To coincide with the ongoing 70th birthday celebrations of Blue Note, Jazzwise looks at the history of the best-loved record label in jazz bar none. Beginning in an unlikely way in New York in the year World War II broke out with a boogie-woogie record Blue Note by the 1960s, had created an identifiable sound which has to this day continuing relevance in a world where most music is forgotten about just weeks after release. Brian Priestley traces the history of the label; Blue Note’s first UK producer Tony Hall remembers the secret Blues in Trinity session by Dizzy Reece and label chief executive officer Bruce Lundvall, label A&R Eli Wolf and producer Michael Cuscuna talk to Bill Milkowski about Blue Note, past, present and future.

 It seems almost bland to say that the Blue Note story is unique. But, in the history of recorded jazz, it certainly is and indeed, in the history of any kind of recording, it’s only challenged by a few of the early giants such as Victor and Columbia or Decca, an imprint recently revived by its inheritors at Universal.

Like most specialist jazz labels, Blue Note was originally a one-man venture and, in the person of co-founder Alfred Lion, it had both its impetus and its sustaining energy. Though the successful company was sold in the mid-1960s, the name has been kept in the public eye almost continuously till the present day. By contrast, a company set up around the same time, Commodore Records, ceased new recording in the mid-1950s, and its classic material has been leased to several reissuers in turn. Similarly, a slightly later contemporary, the enterprising jazz-blues-gospel label Savoy has seen a series of reissue programmes and even sporadic bouts of new recordings under successive owners, yet it’s basically dormant now.

Blue Note, on the other hand, not only has a seven-decade back catalogue that continues to sell. It also puts out a number of new albums every year, and among each batch there is usually something that helps to crystallise what’s happening at the time. Undoubtedly a unique brand, then, but whether the legendary “Blue Note style” is also unique is a matter for discussion. For a start, there are different Blue Note “styles”, each with their own fans and, though these help us in retrospect to define how the jazz scene was at various times, they also reflected the company’s awareness of and sensitivity to what was at the cutting edge of live music.
 
This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #133 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE Warner Jazz CD