Alfred Lion
Encyclopedia
Alfred Lion was a Jewish German-born American record executive who co-founded Blue Note Records
in 1939 Blue Note recorded many of the biggest names in jazz throughout the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.
, began his lifelong fascination with jazz at the age of 16 when he saw a jazz
concert given by Sam Wooding's Orchestra in his native town. In 1929 Alfred Lion migrated to the United States, but a physical attack necessitated hospital treatment, and he was forced to return to Germany. From 1933 Lion was based in South America, working for German import-export companies, only returning to New York in 1938. Lion's presence at one of the concerts given under the From Spirituals to Swing
banner at Carnegie Hall
inspired him to start his own record label.
In partnership with communist writer Max Margulis
(he supplied the start-up capital) Lion founded Blue Note in 1939. In the label's first record session on January 6, Lion recorded two musicians who had impressed him at the earlier concert: the boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons
and Meade Lux Lewis
. The company's first hit, recorded in the same year, was Sidney Bechet's
recording of "Summertime". It was notable for being issued on a 12" 78rpm record instead of the then standard 10" owing to its length.
By the time Lion was drafted into the army, his Berlin childhood friend Francis Wolff
had joined him, and under the wing of Milt Gabler
and his Commodore Music Store, Wolff sustained the business in Lion's absence. (Margulis had by now permanently dropped out of any involvement with Blue Note.)
At the persuading of Ike Quebec
, their Artist and Repertoire
(A&R) man, Lion began to explore more modern developments in jazz, and Quebec introduced Lion to Thelonious Monk
, the first 'modern' jazz musician Blue Note was to record. Blue Note's involvement with modern jazz was not total for several years, and Lion continued his label's association with Bechet and clarinetist George Lewis
into the 1950s. Wolff would supervise few sessions himself until after Lion's retirement, concentrating on the company's business affairs.
What became known as the "hard bop" style would predominate in Blue Note's output during the 1950s and 1960s. Musicians like Art Blakey
and Horace Silver
among others epitomised this style. In the mid-fifties though, Blue Note was a struggling label, hit by the record industry's changeover to the 12" LP format, but the popularity of the organ/soul jazz craze, driven by the innovative work of Jimmy Smith
, ensured that the label survived.
Three significant elements make Blue Note releases stand out: the work of recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder
, the photographs of Francis Wolff
and the cover designs principally by Reid Miles
. Lion and Wolff were also respected by musicians for their straight dealing and for 'hanging out' in the jazz scene.
Blue Note also recorded avant-garde musicians like Andrew Hill
and Cecil Taylor
. Indeed it was Lion's discovery of Hill, which he would later cite, along with his earlier involvement with Thelonious Monk and their fellow pianist Herbie Nichols
, as having given him particular pleasure during his career.
Duke Pearson
, whom Lion appointed after Quebec's death in 1963, helped to ensure that the label's roster remained fresh as a whole. In fact the popularity that Horace Silver's
Song for My Father
and Lee Morgan's
The Sidewinder
enjoyed resulted in Lion being pressured by his distributors into producing more hits.
Having suffered from heart problems for some years, Lion retired in 1967 having sold the Blue Note label and catalogue to Liberty Records in 1965. Wolff stayed with the label until his death in 1971. Liberty Records in turn was acquired by United Artists, and the Blue Note imprint went dormant until it was revived by record executive Bruce Lundvall
under the ownership of EMI.
Lion himself retired to Mexico with his second wife, the former Ruth Mason and dropped out of any direct connection with his former life, though he remained in contact with Horace Silver, who respected his privacy. Lion contacted the co-founder of Mosaic Records
, Michael Cuscuna
around 1984 having noticed that label's early box-sets of Blue Note recordings. At the end of his life, Lion gained the recognition he had often been denied, including visiting several Blue Note festivals in Japan. He died in San Diego.
There has been an extensive reissue campaign under Lundvall's direction of Blue Note recordings, many of which have been spearheaded by Cuscuna.
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
in 1939 Blue Note recorded many of the biggest names in jazz throughout the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.
Biography
Alfred Lion, born in BerlinRote Insel
Rote Insel is the name colloquially given to a neighborhood in the Schöneberg district of the German capital, Berlin...
, began his lifelong fascination with jazz at the age of 16 when he saw a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
concert given by Sam Wooding's Orchestra in his native town. In 1929 Alfred Lion migrated to the United States, but a physical attack necessitated hospital treatment, and he was forced to return to Germany. From 1933 Lion was based in South America, working for German import-export companies, only returning to New York in 1938. Lion's presence at one of the concerts given under the From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing
From Spirituals to Swing was the title of two concerts presented by John Hammond in Carnegie Hall on 23 December 1938 and 24 December 1939. The concerts included performances by Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson, Helen Humes, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Mitchell's...
banner at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
inspired him to start his own record label.
In partnership with communist writer Max Margulis
Max Margulis
Max Margulis was a musician, writer, music teacher, voice coach, record producer, copywriter, photographer and left-wing activist. He had a significant influence on the New York artistic and performing community particularly from the 1930s to the 1950s...
(he supplied the start-up capital) Lion founded Blue Note in 1939. In the label's first record session on January 6, Lion recorded two musicians who had impressed him at the earlier concert: the boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.-Life and career:...
and Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis was a American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style. His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement...
. The company's first hit, recorded in the same year, was Sidney Bechet's
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
recording of "Summertime". It was notable for being issued on a 12" 78rpm record instead of the then standard 10" owing to its length.
