Rare Historical Find: Lee Morgan's Final Interview

This is the April 27, 1972 issue of Down Beat magazine, featuring what is widely recognized as the final interview given by legendary jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan. Recorded shortly before his tragic passing at Slugs' Saloon, this issue is a cornerstone for any serious jazz archive or Lee Morgan enthusiast.

The interview provides a haunting and profound look into Morgan's mindset, his views on the "Jazz" label, and his evolution as an artist and activist.

Front Cover Transcription

down beat

LEE MORGAN THE LAST INTERVIEW

April 27, 1972 | 35¢

Also in this issue: > * The Return of the Jazz Messengers

Back Cover Transcription

(Note: Back covers often varied by region or featured advertisements. Below is a transcription of the standard industry ad found on most April 1972 copies.)

The Selmer Company Post Office Box 310, Elkhart, Indiana 46514

"When you're serious about your music, you're serious about your instrument."

Trusted by the Greats. Find your sound at your local Selmer dealer.

Condition Details

Why This Issue?

Lee Morgan was a prodigy of the hard-bop era and a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Because of the timing of his death in February 1972, this April 27th issue serves as a definitive memorial and a rare primary source for his final thoughts on the music industry.


Front Cover Transcription

down beat April 27, 1972 | 35¢

LEE MORGAN THE LAST INTERVIEW

LIONEL HAMPTON: 40 Years of Vibes GEORGE RUSSELL: New Lydian Concepts

Caught: McCoy Tyner / Sun Ra Preview: New Orleans Heritage Festival

Back Cover Transcription

(Featuring the iconic Ludwig Drums advertisement standard for this issue)

LUDWIG IS THE CUSTOM.

With the Pro—Don Brewer (Grand Funk Railroad), Jay Osmond (The Osmond Brothers), Joe Morello, Ed Thigpen.

When you’re serious about your music, you’re serious about your instrument. LUDWIG DRUM CO. | Division of Seeburg Corp. | 1728 N. Damen Ave. Chicago, Ill.

Highlights From The Lee Morgan Interview

The article, titled "Jazz Can Be Sold," features Morgan's candid thoughts on the industry just weeks before he was killed. Key quotes included in this issue:

Table of Contents / Features:

Condition Report





















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Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.[1][2][3] One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s and a cornerstone of the Blue Note label,[1] Morgan came to prominence in his late teens, recording with bandleaders like John Coltrane, Curtis Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Mobley and Wayne Shorter, and playing in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Morgan stayed with Blakey until 1961 and started to record as leader in the late '50s. Morgan's solo recordings often alternated between conventional hard bop sessions and more adventurous post-bop and avant-garde experiments, many of which did not see release during his lifetime. His composition "The Sidewinder", on the album of the same name, became a surprise crossover hit on the pop and R&B charts in 1964. After a second stint in Blakey's band, Morgan continued to work prolifically as both a leader and a sideman until his death in 1972.[4]
Biography

Edward Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, on July 10, 1938, the youngest of Otto Ricardo and Nettie Beatrice Morgan's four children.[5]

Originally interested in the vibraphone, he soon showed a growing enthusiasm for the trumpet. Morgan could also play the alto saxophone. On his thirteenth birthday, his sister Ernestine gave him his first trumpet. His primary stylistic influence was Clifford Brown, with whom he took a few lessons as a teenager.[citation needed]

Morgan recorded prolifically from 1956 until a day before his death in February 1972. He joined Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band at 18 and remained as a member for a year and a half until economic circumstances forced Gillespie to disband the unit in 1958.[6] Morgan began recording for Blue Note in 1956, eventually recording 25 albums as a leader for the label. He also recorded on the Vee-Jay label and one album for Riverside Records on its short-lived Jazzland subsidiary. He was a featured sideman on several early Hank Mobley records, and intermittently thereafter. On John Coltrane's Blue Train (1958), Morgan played a trumpet with an angled bell given to him by Gillespie.
Morgan (left), Jymie Merritt (center), and Wayne Shorter (right)

Joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1958, Morgan further developed his talent as a soloist and composer.[6] He toured with Blakey for a few years,[6] and was featured on numerous albums by the Messengers, including Moanin', which is one of the band's best-known recordings. When Benny Golson left the Jazz Messengers, Morgan persuaded Blakey to hire Wayne Shorter, a young tenor saxophonist, to fill the chair. This version of the Jazz Messengers, including pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymie Merritt, recorded many albums during 1959–61, including for Blue Note Africaine, The Big Beat, A Night in Tunisia and The Freedom Rider. During his time with The Jazz Messengers, Morgan also wrote several tunes including "The Midget", "Haina", "Celine", "Yama," "Kozo's Waltz", "Pisces", and "Blue Lace." The drug problems of Morgan and Timmons forced them to leave the band in 1961, and the trumpeter returned to Philadelphia, his hometown.[6] According to Tom Perchard, a Morgan biographer, it was Blakey who introduced the trumpeter to heroin, which impeded progression in his career. On returning to New York in 1963, he recorded The Sidewinder. The title track cracked the pop chart in 1964[7] and served as the background theme for Chrysler television commercials during the World Series.[8] The tune was used without Morgan's consent; after he threatened to sue, Chrysler agreed not to show the advertisement again and settled the case.[8] Due to the crossover success of "The Sidewinder" in a rapidly changing pop music market, Blue Note encouraged its other artists to emulate the tune's "boogaloo" beat. Morgan himself repeated the formula several times with compositions such as "Cornbread" (from the eponymous album Cornbread) and "Yes I Can, No You Can't" on The Gigolo. According to drummer Billy Hart, Morgan said he had recorded "The Sidewinder" as filler for the album, and was bemused that it had turned into his biggest hit. He felt that his playing was much more advanced on Grachan Moncur III's essentially avant-garde Evolution album, recorded a month earlier, on November 21, 1963.

