My name is Dan Ouellette.
It's spelled with an "o" but pronounced like a "w."
My book, that just came out a month ago, is "Bruce Lundvall Playing by Ear." It's the biography
of the legendary record executive Bruce Lundvall.
Jazz was like the predominant genre of music in the 30s up until about the mid-40s, maybe even
into the 40s because
1:23
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
it was music that you could dance to,
and they would have these big bands, orchestras. They would perform and the dance floors
would be full. That era was called the Big Band Era. That era was long gone and what has
replaced it in jazz is lots of different styles. The one that really sank the ship on the big bands
was bebop music. Bebop was rather than .the artists who played bebop were in smaller groups,
quartets, quintets, sextets sometimes.
2:10
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
What their focus on was, number one, playing fast and number two, expressing themselves
on their instruments.
In the context of a big band, you just play charts,
2:23
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
it's kind of background music, it sounds nice.
2:26
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
The people who were involved in bebop wanted to have an individual expression where
they as artists could speak through their horns. Speak through their pianos et cetera.
Well, it's just a matter of self-expression.
3:04
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
It's really similar to what happened during the rap generation where people broke out of
the forms of just singing pretty songs and they started to express themselves vocally, and
with an incredible cadence, an incredible rhythm.
It's interesting that jazz today is filled with younger players. Some of them quite predominate,
who grew up during the rap era and have incorporated a lot of hip-hop into their music. So
YOUNGER PLAYERS
3:37
the cool thing about jazz is that it can take any kind of music. Whether it's African music,
whether it's Chinese music, whether it's roots music, and incorporate it into the music
itself.
And that's why it's such a special genre of music, is because there's a lot of self-expression than
can go on, and it's kind of elastic. It kind of takes in all kinds of different styles.
Jazz was founded in the United States back at the turn of the last century. It was an amalgam of
people from the African-American community, the Caribbean, and European classical music.
Yeah. Jazz is a real tough one because
4:53
it's not something that you can just casually listen to.
You can have a lot of people use jazz, and they call it smooth jazz, as background music, and
they hang out and drink chardonnay, and they talk. It's kind of like party music in the
background. But
5:10
if you really want to dig deep into jazz, you have to listen.
It's kind of an awareness thing.
5:15
MUST BE LISTENED TO
It can't be going on in the background.
And once you sit down and listen you start realizing how expressive it is as a style of music.
One of the things when I started writing about music, and this was a long time ago. I was totally
into pop music, totally into pop music of the day. I was assigned to go to a jazz festival and I
just sat there and I listened because I didn't really know what I was doing or what I was talking
about. That's the key thing is to sit and listen. It takes a moment of awareness and
5:56
MUST BE LISTENED TO
then you can start to hear how maybe the piano player is playing some notes and the bass
player is having a conversation with him. You can start hearing those conversations which
is pretty cool.
Also,
6:11
MUST BE LISTENED TO
the exciting thing about jazz is there's an element of surprise, surprise and mystery. One
person will play something and then all of a sudden the other person responds. They
respond in surprising ways that surprise each other.
So, they're having conversations but they're also putting different elements of their own
expression into the mix the same as if you and I would be having a conversation and
6:40
MUST BE LISTENED TO
all of a sudden I started going, "Oh wait, I want to tell you a story about this." That's what
these guys do but they do it on their instruments. It's pretty amazing.
Oh boy, you want me to do that right now? Oh Richard, you're making me do some homework
here that may take me a minute to do because tonight I'm going to go home and have dinner and
I'll probably have music on but I won't be listening to it attentively. I won't be having smooth
jazz but I'll be listening to music and sometimes I just jump out of my seat and go, "Wow, did
you hear that," because it surprises me.
Blue Note was founded in the late 30's. The world was in turmoil. World War II was brewing
on the European continent and it was just getting ready to break loose with the United States
joining the war. There was a lot of turmoil. There was a lot of tension. It was at the end of the
depression, well it was still in the depression so a lot of people were hard up. It was hard times
for people.
Like I said before, jazz during that time was almost like a lot of people went to the movies then,
it was kind of an escapism. This was a physical escapism by getting out on the dance floors and
just swinging. It was swing music. It was music that you could dance to, not like hip hop today
where there's a certain element of dancing, but
8:58 BIG BAND TO BEBOP
back then it was all about dancing.
What Alfred Lion did was he immigrated to the United States and he loved music. He so loved
music. And, there were all kinds of these little clubs that he would go to listen to not the big
band music but to see what was going on. That's when he discovered a lot of these people were
playing for next to nothing and he started hearing original voices on instruments whether it was
piano or saxophone or trumpet or drums or basses. That's when he got excited.
9:39
ALFRED
He said, "The world really needs to hear this music, and the only way the world can hear it
is if I make records."
