No room for squares
A political economy of Blue Note records
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v1i1.25Keywords:
Blue Note, hard bop, jazz canon, modern jazz, political economy, re-releasesAbstract
Blue Note records retains a reputation for excellent music packaged stylishly for a hip audience. This article suggests its longevity has been achieved through the conjunction of four elements. Firstly, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff were respected for their (mainly black) artists, avoiding the exploitative culture of other jazz labels to ensure important artists did their best work for Blue Note. Secondly, they established a house style that has become emblematic for jazz overall. Thirdly, and coincidently, the period when Blue Note was most active documenting jazz music has become the period regarded by many as the pinnacle of jazz attainment. Lastly, these factors have been exploited by a series of owners who have sought to reinforce the brand of Blue Note. The interaction of these four elements ensures that Blue Note remains the jazz label that most people, jazz fans and others, are familiar with.
References
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Bacon, Paul (2001 [1949]) ‘The High Priest of Bebop: The Inimitable Mr Monk’, The Record Changer 8/11 (November): 9–11 [reprinted in Rob van der Bliek, ed., The Thelonious Monk Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press].
Barfe, Louis (2004) Where Have All the Good Times Gone? The Rise and Fall of the Record Industry. London: Atlantic Books.
Bishop, Jack (2005) ‘Building International Empires of Sound: Concentrations of Power and Property in the “Global” Music Market’, Popular Music and Society 28/4 (October): 443–71.
Blue Note (2006) ‘Press Release: Blue Note Issues Classic Tracks as Ringtones’ [http://www.bluenote.com/news.asp]
Brooks, Tim (2005) Survey of Re-Issues of US Recordings. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources/Library of Congress.
Brown, Robin (2005) ‘Americanization at its Best? The Globalisation of Jazz’. In Marianne Franklin, ed., Resounding International Relations: On Music, Culture and Politics. New York: PalgraveMacmillan.
Chapple, Steve and Garofalo, Reebee (1977) Rock and Roll is Here to Pay: The History and Politics of the Music Industry. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Cook, Richard (2003) Blue Note Records: The Biography. London: Pimlico.
Cuscuna, Michael (n.d.) ‘The Blue Note 45’. In The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions of Ike Quebec. Stanford: Mosaic Records.
——(2001) ‘The Blue Note Story’. In Michael Cuscuna and Michel Ruppli, The Blue Note Label: A Discography (revised and expanded). Westport,CT: Greenwood Press.
——(2005) ‘Strictly on Record: The Art of Jazz and the Recording Industry’, The Source: Challenging Jazz Criticism 2: 63–70.
Davis, Miles and Troupe, Quincy (1989) Miles: The Autobiography. London: Macmillan.
DeVeaux, Scott (1999 [1991]) ‘Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography’, Black American Literature Forum 25/3 (Fall): 525–60 [excerpt reprinted in Robert Walser, ed., Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History. New York: Oxford University Press].
——(1997) BeBop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dowd, Timothy J. (2004) ‘Concentration and Diversity Revisited: Production Logics and the US Mainstream Recording Market, 1940–1990’, Social Forces 82/4: 1411–1455.
Eisenberg, Evan (1987) The Recording Angel: The Experience of Music From Aristotle to Zappa. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Fox, Ted (1986a) ‘Alfred Lion’. In idem, In the Groove: The People behind the Music. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
——(1986b) ‘Chris Blackwell’. In idem, In the Groove: The People behind the Music. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Giddens, Gary (2000 [1981]) Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop. New York: Oxford University Press [reprinted, New York: Da Capo Press].
Golberg, Joe (1965) Jazz Masters of the 50s. New York: Macmillan [reprinted, New York: Da Capo Press].
Gracyk, Theodore (2002) ‘Jazz after Jazz: Ken Burns and the Construction of Jazz History’, Philosophy and Literature 26/1: 173–87.
Horricks, Raymond (1989) The Importance of Being Eric Dolphy. Tunbridge Wells, D.J. Costello (Publishers).
Hudson, Mark (2006) ‘Groove is in their Hearts’, Observer Music Magazine (13 August): 41–45.
Jones, LeRoi (1965) Blues People: Negro Music in White America. London: MacGibbon and Kee.
Kahn, Ashley (2002) Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece. London: Granta Books.
——(2006) The House that Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records. London: Granta Books.
Kelly, Michael (1993) Liberty Records: A History of the Recording Company and its Stars, 1955–1971. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co.
Kofsky, Frank (1999) Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz. New York: Pathfinder Press.
Lion, Ruth (2002) ‘Blue Note: The Lucky Label’. In Graham Marsh and Glyn Callingham, Blue Note Album Cover Art: The Ultimate Collection. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Lopes, Paul (2002) The Rise of a Jazz Art World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lundvall, Bruce (1999) ‘A Fireside Chat’. Jazz Weekly [http://jazzweekly.com/interviews/lundvall.htm (19 July 2006)].
Marsh, Graham and Callingham, Glyn (2002) Blue Note Album Cover Art: The Ultimate Collection. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Mathieson, Kenny (2002) Cookin’: Hard Bop and Soul Jazz 1954–65. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.
May, Christopher (2005) ‘Concentrated Industry, Fragmented Consumption: The Global Music Industry in the New Millennium’. In Marianne Franklin, ed., Resounding International Relations: On Music, Culture and Politics. New York: PalgraveMacmillan.
Nicholson, Stuart (2005) ‘Tensions in the Marketplace: Reflections on the Major Recording Companies Documentation of Jazz in the late 1990s and New Millennium Years’, The Source: Challenging Jazz Criticism 2: 77–82.
Nisenson, Eric (2000) Blue: The Murder of Jazz. New York: Da Capo Press.
Porter, Eric (2002) What Is This Thing Called Jazz: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics and Activists. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ramsey, Gutherie P. Jr. (2003) Race Music: Black Cultures from Be-Bop to Hip-Hop. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rasula, Jed (1995) ‘The Media of Memory: The Seductive Menace of Records in Jazz History’. In Krin Gabbard, ed., Jazz Among the Discourses. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schneider, Jonathan (2001) ‘Blue Note: Kind of Blue’. Brand Features—Profile, Brandchannel.com [http://www.brandchannel.com/features_profile.asp?pr_id=34 (3 July 2006)].
Straw, William (1991) ‘Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Communities and Scenes in Popular Music’, Cultural Studies 5/3: 368–88.
——(2000) ‘Exhausted Commodities: The Material Culture of Music’, Canadian Journal of Communication 25/1 [http://www.cjc-online.ca/viewarticle.php?id= 571&layout=html (29 November 2006)].
Thomas, J.C. (1976) Coltrane: Chasin’ the Trane. New York: Da Capo Press.
Tomlinson, Gary (2001 [1991]) ‘The Jazz Canon as Monological Canon’, Black Music Research Journal 11/2: 245–49 [excerpt reprinted in Andrew Clark, ed., Riffs & Choruses: A New Jazz Anthology. London: Continuum].
Townsend, Peter (2000) Jazz in American Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Woodward, Richard B. (2002) ‘Kind of Blue: Jazz Competes with its Past, Settles for the Hard Sell’. In Norman Kelley, ed., Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music. New York: Akashic Books.
Published
2007-03-01
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
May, C. (2007). No room for squares: A political economy of Blue Note records. Jazz Research Journal, 1(1), 25-44. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v1i1.25
