Two new books due to be published about Blue Note Records

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[charles t]

Calum: I caught Zoot & Al Cohn sometime in the 60's in NYC...Five Spot or one of those. With Paul Motian on drums.

Specifically remember Al downing shots between playing sax - standing-up on the bandstand...later tossing glass down to bartender.

[Quarky]

ignorance is bliss innit

Well Getz, Sims certainly had tons of technique, and I'm not complaining....

but I do find it difficult to change my mindset, and may be Hawkins has more to offer these days as an historical precedent.

[Ian Thumwood]

It's easy to see why Getz was a perfect "fit" for Granz and, like Oscar Peterson, I think he offered something that was sophisticated and cool at the same time. Getz added a degree of then contemporary credibility to a label that effectively have mid-career musicians an opportunity to demonstrate their worth and maybe even have a pitch at being more "popularist." I don't think Granz was any less savvy than Alfred Lion and I think he shared Lion's care regarding the maintaining of what he held to be the essential ingredients of jazz and an ability to produce distinctive album covers. After Blue Note, Verve are probably the next most iconic.

Reading the review of the new Blue Note book, there has been criticism of Havers treatment of the label's re-birth in the 1980's with the music issued up until the recent artists being given scant regard. I think that Blue Note might have been less iconic but their championing of the likes of Don Grolnick, John Scofield, Cassandra Wilson, Greg Osby, Jason Moran, Joe Lovano, Dianne Reeves, Jacky Terrasson suggested that whoever was signing these musicians had his finger on the pulse as well as getting former artists like Andrew Hill and tony Williams back in the studio. If you like, after the lack of confidence in the music that seemed present in the New-neos of the 1980's, Blue Note managed to snap up a significant proportion of jazz musicians who were to take the music onwards. I feel that a significant number of these musicians seemed to produced their best music on the label and certainly the works put down by Scofield, Moran, Osby, Reeves, Wilson during this time stand up in comparison to the celebrated artists of the 50's / 60's. Not difficult, or example, to choose between Grant Green and the superior John Scofield nor to make comparisons between Moran and Monk / Nichols / Hill. Whilst a lot of ink was spilt waxing lyrical about Diana Krall or Stacey Kent, Wilson and Reeves emerged as the greatest jazz singers to have emerged since the 1950's. Wilson's blues-inspired records may not have been in keeping with Blue note's heritage, but they plunged deep in to the culture of the music so as to reconnect with the primeval sounds of the likes of Son House and refract the music in a contemporary idiom.

It's funny how Verve re-invented itself in the 1990's as well. Far from being "the kind of records your friend's older brothers would have", it managed to capture the final recordings of the likes of Betty Carter, Joe Henderson, Abbey Lincoln, Charlie Haden and Shirley Horn and brought their legacy to the attention of a younger generation. Ditto for the wonderful Kenny Barron as well and Wayne Shorter's exceptional quartet - easily the best band to emerge in the 2000's. Verve were also picking up younger artists like Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove and Lucky Peterson at the same time. If anything, Verve was a better label and more relevant when it had been re-activated than it had been in the 1950's / 60's.

Totally agree with Oldball about Sims and Getz. I don't feel that either of their output was unlistenable and Getz admittedly improved with age. However, with the passing years, neither seem quite as significant as players like Joe Henderson or Wayne Shorter, let alone Coltrane and Rollins. Hawkins is a strange example as he seems more of an influence on contemporary players than a lot of the tenor men who emerged in the 1950's. I bet both David Murray and the late David S Ware dug Hawk.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

if, like me, you like looking at pictures:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2014/nov/14/blue-note-75-years-of-the-coolest-visuals-in-jazz-gallery

[Serial_Apologist]

if, like me, you like looking at pictures:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2014/nov/14/blue-note-75-years-of-the-coolest-visuals-in-jazz-gallery

Speaking of which, how come news last month of the British jazz photographer David Redfern's passing escaped our notice? One of our best.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/11184603/Dadid-Redfern-jazz-photographer-dies-aged-78.html