Blue Note striking off key?

[kung]

Saw this article in the Globe a few days ago. Here's part of it:

quote:

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Since its re-emergence in 1984, after its initial near-demise a few years earlier, Blue Note has gradually built a roster of new acts, including non-traditional jazz performers such as the jazz-hip-hop act Us3 and contemporary rap producer Madlib, along with funk-jazz jam bands from Soulive and Medeski Martin & Wood to the dance-minded saxophonist Karl Denson.

These are the kind of artists that make sticklers reared on the old guard cringe and worry about how Blue Note is maintaining its legacy. Jones and Van Morrison only add to the controversy.

"When you have a really major hit record like Norah Jones, two things happen," said London-based jazz critic Richard Cook, who wrote a history of the label Blue Note Records: The Biography, co-authored The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD and was also head of jazz for Polygram Records for six years in the mid-1990s. "One is that there is pressure on you to try and duplicate that success, either with the same artist or engaging other artists of a similar nature. That would be perhaps the more unfortunate side of it.

"But the rather more interesting side would be if the profits on that were somehow reinvested and used to pay for more hardcore jazz signings. And here too we've seen the situation where Blue Note has had success, big records like the Us3 record a few years ago and the Cassandra Wilson records of the early 1990s. You had the feeling that these were used to pay for the rest of the roster," Cook said.

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[Jaimoe]

Interesting article.

I'm a fan of the Blue Note label. I believe that Cook's second point is true: " the profits were somehow reinvested and used to pay for more hardcore jazz signings ".

[SaggyBalls]

i read that article a couple of days ago and it made me think 'that's the most ridiculous waste of my time i've had in ages'.

so what. a few albums. are jazz purists really as ridiculous and overzealous as tour kids?

is there a difference between complaining that less than 10 albums on the past 2 years on a major label have been bringing new customers that blue note would otherwise never see?

Where's the issue? boo hoo...some great albums are being put out on a label that needs as much support as it can get. Blue note is my fave jazz label. it's got soulive, it supports new jazz fusions, it supports great traditional jazz, and borderline trad. stuff.

so it doens't have a strong connection to one particular element (free or dixieland or bop)...that makes it big ebnough to stretch out.

there was no mention that a lot of the younger bands actually get ausiences out to see jazz.

no talk of MMW playing huge festivals and winning critical and not so critical acclaim.

the only talk of weic truffaz is that he's french for the most part. not that he's fused hip hop and grooves to his madness.

that was an article written for people that want to think they've read something poignant on a topic that so many people ignore and forget about. even more people didn't read that article i'm sure.

Blue note is the coolest jazz label IMO and if it takes a few not so jazz albums that i likely wouldn't buy anyway to keep the albums that i'll like pumping out then why's thre a fuss?

Jazz ain't punk...it sold out long ago when people kept playing the same songs over and over and over andover and over and over and over to keep the jazzies pacified. it's still got its integrity, but the real problem isn't al green or norah jones, it's the jazz groups that are purely academic.

if you're still pissed with blue note check out ECM records. it's european and has everything from john cage to charlie haden and bill frisell.

no hip hop but an absolutely flooring catalogue

[Thorgnor]

Madlib is never gonna get huge, but Wow to his production abilities. Remixes of Slum Village tracks are obviously off the beaten path for Blue Note, but at least somebody is reinvesting in ARTISTS and not in other financial ventures.

Isn't this a common practice among most labels though, the big sellers support the rest of the acts who tend not to make as much scrilla?

The Marsalis Bros. can barely agree on what Jazz should encompass. Back in the day Be-bop wasn't even considered jazz by some because people were having too much fun listening to it.