January
6, 2014 marked the 75th Anniversary of Blue Note Records, the most-respected and
longest-running Jazz label in the world, which was founded when a German
immigrant and passionate Jazz fan named Alfred Lion produced his first
recording session on January 6, 1939 in New York City. Blue Note has gone on to
represent The Finest In Jazz, tracing the entire history of the music from Hot
Jazz, Boogie Woogie, and Swing, through Bebop, Hard Bop, Post Bop, Soul Jazz,
Avant-Garde, and Fusion, and into Jazz’s numerous modern day incarnations under
the leadership of Bruce Lundvall, who revived Blue Note in 1984, and the
label’s current President Don Was, who took the helm in 2012.
Blue
Note will celebrate its 75th Anniversary throughout 2014 with a series of live
events beginning with a concert on January 8 as part of NYC Winter Jazzfest at
The Town Hall in New York featuring two of the label’s leading artists: Robert
Glasper and Jason Moran. The label will also be honored with a GRAMMY Museum
exhibition, book releases, and various vinyl, CD, and digital catalog
initiatives, as well as new releases from the label’s current artists. Blue
Note has also launched a Facebook app that allows fans to put their own face
into classic Blue Note cover artwork designs by Reid Miles.
ROBERT
GLASPER & JASON MORAN AT THE TOWN HALL
On
January 6, 1939, Blue Note founder Alfred Lion brought two Boogie Woogie
pianists – Albert Ammons and Meade “Lux” Lewis – into a studio in New York City
to produce the very first Blue Note recording session. On January 8, 2014, two
of Blue Note’s current pianists – Robert Glasper and Jason Moran – will
celebrate the label’s 75 year history by beginning with Ammons and Lewis and
presenting their personal Blue Note touchstones as well as their music from
their own considerable catalogs. The concert – which is being presented by NYC
Winter Jazzfest – will also feature bassist Alan Hampton and drummer Eric
Harland, as well as special guests vocalist Bilal and saxophonist and Blue Note
artist Ravi Coltrane. Tickets are available at http://smarturl.it/bn75-townhall.
OTHER
LIVE EVENTS
January
9 – NYC Winter Jazzfest & Summerstage present the Revive Big Band at (le)
poisson rouge celebrating Blue Note Records 75th Anniversary featuring special
guests. Click here for more info.
February
20-March 1 – Portland Jazz Festival presents Blue Note @ 75 featuring Brian
Blade & The Fellowship Band, Eliane Elias, Dave Frishberg & Bob
Dorough, and Bobby Watson & Horizon. Click here for more info.
May 11 –
Jason Moran, who also serves as the Artistic Advisor for Jazz at the Kennedy
Center in Washington DC will present Blue Note At 75, The Concert. As the
culminating event of a celebration of the 75th Anniversary of Blue Note
Records, artists from the label's present and past roster perform including
Moran, Norah Jones, Wayne Shorter, and surprise special guests. Click here for
more info.
**Additional
live events will be announced throughout the year.
GRAMMY
MUSEUM EXHIBITION
The
GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles will honor Blue Note’s 75 year legacy with an
exhibition that is set to open in March. The exhibit will present the label’s
iconic artwork and photography, as well as artifacts and music.
BRUCE
LUNDVALL’S BIOGRAPHY
Blue
Note’s former President and current Chairman Emeritus Bruce Lundvall – who
re-launched Blue Note in 1984 and presided over the label’s flourishing for
over 25 years – will release his biography Playing By Ear (written with author
Dan Ouellette) through ArtistShare this month. Click here for more info.
CATALOG
RELEASES
Blue
Note will commence an extensive vinyl reissue initiative on March 25 with the
release of five classic titles (Art Blakey Free For All, John Coltrane Blue
Train, Eric Dolphy Out To Lunch, Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil, and Larry Young
Unity). The vinyl releases are set to continue monthly and will also include
modern classics from Blue Note’s recent catalog such as Joe Lovano Quartets:
Live At The Vanguard, Jason Moran Soundtrack To Human Motion, and Terence
Blanchard Flow. For Record Store Day in April, Blue Note will also reissue the label’s
first two releases as limited edition 12” vinyl: Meade “Lux” Lewis “Melancholy”/”Solitude”
(BN1) and Albert Ammons “Boogie Woogie Stomp”/”Boogie Woogie Blues” (BN2).
