the jam bands , which is not developed at all apart from our country. We never reason by thinking that it is necessary to like everyone - what however arrived recently with Norah Jones.

The immense success of this young singer it puts Blue Note at the shelter for the ten years to come?

The profits generated by the sales of Come Away With Me , its first album at this day 18 million specimens , are redistributed on the whole of the house. It is good for the value of the actions of EMI, from a personal point of view that gives me a no-claims bonus and that makes it possible Blue Note to sereinement consider the next exits. But not for the ten years to come. Our annual budget for the signatures and marketing rests at the same time on what we gained and on the forecasts of expenditure. I always said that the jazz could bring back money. And I always also said that it was necessary to manage prudently.

To make profits was always assumed by Blue Note, whereas often, particularly in France, jazz and money are not supposed to do good housework.

When I met Alfred Lion in 1985, its first sentence was: "That do you have the intention to make to earn money?" What he wanted to say by there, it was that financial independence allows artistic independence. By making profits, we can produce who we want under the best conditions. Because it is about jazz that should remain miserable? It is stupid. And because that pays it is not art? For soon twenty years that I direct Blue Note, we have always made profit. If I lost money, in the current configuration of the industry of the disc, I would be in the position of other labels which cannot sign any more or which must give up the jazz. Those which would suffer from it would be initially the artists.

Among the new ones come at Blue Notes, there is the trumpet player Wynton Marsalis, but also of the rather pop singers and rock'n'roll like Van Morrison, Al Green, Norah Jones or Anita Baker. Doesn't that scramble the identity of the label?

Blue Note was always attentive with what occurred in and around the jazz. When Alfred Lion recorded hardware bop in the years 1950, there were already people for whom it was not any more of the jazz. In the years 1970, the artists of the label also played of the soul, of the rock'n'roll. All are henceforth regarded as the traditional ones. Morrison comes from the blues and the jazz, Al Green of the gospel. It is coherent. I have known Bruce Springsteen for my years at Columbia. I would be delighted by sign it, but not at Blue Note. That would not have any direction.

Would the label thus reflect well the landscape of the jazz in 2004?

We have historical personalities like Pat Martino, of the musicians appeared in the years 1970 like Joe Lovano, the following generation with Wynton Marsalis. Roy Hargrove, which mixes the funk or electronics, Jacky Terrasson, which is more anchored in the acoustic tradition, of the singers, Patricia Barber or Cassandra Wilson, the jazz afro-Cuban with Chucho Valdez or Gonzalo Rubalcaba... Indeed, the field is broad. With the image of what always the jazz proposed and which it will continue to make.

[TedR]

Is hardware bop being played by anyone anymore?

[JSngry]

I'm still agahst at image of the profits from 18 million Norah Jones specimens being redistributed on the whole of the house. That's a LOT of lab work, and if even one beaker breaks in the wrong room...

Maybe THAT'S why their server's down.

[neveronfriday]

I'm still agahst at image of the profits from 18 million Norah Jones specimens being redistributed on the whole of the house. That's a LOT of lab work, and if even one beaker breaks in the wrong room...

Maybe THAT'S why their server's down.

I think it's because Rudy is remastering the site.

[Vincent, Paris]

So Roy Hargrove is now on Blue Note ?

Or Lundvall is confusing with Terence Blanchard ?

[Joe M]

So Roy Hargrove is now on Blue Note ?

Or Lundvall is confusing with Terence Blanchard ?

I noticed the same thing! I don't think he's confusing the two, since he was talking about electronics, etc, and Terence despite the Fender Rhodes on Bounce, is still pretty straight ahead. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that Roy was signed to BN. Verve has been dropping horn players like flies, and Roy on BN with his crossover appeal might be a good fit, plus they might finally get him to cut a live record with his 5tet!!!