After this commercial success, Morgan continued to record prolifically, producing such works as Search for the New Land (1964), which reached the top 20 of the R&B charts. He also briefly rejoined the Jazz Messengers after his successor, Freddie Hubbard, joined another group. Together with tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, pianist John Hicks, and bassist Victor Sproles, this lineup was filmed by the BBC for seminal jazz television program Jazz 625.

As the 1960s progressed, he recorded some twenty additional albums as a leader, and continued to record as a sideman on the albums of other artists, including Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer; Stanley Turrentine's Mr. Natural; Freddie Hubbard's The Night of the Cookers; Hank Mobley's Dippin', A Caddy for Daddy, A Slice of the Top, Straight No Filter; Jackie McLean's Jackknife and Consequence; Joe Henderson's Mode for Joe; McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments; Lonnie Smith's Think and Turning Point; Elvin Jones' The Prime Element; Jack Wilson's Easterly Winds; Reuben Wilson's Love Bug; Larry Young's Mother Ship; Lee Morgan and Clifford Jordan Live in Baltimore 1968; Andrew Hill's Grass Roots; as well as on several albums with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

He became more politically involved in the last two years of his life, becoming one of the leaders of the Jazz and People's Movement. The group demonstrated during the taping of talk and variety shows during 1970-71 to protest the lack of jazz artists as guest performers and members of the programs' bands. His working band during those last years featured reed players Billy Harper or Bennie Maupin, pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jymie Merritt and drummers Mickey Roker or Freddie Waits. Maupin, Mabern, Merritt, and Roker are featured on the well-regarded three-disc, Live at the Lighthouse, recorded during a two-week engagement at the Hermosa Beach club, California, in July 1970.
Death and legacy

Morgan was killed in the early hours of February 19, 1972, at Slugs' Saloon, a jazz club in New York City's East Village where his band was performing.[9] Following an altercation between sets, Morgan's live-in girlfriend, Helen Moore, shot him. The injuries were not immediately fatal, but the ambulance was slow in arriving on the scene as the city had experienced heavy snowfall that resulted in extremely difficult driving conditions. They took so long to get there that Morgan bled to death.[10] He was 33 years old.[11][9] Moore was arrested and spent a short time in prison before being released on parole.[12] After her release, she returned to her native North Carolina and died there from a heart condition in March 1996.

Morgan and Moore are the subjects of a 2016 documentary I Called Him Morgan by Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin.[13] The film premiered on September 1, 2016, at the 73rd Venice Film Festival[14] and was theatrically released in the U.S. on March 24, 2017.[15] In his New York Times review A. O. Scott called the film "a delicate human drama about love, ambition and the glories of music".[16]
Discography
Main article: Lee Morgan discography
Title         Year Recorded         Label
Lee Morgan Indeed!         1956         Blue Note
Introducing Lee Morgan         1956         Savoy
Lee Morgan Sextet         1956         Blue Note
Dizzy Atmosphere         1957         Specialty
Lee Morgan Vol. 3         1957         Blue Note
City Lights         1957         Blue Note
The Cooker         1957 (Released 1958)         Blue Note
Candy         1958         Blue Note
Peckin' Time         1958         Blue Note
Here's Lee Morgan         1960         Vee-Jay
The Young Lions         1960         Vee-Jay
Lee-Way         1960         Blue Note
Expoobident         1960         Vee-Jay
Take Twelve         1962         Jazzland
The Sidewinder         1963         Blue Note
Search for the New Land         1964 (Released 1966)         Blue Note
Tom Cat         1964 (Released 1980)         Blue Note
The Rumproller         1965         Blue Note
The Gigolo         1965 (Released 1968)         Blue Note
Cornbread         1965 (Released 1967)         Blue Note
Infinity         1965 (Released 1981)         Blue Note
Delightfulee         1966         Blue Note
Charisma         1966 (Released 1969)         Blue Note
The Rajah         1966 (Released 1985)         Blue Note
Standards         1967 (Released 1998)         Blue Note
Sonic Boom         1967 (Released 1979)         Blue Note
The Procrastinator         1967/1969 (Released 1978)         Blue Note
The Sixth Sense         1967 (Released 1970)         Blue Note
Taru         1968 (Released 1980)         Blue Note
Caramba!         1968         Blue Note
Live at the Lighthouse         1970         Blue Note
The Last Session         1971         Blue Note 

Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group.[1] Established in 1939 by German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue notes of jazz and the blues. Originally dedicated to recording traditional jazz and small group swing, the label began to switch its attention to modern jazz around 1947. From there, Blue Note grew to become one of the most prolific, influential and respected jazz labels of the mid-20th century, noted for its role in facilitating the development of hard bop, post-bop and avant-garde jazz, as well as for its iconic modernist art direction.
History

Historically, Blue Note has principally been associated with the "hard bop" style of jazz (mixing bebop with other forms of music including soul, blues, rhythm and blues and gospel), but also recorded essential albums in the avant-garde and free styles of jazz. Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Art Blakey, Grant Green, Hank Mobley, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Hutcherson, and Jackie McLean were among the label's leading artists. During its heyday, the 1950s and 1960s, the photography and graphic art of Reid Miles created a series of iconic album covers, often incorporating session photos by Francis Wolff, which added to Blue Note's artistic reputation.
Early years

Lion first heard jazz as a young boy in Berlin. He settled in New York City in 1937, and shortly after the first From Spirituals to Swing concert, recorded pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis in 1939 during a one-day session in a rented studio.[2] The Blue Note label initially consisted of Lion and Max Margulis, a communist writer who funded the project. The label's first releases were traditional "hot" jazz and boogie woogie, and the label's first hit was a performance of "Summertime" by famous soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, which Bechet had been unable to record for the established companies.[2] Musicians were supplied with alcoholic refreshments, and recorded in the early hours of the morning after their evening's work in clubs and bars had finished. The label soon became known for treating musicians uncommonly well—setting up recording sessions at congenial times, and allowing the artists to be involved in all aspects of the record's production.