Well, I think it was more like they were taking snapshots. They were following the music.
Alfred Lion was following the music and hearing what was being out there. Like I said,
10:16
ALFRED
he wanted to document this music. He wanted to give these artists an opportunity to have
their music be heard.
Now, the way he did it was very unique. He would have all kinds of musicians and he would
say, "I want you to record for me. I want you to record for me." What he would do is in his
budget, in terms of paying his artists.
10:38
BLUE NOTE’S PHILOSOPHY
He would give them one full day of rehearsals.
Some bands were together all the time, but there was a rich community of jazz artists in the '40s
especially and the '50s, who played amongst each other.
THEY WERE LIKE ONE GUY WILL PLAY WITH ONE BAND, ANOTHER PLAY WITH
ANOTHER BAND, AND SOMETIMES THEY WOULD GO ON TOURS AND THEY
WOULD COME BACK AND RECORD ALL THESE DIFFERENT ALBUMS.
What he did was he felt like these guys, again, because they were artists, they deserved to have
one day to rehearse, to kind of get in the groove,
11:16
BLUE NOTE’S PHILOSOPHY
to kind of get to know each other, to get to know the music. Then the next day they would
come in and the tapes would begin to roll, and here we go.
Someone like Thelonious Monk. Thelonious Monk was quite extraordinary. He was playing
music on the piano that
11:59
RADICALS ON BLUE NOTE
many people thought it was just rubbish. Thelonious Monk was famous for playing the
wrong notes. [laughs]
Instead of having some kind of a graceful nice piece of music .and there is an element of
surprise right there. He would plant different notes on the keyboard.
12:21
RADICALS ON BLUE NOTE
In some ways, it wouldn't make sense to a lot of people.
A lot of people really put him down, and he was kind of ostracized. Now, people who studied
Monk to this day realized that he was a genius. He was an amazing genius who was trying to do
something different. To not do what the norm was. He wasn't doing it on purpose, it was just
who he was as a person, and as a pianist.
Oh, boy. I'm trying to think saxophone. Charlie Parker was .Well, the predominant instruments
were really .Trumpet was really big. Someone like
13:17
RADICALS ON BLUE NOTE
Clifford Brown was very important, because he was playing the trumpet in a different way
than anybody had ever heard it before.
It was different from like Dizzy Gillespie, who had already been established as a big [?] band
player. Something really special about the way he played, and the way he interacted with his
band members. That made it special for Alfred Lion.
No, Richard, I didn't say that. No, I'm kidding. [laughs] Edit that out. That's what Alfred Lion
believed in. Coming closer to home, Bruce Lundvall took over Blue Note in 1984. Blue Note
had been on the sidelines for a few years because of different problems.
14:44
BLUE NOTE’S PHILOSOPHY
His whole philosophy is that jazz is an art form,
and it's an evolving art form, and
14:53
BLUE NOTE’S PHILOSOPHY
I want to have people who are artists, not just musicians, but artists, people who really had
a vision for where they wanted their music to go.
They had a means of expression, because they were .
15:10
Many of these musicians were trained classically, but classical music was too confining for
them, because they had to play every single note the same way all the time.
These artists were like, "Wow!" [laughs]
15:26
ARTISTS LIKE ARTISTS
"I want to play outside the lines. I don't want to color within the lines, I want to play
outside the lines and I want to explore."
Some musicians, and I'll go back to one of the premier saxophonists that Alfred Lion signed, was
Wayne Shorter. Wayne Shorter had been in a couple of really bands, but he signed him to Blue
Note. Wayne Shorter, like in 1960, '61, he recorded a number of incredible albums. Wayne
Shorter is still alive today.
After 30 years, 35 years, the people in charge of Blue Note now, asked him to come back and
record a new album. Same with the Vibes player, Bobby Hutcherson, he's going to have a new
album out this year. I don't know if I answered your question.
Yeah. Again, jazz is an art form at its best, at its deepest.
16:45
BLUE NOTE’S PHILOSOPHY
You can't expect to have someone record an album if they are not believing it as an artist.
There are a lot of a lot of record labels, who sign someone because they are really excited
about this really great talent. Then they sat down and they g – this is is the record
executive – he’ll say, "OK. Here is what we want you to do on your first album." The artist
may go, "What do you mean?" "Well, this is what your first album is going to sound like.
I'm going to pick the songs. I'm going to rehearse you and I want you to play these songs."
At Blue Note, that never happened.
There was never a question of someone else, a record executive or anybody saying, "This is what
you are going to do." It was always a question,
17:38
BLUE NOTE’S PHILOSOPHY
at Blue Note, that the artist knows best.
Yeah. I think as a youngster what you do, is
18:08
ARTIST
as you are learning an instrument, hopefully you listen to a lot of music and you hear
something that you really like and you try to emulate it.
