In 1939 the German immigrant Alfred Lion and the American musician and writer Max Margulis launched the music label Blue Note Records. The duo was quickly joined by another German immigrant, Francis Wolff, whose style and imagery came to define the label’s image. In the decades since its foundation Blue Note, largely through the vision of Lion and Wolff, has helped revolutionise the recording industry and change the musical and artistic taste of the world. How did this label, and its German visionaries, come to shape the evolution of ‘America’s only original art form’, jazz?
Born in Berlin in 1908 Alfred Lion became a fan of jazz after seeing Sam Wooding’s Orchestra in concert when he was sixteen. In 1929 he migrated to the US, only to be forced to return to Germany after a street attack. After years spent working in South America Lion returned to the US as Europe teetered on the brink of war, settling in New York. The Big Apple, with its smorgasbord of artists and venues, unsurprisingly proved fertile ground for Lion’s musical appetite.
His increased exposure to the jazz scene resulted in Lion deciding on starting his own label and, a year after moving to the US, he and Max began their venture. Though he provided most of the initial funding and was a musician and musical teacher himself Max had little to do with the running of Blue Note Records. It was Lion who saw to the recording of bands and changed the face of the music industry forever.
In 1939 most musicians, especially those who played jazz, supported themselves with night time gigs or another job of some sort. Common practice in the recording industry was to get the artists in, cut a record, and let them go. Schedules were largely dictated by the studios and artists would sometimes have to forgo a night’s work for the chance to record. Blue Note distinguished itself from the beginning as a label that accommodated artists and strove for the highest quality.
Practice sessions were booked so that bands, artist, and producers might get familiar with each other. Drink and other comforts were also facilitated for the musicians and recording was often done in the early hours of the morning, after the clubs and venues had closed. These early years were defined by the label’s recording of traditional hot jazz and boogie woogie. This period also saw Wolff come on board.
A commercial photographer working in Germany Wolff was one of the lucky few to be spirited away to America on the eve of war. A childhood friend of Alfred Lion Wolff found a welcome home at Blue Note Records. The label in turn benefitted greatly from his work as company executive and his countless photographs. Wolff also helped to keep the Blue Note titles in print while Lion served in the army from ’41-’43.
The end of the Second World War brought massive changes to art and tastes around the world. The old styles of jazz began to be surpassed by new artists and the bebop movement. Lion and Blue Note were quick to embrace these changing tastes and began working with the jazz pioneers of the’40s and ‘50s. They did more than just record though and their mixing of the new bebop style with other genres contributed greatly to the hard bop movement.
While this outpouring of hard bop became Blue Note’s most defining and successful periods the company always refused to limit itself. While recording artists like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis the label also provided a platform for many avant-garde artists pushing movements like free jazz. Though these more obscure works would never be money spinners they were still part of the story of jazz and worthy of recording in Lion’s eyes.
In 1965 Blue Note Records was acquired by Liberty Records. In the time since the label’s formation 26 years earlier the music scene had changed utterly. The technology behind recording had become almost unrecognisable as had the final vinyl product. It was the approach to record production that had probably changed the most though, thanks in part to Lion and Blue Note. The new level of professionalism both in the studio and behind the desk had set the stage for the golden age of the album, which would last from the ‘60s right up to the new millennium.
For Lion and Wolff though their time in music was winding up. Lion retired in 1967 and four years later Wolff passed away. The story of Blue Note doesn’t stop here though. Join Susan as she talks with author and jazz lover Richard Havers about his book ‘Blue Note: Uncompromising Expression’. Is Blue Note the most important label in jazz history? How did its cover artist Reid Miles change the world? And what has the legacy of this undertaking of love been?
'Tomb of Jacob Roblès' by Antoine-Augustin Préault, 1893
Rounding off the show we take a sharp turn from the world of jazz and delve into silence and its role in the history of Christianity. A complicated action silence can be damning and accusatory or inscrutable and withdrawn, it can create an atmosphere of warm congeniality or of cool distain, it can be the sign of unequal strength or incomparable weakness.
In religion and spirituality silence is often afforded a reverence of inner reflection. For many though the unwavering silence of the Christian churches during the 20th century has been a damning indictment of their failure to act. In his latest book Diarmaid MacCulloch looks through the long history of Christianity and examines the role silence has played in the various stages of its evolution.
Looking through scripture and practice Diarmaid traces the often contradictory relationship between silence and sound across Christendom. Join Susan as she and Diarmaid delve into ‘Silence: A Christian History’. Has silent contemplation always been a key part to spiritual introspection? Have churches always insisted that theirs is the only voice that should be heard? And how have their silences resounded across the world?