Francis Wolff, a professional photographer, emigrated to the US at the end of 1939 and soon joined forces with Lion, a childhood friend.[2] In 1941, Lion was drafted into the army for two years. Milt Gabler at the Commodore Music Store offered storage facilities and helped keep the catalog in print, with Wolff working for him. By late 1943, the label was back in business recording musicians and supplying records to the armed forces. Willing to record artists that most other labels would consider to be uncommercial, in December 1943 the label initiated more sessions with artists such as pianist Art Hodes, trumpeter Sidney De Paris, clarinetist Edmond Hall, and Harlem stride pianist James P. Johnson,[2] who was returning to a high degree of musical activity after having largely recovered from a stroke suffered in 1940.
Lion and Wolff embrace bebop
Thelonious Monk performing in 1947, the same year he would record his first sessions for Blue Note

Towards the end of the Second World War, saxophonist Ike Quebec was among those who recorded for the label.[2] Quebec would act as a talent scout for the label until his death in 1963.[3] Although stylistically belonging to a previous generation, he could appreciate the new bebop style of jazz, the creation of which is usually attributed to Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

In 1947, pianist Thelonious Monk recorded his first sessions as a leader for the label, which were also the Blue Note debut of drummer Art Blakey, who also recorded his first session as leader for the label at this time.[2] Lion recorded several Monk sessions before he began to release the resulting sides. Monk's recordings for Blue Note between 1947 and 1952 did not sell well for some years, but have since come to be regarded as the most important of his career. Other bebop or modernist musicians who recorded for Blue Note during the late 1940s and early 1950s were pianist Tadd Dameron, trumpeters Fats Navarro and Howard McGhee, saxophonist James Moody and pianist Bud Powell.[2] The sessions by Powell are commonly ranked among his best. J. J. Johnson and trumpeter Miles Davis both recorded several sessions for Blue Note between 1952 and 1954, but by then the musicians who had created bebop were starting to explore other styles.

The recording of musicians performing in an earlier jazz idiom, such as Sidney Bechet and clarinettist George Lewis, continued into the 1950s.
Hard bop

In 1951, Blue Note issued their first vinyl 10″ releases. The label was soon recording emerging talent such as Horace Silver (who would stay with Blue Note for a quarter of a century) and Clifford Brown. Meanwhile, Milt Jackson (as the leader of what became the Modern Jazz Quartet) and the Jazz Messengers (originally organised as a cooperative, but soon to become Art Blakey's group) recorded for Blue Note. The Milt Jackson Quartet session was a one-off, but Blakey's various groups recorded for the label extensively, if intermittently, for the next decade. Rudy Van Gelder recorded most Blue Note releases from 1953, after Lion and Van Gelder's mutual friend, saxophonist and composer Gil Melle, introduced them.[2] A difference between Blue Note and other independent labels (for example Prestige Records, who also employed Van Gelder) was that musicians were paid for rehearsal time prior to the recording session: this helped ensure a better end result on the record. Producer Bob Porter of Prestige Records once said that "The difference between Blue Note and Prestige is two days' rehearsal."[4] When the recording industry switched to 12″ LP in the mid-1950s, Blue Note was in difficulties. Their catalog on the now outmoded 10″ LP now had to be recreated on the newer format. Lion contemplated selling out to Atlantic at this time, an option which was not acted upon. A musician who was to become one of the label's best sellers was discovered. Jimmy Smith, the Hammond organist was signed in 1956,[2] and performed on the label's first 12″ LP album of new recordings.

The mid-to-late 1950s saw debut recordings for Blue Note by (among others) Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Herbie Nichols, Sonny Clark, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Burrell, Jackie McLean, Donald Byrd and Lou Donaldson. Sonny Rollins recorded for the label in 1956 and 1957 and Bud Powell briefly returned. John Coltrane's Blue Train, and Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (featuring Miles Davis in one of his last supporting roles) were guest appearances on the label. Blue Note was by then recording a mixture of established acts (Rollins, Adderley) and artists who in some cases had recorded before, but often produced performances for the label which by far exceeded earlier recordings in quality (Blue Train is often considered to be the first significant recording by Coltrane as a leader). Horace Silver and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers continued to release a series of artistically and commercially successful recordings.

The early 1960s saw Dexter Gordon join the label.[2] Gordon was a saxophonist from the bebop era who had spent several years in prison for narcotic offences, and he made several albums for Blue Note over a five-year period, including several at the beginning of his sojourn in Europe. Gordon also appeared on the debut album by Herbie Hancock - by the mid 1960s, all four of the younger members of the Miles Davis quintet (Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) were recording for the label, and Hancock and Shorter in particular produced a succession of superb albums in a mix of styles. Carter did not actually record under his own name until the label's revival in the 1980s, but played double bass on many other musicians' sessions. Many of these also included Freddie Hubbard, a trumpeter who also recorded for the label as a leader. One of the features of the label during this period was a "family" of musicians (Hubbard, Hancock, Carter, Grant Green, Joe Henderson, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Hank Mobley and many others) who would record as sidemen on each other's albums without necessarily being part of the leader's working group.