That's the whole part of the creative process. You emulate that artist and then you go on to
another artist. Some when you are listening,
18:27
ARTIST
you are listening to the music and then you emulate it either on your horn, or in your
fingers on the piano keyboard. There is that whole stage of emulation. At a certain point,
and it takes a long time, and it takes a lot of handwork and it takes a lot of vision and a lot of joy.
I don't want to make this sound like it's hard work, but a lot of joy.
18:54
ARTIST
All of a sudden, you discover that you have your own voice. That's really, really exciting.
I've interviewed hundreds of artists, and they all talk about that, when they come to the point
when they realize, "Wow! I've got my own voice.
19:11
ARTIST
“I don't need to sound like Miles Davis. I don't need to sound like Herbie Hancock."
These are jazz people obviously.
19:21
ARTIST
"I don't need to sound like Beyoncé. I don't need to sound like Lady Gaga."
All those are really creative people who have come up through the ranks, and they've learned the
music. God, there's a YouTube video of Lady Gaga when she used to play the piano. Kind of
jazz piano in these bars and stuff like that. She knew at a certain point, "OK. I've got the basics.
19:50
ARTIST
I've got the talent. I'm going to do something that's totally outrageous and totally
different."
Look where she is.
The whole focus on the art often times means that it's not going to be a commercial kind of
music. It's not going to come out. There are some exceptions, but it's not going to come out and
be a block buster hit. A lot of times, albums, and especially today when you can download
things on MP3 files, back in the day, LPs and then later on CDs. There were sales, but they
never broke the barrier. They never broke the sound barrier in terms of making a lot, a lot of
money. There were some exceptions, and I can give you an exception. There were some .Boy, I
can't even remember it now, but Herbie Hancock song like "Watermelon Man" that was a big hit.
People rushed out to buy that album. I don't know how many, but that was like really a big deal.
Blue Note, what happened was Alfred pulled out. He sold his stake in the company to, I believe
it was Liberty Records. I may be mistaken on this, exactly the chronology. He sold, and his
partner Francis Wolf stayed on and continued to do it. He sold it because he had a heart problem
and his wife said, "We are leaving," because these guys would go in and they would be in the
studios and in their offices all day long. Because of health reasons, he finally sold. Then, the
companies that bought Blue Note, and there was a series of them, it was being tossed around like
a football, they had no idea what to do with a label that was jazz. I mean, I think at first it was
Liberty, and then it was United.
Yeah. There was a sense that the people who bought Blue Note didn't understand jazz. They
didn't understand what made it. All they wanted to do was get some hits. They wanted to make
hits. They wanted to sell lots of records. They wanted to make sure that their investment in
buying Blue Note was worth their while, a return on their investment. Meanwhile,
22:55
CHANGE AT BLUE NOTE
the people who were running Blue Note started thinking, "Geez, we really have to…" This
was the late '60s, rock music, and the beginnings of funk were coming around. People
started saying, "Wow. We got to really do something different here. We got to kind of
make jazz into something that's palatable for people, because people are running away in
droves because of rock music."
Beginning with the Beatles, the beetles in a sense wiped jazz out. What needed up happening
was, we got tossed around like a football and finally, I believe it was in 1977, it went under.
They just couldn't sustain it anymore, and the company that owned it didn't want to put any more
money into it. Another record label came by and realized the archival richness. I mean it was
like a gold mine of music, that was part of Blue Note, and he bought it. He bought it for EMI.
Oddly enough, EMI was the company that the Beatles had recorded for. He just sat on these
archives. He bought up a couple of other jazz labels, and he just sat on them and he had his eyes
on
24:14
REVIVAL I
Bruce Lundvall, who at the time was the president of Columbia records, which was like the
Cadillac record company at the time.
He was just waiting to see what Bruce's next move would be. Bruce, as it turned out, went and
became president of Elektra Music, which lasted for two years. He was enticed to do that by
being offered to start up his own jazz label at Elektra. Then finally, that .
Sure. Yeah. Sure. OK. "Big Band" and sure, "Big Band" and "bebop."
25:22
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
"Big Band" was what was called "swing music." It was something that you could hear, and
it had a groove, and people liked to dance to it.
Some people would seat around their radios and listen to it. They would have huge ballrooms,
gigantic ballrooms. They would hold 2,000 people and there were was no one on their seats,
they were out on this big dance floor dancing, and they loved it.
25:45
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
When "bebop" came along, it
was a music – I listen to it now, and I think I can dance to it, but I can't dance to it like "swing
music."
25:57
BIG BAND TO BEBOP
It became more of a music to listen to. That's the biggest difference.
A lot of these "bebop" all the "bebop" artist, they came out of the "Swing" era and they were
playing that music. Like I said before, they were hearing something different within themselves
about how to evolve the music.