By the time Lion was drafted into the army, his Berlin childhood friend Francis Wolff
Francis Wolff
Francis Wolff was a record company executive, photographer and record producer....
had joined him, and under the wing of Milt Gabler
Milt Gabler
Milton Gabler was an American record producer, responsible for many innovations in the recording industry of the 20th century.-Early life:...
and his Commodore Music Store, Wolff sustained the business in Lion's absence. (Margulis had by now permanently dropped out of any involvement with Blue Note.)
At the persuading of Ike Quebec
Ike Quebec
Ike Quebec was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. His surname is pronounced KYOO-bek.Critic Alex Henderson wrote, "Though he was never an innovator, Quebec had a big, breathy sound that was distinctive and easily recognizable, and he was quite consistent when it came to down-home blues, sexy...
, their Artist and Repertoire
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
(A&R) man, Lion began to explore more modern developments in jazz, and Quebec introduced Lion to Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
, the first 'modern' jazz musician Blue Note was to record. Blue Note's involvement with modern jazz was not total for several years, and Lion continued his label's association with Bechet and clarinetist George Lewis
George Lewis (clarinetist)
George Lewis was an American jazz clarinetist who achieved his greatest fame and influence in the later decades of his life.-Ancestry:...
into the 1950s. Wolff would supervise few sessions himself until after Lion's retirement, concentrating on the company's business affairs.
What became known as the "hard bop" style would predominate in Blue Note's output during the 1950s and 1960s. Musicians like Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
and Horace Silver
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....
among others epitomised this style. In the mid-fifties though, Blue Note was a struggling label, hit by the record industry's changeover to the 12" LP format, but the popularity of the organ/soul jazz craze, driven by the innovative work of Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
, ensured that the label survived.
Three significant elements make Blue Note releases stand out: the work of recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder
Rudy Van Gelder
Rudy Van Gelder is an American recording engineer specializing in jazz.Often regarded as one of the most important recording engineers in music history, Van Gelder has recorded several thousand jazz sessions, including many widely recognized as classics, in a career spanning more than half a century...
, the photographs of Francis Wolff
Francis Wolff
Francis Wolff was a record company executive, photographer and record producer....
and the cover designs principally by Reid Miles
Reid Miles
and Reid Miles was an American graphic designer and photographer.Reid Miles was born in Chicago on 4 July 1927 but, following the Stock Market Crash and the separation of his parents, moved with his mother to Long Beach, California in 1929.After high school Miles joined the Navy and, following...
. Lion and Wolff were also respected by musicians for their straight dealing and for 'hanging out' in the jazz scene.
Blue Note also recorded avant-garde musicians like Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...
and Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
. Indeed it was Lion's discovery of Hill, which he would later cite, along with his earlier involvement with Thelonious Monk and their fellow pianist Herbie Nichols
Herbie Nichols
Herbie Nichols , was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote the jazz standard "Lady Sings the Blues". Obscure during his lifetime, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics.-Life:...
, as having given him particular pleasure during his career.
Duke Pearson
Duke Pearson
Duke Pearson was an American jazz pianist and composer. Allmusic notes him as being a "big part in shaping the Blue Note label's hard bop direction in the 1960s as a producer."-History:...
, whom Lion appointed after Quebec's death in 1963, helped to ensure that the label's roster remained fresh as a whole. In fact the popularity that Horace Silver's
Horace Silver
Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....
Song for My Father
Song for My Father
Song for My Father is a 1965 album by The Horace Silver Quintet, released on the Blue Note label in 1965. The album was inspired by a trip that Silver had made to Brazil. The cover artwork features a photograph of Silver's father, John Tavares Silva, to whom the title song was dedicated...
and Lee Morgan's
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan was an American hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...
The Sidewinder
The Sidewinder
The Sidewinder is a 1964 album by jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan, recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood, New Jersey. It was released on Blue Note label as BLP 4157 and BST 84157. The title track was one of the defining recordings of the soul jazz genre, becoming a jazz standard. An edited version...
enjoyed resulted in Lion being pressured by his distributors into producing more hits.
Having suffered from heart problems for some years, Lion retired in 1967 having sold the Blue Note label and catalogue to Liberty Records in 1965. Wolff stayed with the label until his death in 1971. Liberty Records in turn was acquired by United Artists, and the Blue Note imprint went dormant until it was revived by record executive Bruce Lundvall
Bruce Lundvall
Bruce Lundvall, is an American record company executive, most known as being the President/CEO of the Blue Note Label Group, reporting directly to Eric Nicoli, the Chief Executive Officer of EMI Group.- Career :...
under the ownership of EMI.
Lion himself retired to Mexico with his second wife, the former Ruth Mason and dropped out of any direct connection with his former life, though he remained in contact with Horace Silver, who respected his privacy. Lion contacted the co-founder of Mosaic Records
Mosaic Records
Mosaic Records is an American specialist jazz record label, founded in 1983 by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie to issue coherent limited edition box sets of jazz recordings by individual musicians, which had fallen out-of-print...
, Michael Cuscuna
Michael Cuscuna
Michael Cuscuna is an American jazz record producer and writer. He is a leading discographer of Blue Note Records....
around 1984 having noticed that label's early box-sets of Blue Note recordings. At the end of his life, Lion gained the recognition he had often been denied, including visiting several Blue Note festivals in Japan. He died in San Diego.
There has been an extensive reissue campaign under Lundvall's direction of Blue Note recordings, many of which have been spearheaded by Cuscuna.
See also
- Blue Note RecordsBlue Note RecordsBlue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
- Rudy Van GelderRudy Van GelderRudy Van Gelder is an American recording engineer specializing in jazz.Often regarded as one of the most important recording engineers in music history, Van Gelder has recorded several thousand jazz sessions, including many widely recognized as classics, in a career spanning more than half a century...
- :Category:Albums produced by Alfred Lion