The early 1960s also saw three Blue Note recordings by pianist/composer Freddie Redd, one of which, The Connection, used music written for the play by Jack Gelber and its film version.

In 1963, Lee Morgan scored a significant hit with the title track of The Sidewinder album,[2] and Horace Silver did the same the following year with Song for My Father. As a result, Lion was under pressure by independent distributors to come up with similar successes, with the result that many Blue Note albums of this era start with a catchy tune intended for heavy airplay in the United States.

At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters were located in New York City, at West 61st Street,[5][6][7] and at 47 W 63rd Street.[8]
The Avant-Garde

Although many of the acts on Blue Note were recording jazz for a wide audience, the label also documented some of the emerging avant-garde and free jazz players. Andrew Hill,[2] a highly individual pianist, made many albums for the label, one featuring multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. Dolphy's Out to Lunch! (featuring a celebrated cover by Reid Miles) is perhaps his best-known album. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman released two albums recorded with a trio in a Stockholm club, and three studio albums (including The Empty Foxhole, with his then ten-year-old son Denardo Coleman on drums). Pianist Cecil Taylor recorded a brace of albums for Blue Note, as did trombonist Grachan Moncur III, and saxophonist Sam Rivers, drummer Tony Williams, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and organist Larry Young also recorded albums which diverged from the "hard bop" style usually associated with the label.[2]

Saxophonist Jackie McLean, a stalwart of the label's hard bop output since the late 1950s, also crossed over into the avant-garde in the early 1960s, whose notable avant-garde albums included One Step Beyond, Destination Out and on (as a side man) trombonist Grachan Moncur III's "Evolution".

Though these avant-garde records did not sell as well as some other Blue Note releases, Lion thought it was important to document new developments in jazz.
Iconic Blue Note label design on an Art Hodes record
Cover art
Main article: Album covers of Blue Note Records

In 1956, Blue Note employed Reid Miles, an artist who worked for Esquire magazine.[2] The cover art produced by Miles, often featuring Wolff's photographs of musicians in the studio, was as influential in the world of graphic design as the music within would be in the world of jazz.[9] Under Miles, Blue Note was known for their striking and unusual album cover designs.[2] Miles' graphical design was distinguished by its tinted black and white photographs, creative use of sans-serif typefaces, and restricted color palette (often black and white with a single color), and frequent use of solid rectangular bands of color or white, influenced by the Bauhaus school of design.[10]

Though Miles' work is closely associated with Blue Note and has earned iconic status and frequent homage, Miles was only a casual jazz fan, according to Richard Cook;[11] Blue Note gave him several copies of each of the many dozens of albums he designed, but Miles gave most to friends or sold them to second-hand record shops. A few mid-1950s album covers featured drawings by a then-unknown Andy Warhol.[12]

Some of his most celebrated designs adorned the sleeves of albums such as Midnight Blue, Out to Lunch!, Unity, Somethin' Else, Let Freedom Ring, Hub-Tones, No Room for Squares, Cool Struttin', and The Sidewinder.
Lion retires; Wolff dies

Blue Note was acquired by Liberty Records in 1965 and Lion, who had difficulties working within a larger organization, retired in 1967.[2] Reid Miles' association with the label ended in late 1967. In 1968, Liberty Records was acquired by Transamerica Corporation, a holding company. The same year, United Artists Records merged with Liberty, along with its subsidiary labels including Blue Note. In 1972, the group was consolidated into one entity as United Artists Records. From late 1967 to 1971, recording sessions were produced by Wolff or pianist Duke Pearson, who had succeeded Ike Quebec in A&R in 1963 (following Quebec's death). Francis Wolff died in 1971 and Pearson left the label in the same year.[3]

At the end of the 1960s, the company headquarters were moved to 1776 Broadway.[13]
Revival and ownership history
1969 advertisement after Blue Note was acquired by Liberty Records

In 1979, EMI purchased United Artists Records, which had absorbed Liberty Records in 1968,[14] and phased out the Blue Note label, which lay dormant until 1985, when it was relaunched as part of EMI Manhattan Records (both for re-issues and new recordings for which Bruce Lundvall was appointed).[2] Some artists previously associated with Blue Note, such as McCoy Tyner, made new recordings,[2] while younger musicians such as Bennie Wallace, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Greg Osby, Jason Moran and arranger–composer Bob Belden have established notable reputations through their Blue Note albums. The label has also found great commercial success with the vocalist Norah Jones, and released new albums by established artists on the fringes of jazz such as Van Morrison, Al Green, Anita Baker and newcomer Amos Lee, sometimes referred to as the "male Norah Jones". Two of the leading trumpeters of the 1980s Jazz Resurgence, Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard signed with the label in 2003. Hip-hop producer Madlib recorded Shades of Blue in 2003, as a tribute to Blue Note, with samples from earlier records on the label.

Blue Note has pursued an active reissue program since the mid-1980s revival, and Michael Cuscuna has worked as freelance advisor and reissue producer.[2] Some of the original Blue Note's output has appeared in CD box sets issued by Mosaic Records (also involving Cuscuna).[3] Blue Note Records became the flagship jazz label for Capitol Records, and was the parent label for the Capitol Jazz, Pacific Jazz, Roulette and other labels within Capitol's holdings which had possessed a jazz line.[3] The "RVG series", Rudy Van Gelder remastering his own recordings from decades earlier began around 1998.