Sure. They were radically different. People hated the "beboppers" because they were upsetting
the apple cart. "We want our big bands to play. We want to go out and dance." It was just the
way art works, whether it's in music, or with paint or anything, it evolves, and there is a new
vista that comes along, and people really want to go there. That is what it was with music, God
music and bebop. Bebop" became "hard bop" and then it became "post-bop" and then .All these
things. It's just like a different movement in the music. That's what so exciting about jazz in
particular, because it does evolve.
27:27
YOUNGER PLAYERS
The music that you are hearing today with some young artists like Robert Glasper and
Jason Moran, the music is evolving, it's not staying put, it's not dying.
Some people say that, "Jazz should be in a museum and you can listen to it in a special spot."
No, especially here, and I live in New York, it is popping. There is all kinds of really, really
exciting things happening. That's not a jazz even though people thought she was, she really
wasn't, it was Norah Jones.
That was a .OK.
28:20
REVIVAL I
Norah Jones, Richard Marx, Bobby McFerrin – he didn’t discover him, but he nurtured
him and made him become an icon that he is today – Willie Nelson, Amos Lee. [laughs]
Also, Amos Lee, big rocker right now man, he plays huge places. That was a Bruce signing.
Bruce is kind of a guy, who ever since he was a kid, knew that he had to do something in music.
His father said, "No, I don't think so. I think you should follow in my path," which was being an
engineer or something. Bruce lived in New Jersey, that's a bus ride into New York, and he
would listen at night to these shows that were at night. Symphony Sid would have these big
bands playing. He would listen on the radio and he said, "I want to go there and see this." Here
he is at home in New Jersey, he's in high school. His parents were pretty flexible in the way they
brought him up.
29:44
REVIVAL I
He would sneak out at night with some friends, they catch a bus, and they go over to New
York City.
They went to all kinds of clubs to see all kinds of the top alternative jazz players of the day like
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. [coughs] Excuse me. Give me some water. Hold on one
second.
He saw these players like up close, and that's what made him love the music even more. When
he restarted Blue Note, basically it was just ashes. What he did was he brought back a lot of the
older artists who had been in Blue Note 10, 20, 30 years before.
30:44
REVIVAL I
But he also he wanted to keep the tradition of Blue Note going, which was always looking
for originals
who could join the label and grow the label so that its legacy would be alive and not, like I said,
a museum piece. So he started bringing out on board lots of younger artists who he heard. He
was out in the clubs when he was the president of Blue Note.
31:12
REVIVAL I
He was out in the clubs four, five times a week.
Well, he was a huge fan of Dexter Gordon. He brought Dexter in. He actually signed Dexter
after Dexter had lived in Europe for years and years. He signed Dexter to Columbia Records,
and then later on he signed him to Blue Note, kind of in his final years. John Scofield, great
guitar player. Let me look at the book. [laughs] [pause]
Dan:
I can give you a list here, Richard. [pause]
Dan:
OK,
32:36
REVIVAL I
some of the new people he signed were Stanley Jordan, this incredible guitar player.
32:42
REVIVAL I
He signed a flute player -- again, really incredible -- James Newton.
32:46
REVIVAL I
He also signed Michelle Pitrucciani, who was a piano player.
Then he brought in the veterans like
32:53
REVIVAL I
Dexter Gordon, Tony Williams, Jimmy Smith, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Stanley
Turrentine, Kenny Burrell.
And what he did was he had the elders, the jazz elders, but he also started bringing in new
people.
After Dexter died, he brought in Joe Lovano, who I think has recorded 25 albums for Blue Note
to this day. He brought in younger people, older people -- whoever he heard that he thought was
good and original, and had a rich future in the music, he would sign them. And he had carte
blanche.
Yeah. Well, Bruce, at Blue Note Records, he not only had great ears to hear great music and to
be able to sign that music; he was also very savvy in marketing, because when he started at
Columbia Records as an intern back in 1960, he was in the marketing department. He had that
sensibility of being able to have the two go together. Blue Note, under Bruce's control, never
lost money. They actually made money. Part of the money that they made was from the archival
stuff they started reissuing.
OK. There you go. Well, I get to it. It's my roundabout way of getting into it. What Bruce did
with Blue Note was,
35:01
REVIVAL I
he kept the music moving. He kept the music exciting. It did not stay in one place. It did
not die on the vine,
like so many other jazz genres within jazz had done. He brought a freshness to it and incredible
intuitive sensibility to sign people that he felt were going to take the music into the next decade
and the decade after that and the decade after that.
They were going to be people who were going to move the music forward and not have it be
sitting in one place. I think that's his greatest legacy. And he brought artists in.
35:48
REVIVAL I
He did not want to have someone who was derivative of someone else. He wanted to bring
in original voices who had futures, who were going to be making records for years and
years and years.
OK .