Other catalog releases including a 75 track digital bundle spanning Blue Note’s
entire history will be announced shortly.
NEW
RELEASES
Blue
Note continues to maintain an incomparable roster of current talent, and 2014
will see new releases from trumpeters Takuya Kuroda (Rising Son, February 18)
and Ambrose Akinmusire (the imagined savior is far easier to paint, March 11),
as well as artists beyond Jazz such as Rosanne Cash (The River & The
Thread, January 14) and Benmont Tench (You Should Be So Lucky, February 18).
Further new releases will soon be announced from Brian Blade & The Fellowship
Band, Jason Moran, Joe Lovano/Dave Douglas Soundprints Quintet, José James, and
two Blue Note legends: Bobby Hutcherson in a quartet with David Sanborn, Joey
DeFrancesco and Billy Hart, and Wayne Shorter whose return to Blue Note Without
A Net figured prominently in several Best of 2013 lists.
BLUE
NOTE APPS
Blue
Note has proved itself to be an innovator not only musically but also
technologically, most notably with the 2012 release of our much-heralded Blue
Note Spotify App, which created a space within the popular streaming service to
explore and discover music spanning the entire history of the label, as well as
the Blue Note by Groovebug App which is available for iPad, iPhone and iPod
touch users. Now Blue Note has introduced a fun Facebook App that allows fans
to insert their own face into classic Blue Note covers. Choose between six
cover artwork designs by influential designer Reid Miles and see how you would
look on the cover of your own Blue Note record!
It took
the joining of many natural forces to create and define one of the greatest
Jazz labels there has ever been: Jazz-loving German immigrants on the run from
Nazism (Alfred Lion & Francis Wolff), a New Jersey optometrist moonlighting
as a recording engineer (Rudy Van Gelder), a classical music-loving commercial
designer (Reid Miles), and slews of the most incredible musicians that have
ever walked the earth (too many to name them all here). The elements that each
brought to the table—impeccable A&R instincts, elegant and insightful
photography, sterling sound quality, strikingly original cover artwork, and
consistently transcendent music—were all essential to the label's early
success. Together they created a vivid Blue Note identity. The whole could not
have existed without each of the parts.
Blue Note’s
legendary catalog traces the entire history of the music from Hot Jazz, Boogie
Woogie, and Swing, through Bebop, Hard Bop, Post Bop, Soul Jazz, Avant-Garde,
Fusion, and on. The label’s stars from the early years form a true Who’s Who:
Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley,
Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, Lee Morgan, Freddie
Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Donald
Byrd, Andrew Hill, Ornette Coleman.
After a
brief dormancy from 1981-1984 during which producer/historian Michael Cuscuna
kept the label’s legacy alive with a series of reissues on EMI, Blue Note
returned reinvigorated by the leadership of Bruce Lundvall and has since
established itself as the most respected Jazz label in the world. Blue Note is
still home to some of the most prominent stars and cutting-edge innovators in
Jazz today, and at the same time has broadened its horizons to include quality
music in many genres.
Under
Lundvall’s stewardship, Blue Note had its share of commercial successes from
Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Us3, Medeski Martin &
Wood, Norah Jones, Al Green, Anita Baker, Amos Lee, Willie Nelson and Wynton
Marsalis. The label also remained a haven for the most creative voices in Jazz
including Ambrose Akinmusire, Patricia Barber, Brian Blade, Terence Blanchard,
Don Byron, Kurt Elling, Robert Glasper, Stefon Harris, Charlie Hunter, Lionel
Loueke, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, Greg Osby, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Scofield,
Jacky Terrasson, Chucho Valdes, and many more.
In 2011,
veteran record producer and musician Don Was joined Blue Note as Chief Creative
Officer and soon became President of the label with Lundvall continuing to
provide guidance as Chairman Emeritus. With Was at the helm, Blue Note has
renewed its dedication to Lion’s original vision that “any particular style of
playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine
expression.” In the 21st century Lion’s words still ring true and provide a
blueprint that includes Robert Glasper Experiment’s visionary melding of Jazz,
R&B, and Hip-Hop and Elvis Costello’s funky collaboration with The Roots,
as well as bringing the legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter back to the label
where he made his early classic albums, and continuing to sign singular voices
in Jazz such as saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and vocalist Gregory Porter. Blue
Note Records is one of the flagship labels of the Capitol Music Group.
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