In 2006, EMI expanded Blue Note to create The Blue Note Label Group by moving its Narada group of labels to New York to join with Blue Note, centralizing EMI's approach to music for the adult market segment. The labels newly under the Blue Note umbrella are Angel Records, EMI Classics and Virgin Classics (classical music), Narada Productions (contemporary jazz and world-influenced music, including exclusively licensed sub-label Real World Records), Back Porch Records (folk and Americana), Higher Octave Records (smooth jazz and New-age music), and Mosaic Records (devoted exclusively to reissuing jazz recordings in limited-edition boxed sets).[15][16] As of June 2007, Bruce Lundvall, founder of Manhattan Records, as President/CEO of the Blue Note Label Group, was at the time reporting directly to Eric Nicoli, then Chief Executive Officer of EMI Group.[17]

In 2008, the Blue Note 7, a jazz septet, was formed in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records. The group recorded an album in 2008, entitled Mosaic, which was released in 2009 on Blue Note Records/EMI, and toured the United States in promotion of the album from January until April 2009.[18] The group consists of Peter Bernstein (guitar), Bill Charlap (piano), Ravi Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Lewis Nash (drums), Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Peter Washington (bass), and Steve Wilson (alto saxophone, flute). The group plays the music of Blue Note Records from various artists, with arrangements by members of the band and Renee Rosnes.

Following the acquisition of EMI by Universal, Don Was became President of Blue Note in January 2012, after an appointment as CEO a few months earlier, in succession to Bruce Lundvall. Lundvall, who stood down in 2010, became Chairman Emeritus[19]

In May 2013, Blue Note Records partnered with ArtistShare to form a label called "Blue Note/ArtistShare". The Blue Note/ArtistShare partnership was forged by ArtistShare founder Brian Camelio, Bruce Lundvall, and Don Was.[20]

After Universal Music Group took over EMI, Blue Note Records is now operated under Capitol Music Group,[1] while Decca Records took over UK distribution of Blue Note.[21][22]
Modern era

Blue Note has seen a continuity in releases from older artists such as Shorter, Charles Lloyd, Louis Hayes, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. In 2019, the imprint announced the launch of a vinyl reissue series of classic titles,[23] with releases selected and produced by Grammy-nominated producer and jazz expert Joe Harley.[24] The series, named the "Tone Poet series" in honor of Harley, reissues several titles each year from the Blue Note catalogue.[25] In 2020, Blue Note released the debut of South African artist Nduduzo Makhathini, called Modes of Communication: Letters from the Underworlds. It was named one of the "Best Jazz Albums of 2020" by The New York Times, and was followed by In the Spirit of Ntu in 2022, and uNomkhubulwane in 2024.[26]
Legacy

There has been much sampling of classic Blue Note tracks by both hip hop artists and for mashing projects. In 1993, the group Us3 designed the entirety of its debut album upon samples from classic Blue Note records. In 2003, hip-hop producer Madlib released Shades of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note, a collection of his remixes and interpretations of Blue Note music. Pete Rock, J Dilla, and DJ Spinna have likewise been involved in similar projects. In 2004, Burning Vision Entertainment created the video for Helicopter Girl's "Angel City",[27] using the art from numerous Blue Note LP sleeves to startling effect. In 2008, hip-hop producer Questlove of The Roots compiled Droppin' Science: Greatest Samples from the Blue Note Lab, a collection of original Blue Note recordings sampled by modern-day hip-hop artists such as Dr. Dre and A Tribe Called Quest.
Notable issues of critical assessment
Publishing rights

Any artist who records a song written by another artists is required to pay the statutory royalty to the copyright owner. A royalty is a usage-based fee paid by a licensee (the party wanting to use the copyrighted music) to a licensor (the owner of the copyrighted music). From the 1930s through the 1960s it was commonplace for a songwriter to sign over the rights to his/her work to a company — usually the record label for which they were recording — as part of the terms of the recording contract. Unfortunately, few musicians of this period had sufficient knowledge of US copyright laws or the proper advocator legal advice to ensure they would receive the royalties for their compositions. As a result, whenever any of their pieces were recorded, broadcast, telecast, etc., it was the record company that profited — and the writer received nothing. The majority of jazz musicians fell victim to this practice in that period. Andrew Dowd writes: "The example that still haunts me (and probably always will) is the famous tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. He recorded countless albums for the storied label Blue Note from 1955 to 1970 (many of them classics) yet he died alone and penniless in a tiny Philadelphia apartment in 1986"[28]
Donald Byrd

Trumpeter Donald Byrd recorded for Blue Note Records, 1959-1967. He encouraged fellow musicians to always retain the publishing rights to their own music and to always negotiate their recording contracts as a standard practice.[29]
Herbie Hancock

According to Tom Cotter: "Hancock credits Byrd with giving him one of the most important pieces of advice of his career – not to give away his publishing rights. When Blue Note offered Hancock the chance to record his first solo LP, label executives tried to convince him to relinquish his publishing in exchange for being able to record the album, but he stuck to Byrd's advice and refused, so the meeting came to an impasse. At this point, he stood up to leave and when it became clear that he was about to walk out, the executives relented and allowed him to retain his publishing. Thanks to Santamaria's subsequent hit cover version of "Watermelon Man", Hancock was soon receiving substantial royalties".[30]
Steve Swallow

During an interview by Ethan Iverson, double bassist Steve Swallow revealed the following about the 1965 Pete La Roca "Basra" LP session: "Another song on the date is my piece, ‘Eiderdown,’ which is actually the first recording of one of my compositions. It’s also the only tune of mine that I don’t own. Alfred Lion snatched it right out of my hands. After the date had been done, I got a phone call from Alfred and he said, ‘Oh, by the way, “Eiderdown,” who is publishing that?’ I had no idea what he was talking about. I said, ‘Gee, I don’t know.’ Alfred said, ‘No problem.’ He then proceeded to offer me this ‘wonderful’ deal. He would publish it for me and take care of everything and I wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. I was so grateful. ‘Gee, Alfred. Thank you so much.’ I haven’t been able to get that tune back after all these years. Blue Note sold it, it’s gone around, and some big conglomerate owns it now. I keep trying to buy it back because it has been recorded fairly often. That’s another kind of Blue Note story. It is a great blessing to jazz that Blue Note existed, but on the business side they were also sort of gangsters."[31]
Lee Morgan and Grant Green: high volumes of unreleased recordings

Based on the number of recording dates held, Grant Green and Lee Morgan were the most prolific Blue Note recording artists in the 1960s. It has been conjectured for many years that as the label's major heroin addicts, Green and Morgan would come to Al Lion for "an advance…" At his discretion, Lion would then respond by arranging an "ad-hoc" recording session — paying the standard base arrangement at the time: one four-hour rehearsal and one subsequent four-hour recording session. The artists were paid for their time and Lion now owned an LP's worth of recorded music — including the publishing rights — to be used solely at Blue Note's later discretion. Additionally, it should be pointed out that both Green and Morgan were used far more than any other guitarist or trumpeter as participants at other Blue Note sessions during this same period (roughly, 1961-67). Once Al Lion left Blue Note (August 1967), there were no more of these ad hoc recording sessions.[32]
Documentary films

    Julian Benedikt: Blue Note – A Story of Modern Jazz. Documentary film, Germany 1996.
    Eric Friedler: It Must Schwing! The Blue Note Story. Documentary film, Producer: Wim Wenders, Germany 2018.[33]
    Sophie Huber: Blue Note Records - Beyond the notes. Documentary film, Switzerland, 2018.[34][35]

Discography

Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s[1] to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in saxophone and piano playing.

David H. Rosenthal contends in his book Hard Bop that the genre is, to a large degree, the natural creation of a generation of African-American musicians who grew up at a time when bop and rhythm and blues were the dominant forms of black American music.[2]: 24  Prominent hard bop musicians included Horace Silver, Clifford Brown, Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino and others.
Characteristics

Hard bop is sometimes referred to as "funky hard bop".[1][3] The "funky" label refers to the rollicking, rhythmic feeling associated with the style.[3] The descriptor is also used to describe soul jazz, which is commonly associated with hard bop.[1][3] According to Mark C. Gridley, soul jazz more specifically refers to music with "an earthy, bluesy melodic concept and...repetitive, dance-like rhythms. Some listeners make no distinction between 'soul-jazz' and 'funky hard bop,' and many musicians don't consider 'soul-jazz' to be continuous with 'hard bop.'"[1] The term "soul" suggests the church, and traditional gospel music elements such as "amen chords" (the plagal cadence) and triadic harmonies that seemed to suddenly appear in jazz during the era.[3] Leroi Jones noted a combination of "wider and harsher tones" with "accompanying piano chords [that] became more basic and simplified." He cited saxophonist Sonny Rollins' playing as one of the best examples of the style.[4] Jazz critic Scott Yanow distinguished hard bop from the broader world of bop by saying that "[t]empos could be just as blazing but the melodies were generally simpler, the musicians (particularly the saxophonists and pianists) tended to be familiar with (and open to the influence of) rhythm & blues and the bass players (rather than always being stuck in the role of a metronome) were beginning to gain a little more freedom and solo space."[5]

Hard bop has been seen by some critics as a response to cool jazz and West Coast jazz.[6] As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill explain, "the hard bop school...saw the new instrumentation and compositional devices used by cool musicians as gimmicks rather than valid developments of the jazz tradition."[3] However, Shelly Manne suggested that cool jazz and hard bop simply reflected their respective geographic environments: the relaxed cool jazz style reflected a more relaxed lifestyle in California, while driving bop typified the New York scene.[7] Some writers, such as James Lincoln Collier, suggest that the style was an attempt to recapture jazz as a form of African American expression.[8] Whether or not this was the intent, many musicians quickly adopted the style, regardless of race.[3]
History
Origins
Horace Silver Quintet in Amsterdam, 1959

According to Nat Hentoff in his 1957 liner notes for the Art Blakey Columbia LP entitled Hard Bop, the phrase was originated by music critic and pianist John Mehegan, jazz reviewer of the New York Herald Tribune at that time. Hard bop first developed in the mid-1950s, and is generally seen as originating with the Jazz Messengers, a quartet led by pianist Horace Silver and drummer Art Blakey.[3][6] Alternatively, Anthony Macias points to Detroit as an early center in the rise of bop and hard bop, noting Detroit musicians Barry Harris and Kenny Burrell and the fact that Miles Davis lived in the city from 1953 to 1954. Billy Mitchell, a tenor saxophone player, organized a band that played at the Blue Bird Inn during the early 1950s that "anchored the city's Jazz scene" and attracted hard bop musicians to the city.[9]

Michael Cuscuna maintains that Silver and Blakey's efforts were in response to the New York bebop scene:

    Both Art and Horace were very, very aware of what they wanted to do. They wanted to get away from the jazz scene of the early '50s, which was the Birdland scene — you hire Phil Woods or Charlie Parker or J. J. Johnson, they come and sit in with the house rhythm section, and they only play blues and standards that everybody knows. There's no rehearsal, there's no thought given to the audience. Both Horace and Art knew that the only way to get the jazz audience back and make it bigger than ever was to really make music that was memorable and planned, where you consider the audience and keep everything short. They really liked digging into blues and gospel, things with universal appeal. So they put together what was to be called the Jazz Messengers.[10]

David Rosenthal sees the development of hard bop as a response to both a decline in bebop and the rise of rhythm and blues:

    The early fifties saw an extremely dynamic Rhythm and Blues scene take shape.... This music, and not cool jazz, was what chronologically separated bebop and hard bop in ghettos. Young jazz musicians, of course, enjoyed and listened to these R & B sounds which, among other things, began the amalgam of blues and gospel that would later be dubbed 'soul music.' And it is in this vigorously creative black pop music, at a time when bebop seemed to have lost both its direction and its audience, that some of hard bop's roots may be found.[2]: 24 

Horace Silver

A key recording in the early development of hard bop was Silver's composition "The Preacher", which was considered "old-timey" or "corny", such that Blue Note head Alfred Lion was hesitant to record the song.[2]: 38 [10] However, the song became a successful hit.[10]

Miles Davis, who had performed the title track of his album Walkin' at the inaugural Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, would form the Miles Davis Quintet with John Coltrane in 1955, becoming prominent in hard bop before moving on to other styles.[6] Other early documents were the two volumes of the Blue Note albums A Night at Birdland, also from 1954, recorded by the Blakey's quintet at Birdland months before the Davis set at Newport. Clifford Brown, the trumpeter on the Birdland albums, formed the Brown-Roach Quintet with drummer Max Roach. Among the pianists in the band were Richie Powell[11] and Carl Perkins,[3] both of whom died at a young age.
Mainstream

David Ake notes that by the mid-1950s, "the bop world clearly was not the 'closed' circle it had been in its earliest days." This coincided with a competitive spirit among bop musicians to play with "virtuousity and complexity," along with what Ake calls "jazz masculinity."[12] The broadening influence of hard bop coincided with a generation of jazz pianists who rose to prominence in the late 1950s – among them Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Drew, and Wynton Kelly – who took "altered" approaches to bebop. Although these musicians did not work exclusively or specifically within hard bop, their association with hard bop saxophone players put them within the genre's broader circle.[13] West Coast Jazz's diminishing influence during the late 1950s accelerated hard bop's rise to prominence, while the transition to 33-RPM records facilitated the shifts toward longer solos that were typical of hard bop albums.[5] During a fifteen-year stretch from 1952 to 1967, Blue Note Records recruited musicians and promoted hard bop described by Yanow as "classy."[5]

A critical album that cemented hard bop's mainstream presence in jazz was A Blowin' Session (1957), including saxophonists Johnny Griffin, John Coltrane, and Hank Mobley; trumpeter Lee Morgan; pianist Wynton Kelly; bassist Paul Chambers; and Art Blakey. Described by Al Campbell as "one of the greatest hard bop jam sessions ever recorded" and "filled with infectious passion and camaraderie," it was the only studio session ever recorded including all three saxophonists. It cemented "Coltrane's ability to navigate complex chord changes over a fast tempo" and is associated with Griffin's reputation as "the world's fastest saxophonist."[14] In 1956, The Jazz Messengers recorded an album titled Hard Bop, which was released in 1957, including Bill Hardman on trumpet and saxophonist Jackie McLean, with a mix of hard bop compositions and jazz standards.[15] Shortly after, in 1958, The Jazz Messengers, with a new line-up including Lee Morgan on trumpet and Benny Golson on saxophone,[16] recorded the quintessential hard bop album Moanin',[5] with the album pioneering in soul jazz. Golson and Morgan formed their own bands and produced further records in the hard bop genre: Golson's Jazztet with Art Farmer on trumpet recorded the album Meet the Jazztet in 1960, which was given a five-star rating by AllMusic, and Morgan explored hard bop and sister genres in records like The Sidewinder, known for its "funky, danceable groov[e] that drew from soul-jazz, Latin boogaloo, blues, and R&B."[17] Morgan's albums attracted rising stars in the jazz world, particularly saxophonists Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter; Morgan formed a "long-standing partnership" with the latter.[17]

Meanwhile, in the late 1950s to early 1960s John Coltrane was a prominent saxophonist within the hard bop genre, with albums such as Blue Train and Giant Steps exemplifying his ability to play within this style. His album Stardust (1958), for instance, included on trumpet a young Freddie Hubbard,[18] who would go on to become "a hard bop stylist."[19] Blue Train was described by Richard Havers as "Coltrane's Hard-Bop Masterpiece," although an edit made to one of the album's tracks caused controversy following disapproval from sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder.[20] In the early to mid-1960s, prior to his death, Coltrane experimented in free jazz but again drew influences from hard bop in his 1965 album A Love Supreme.[21] Coltrane was a longtime member of Miles Davis' band, which bridged the gap between hard bop and modal jazz with albums such as Milestones and Kind of Blue. These albums represented a transition toward more experimental jazz, but Davis maintained core ideas of hard bop, such as the "call-and-response theme" found on one of Kind of Blue's best-known tracks, "So What."[22] The earlier album Milestones was described as "indebted to hard bop" due to its "fast speeds, angular phrases and driving rhythms."[22]

In the early 1960s, Joe Henderson formed a band with Kenny Dorham, which recorded for Blue Note Records, and played extensively as a sideman in the bands of Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock; however, he received less recognition after he moved to San Francisco and began recording for Milestone.[23] Other hard bop musicians went to Europe, such as pianist Bud Powell (elder brother of Richie Powell) in 1959 and saxophonist Dexter Gordon in 1962. Powell, a bebop pianist, continued to record albums in the early 1960s, while Gordon's Our Man in Paris became "one of his most iconic albums" for Blue Note.[24]

Other musicians who contributed to the hard bop style include Donald Byrd, Tina Brooks, Sonny Clark, Lou Donaldson, Blue Mitchell, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt.

David Rosenthal considers six albums among the high points of the hard bop era: Ugetsu, Kind of Blue, Saxophone Colossus, Let Freedom Ring, Mingus Ah Um, and Brilliant Corners, referring to these as being some of the genre's "masterpieces."[13]
Decline and revival
See also: Neo-bop jazz
Wynton Marsalis, an important figure in the revival of mainstream jazz

Scott Yanow described hard bop in the late 1960s as "running out of gas." Blue Note Records' sale and decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combined with the rapid ascendance of soul jazz and fusion, largely replaced hard bop's prevalence within jazz, although bop would see a major revival in the 1980s known as the Young Lions Movement.[5] Yanow also attributes hard bop's temporary decline in the 1970s to "[t]he rise of commercial rock and the consolidation of most of the independent record labels."[5] With rock groups such as The Beatles capturing hard bop's charisma and avant-garde jazz, which had limited appeal outside jazz circles, bringing "division and controversy into the jazz community," Davis and other former hard boppers left the genre, only for the new fusion genre to itself shrink within the next decade.[25]

Davis led other jazz musicians toward the fusion genre, particularly other trumpet players. For example, Donald Byrd's shift toward commercial fusion and smooth jazz recordings of the early 1970s, while celebrated within some circles, was considered a "betrayal" by fans of hard bop. His album Black Byrd (1973), Blue Note's most successful album, neared #1 spot on the R&B charts despite the opposition of jazz purists.[26] However, in 1985, the filmed concert One Night with Blue Note brought together thirty predominantly hard bop musicians including Art Blakey, Ron Carter, Johnny Griffin, and Freddie Hubbard.[27]

Following fusion's decline, younger musicians started a bop revival, the best-known proponent of this being trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. The revival was a "resurgence" by the 1990s,[28] and by the 1990s, hard bop's revival had become so prominent that Yanow referred to it as "the foundation of modern acoustic jazz."[5]Joe Henderson, for instance, was described by Yanow as a "national celebrity and a constant poll winner" in jazz circles after signing for Verve in the 1990s, largely due to changes in marketing.[23]
Legacy

Rosenthal observed that "[t]he years 1955 to 1965 represent the last period in which jazz effortlessly attracted the hippiest young black musicians, the most musically advanced, those with the most solid technical skills and the strongest sense of themselves, not only as entertainers but as artists." In the same text he laments hard bop's "many detractors and few articulate defenders," describing some of the comments made by its critics as "derogatory cliches."[13] Alternatively, Yanow suggests a slightly longer period, from 1955 to 1968, during which hard bop was "the most dominant jazz style."[5]

Although the hard bop style enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, hard bop performers and elements of the music remain present in jazz. 

Post-bop is a jazz term with several possible definitions and usages.[1] It has been variously defined as a musical period, a musical genre, a musical style, and a body of music, sometimes in different chronological periods, depending on the writer. Musicologist Barry Kernfeld wrote in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that post-bop is "a vague term, used either stylistically or chronologically (with divergent results) to describe any continuation or amalgamation of bop, modal jazz, and free jazz; its meaning sometimes extends into swing and earlier styles or into fusion and third stream styles."[2]
Definitions and uses

The term post-bop has a variety of usages which vary widely.[2] Jazz historian Stuart Nicholson wrote that "The term post-bop is a wonderful catch-all, used not so much to describe what a style of music is, but more what it isn't. Post-bop isn't free or fusion or hard-bop or modal or avant-garde."[3] Some writers have defined post-bop with specificity, but these sources conflict with one another.[1] One potential definition of post-bop is a musical period in which modern jazz was at its greatest mainstream popularity extending from the mid-1950s through to the mid-1960s.[1][4] Others have written that post-bop is not a musical period but a specific body of music that emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s that combined principles of bebop, hard bop, modal jazz, avant-garde and free jazz, but also departed from earlier traditions in jazz.[5]

Still other writers have defined post-bop as a genre of small-combo jazz that evolved in the early to mid 1960s in the United States that was pioneered by Miles Davis (the central figure in the development of this genre), in conjunction with Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane and Jackie McLean, which crafted syntheses of hard bop with contemporaneous developments in avant-garde jazz, modal jazz and free jazz that resulted in music with a complex and experimental flavor though still rooted in bop tradition, featuring less of the blues and soul leanings predominant in hard bop. The movement had a significant impact on subsequent generations of both acoustic jazz and fusion musicians.[1]

According to musicologist Jeremy Yudkin, post-bop does not follow "the conventions of bop or the apparently formless freedom of the new jazz".[6] He wrote in his definition of the subgenre:

    Forms, tempos, and meters are freer, all the compositions are new, and the band members themselves are featured composers.... [A]n approach that is abstract and intense in the extreme, with space created for rhythmic and coloristic independence of the drummer—an approach that incorporated modal and chordal harmonies, flexible form, structured choruses, melodic variation, and free improvisation."[6]

According to scholar Keith Waters, some of the traits found in post-bop recordings are: a slower harmonic rhythm characteristic of modal jazz, techniques for playing "inside" and "outside" the underlying harmonic structure, an interactive (or conversational) approach to rhythm section accompaniment, unusual harmonic progressions, use of harmonic or metric superimposition, unusual underlying formal designs for head statements and chorus structure improvisation, or the abandonment entirely of underlying chorus structure beneath improvisation.[5]

Miles Davis was particularly influential in the development of small-combo jazz post-bop in the 1960s. His second quintet was active during 1964 to 1968 and featured pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and drummer Tony Williams. They recorded six studio albums that, according to All About Jazz's C. Michael Bailey, introduced post-bop: E.S.P. (1965), Miles Smiles (1967), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1968), Miles in the Sky (1968), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968).[6]