Chris Albertson
Encyclopedia
Christiern Gunnar Albertson (born October 18, 1931) is a New York City
-based jazz
journalist
, writer
and record producer
.
He was born in Reykjavík
and educated in Iceland
, Denmark
and England
before studying commercial art in Copenhagen
. In 1947, Albertson made a discovery which was to change his life when he happened upon a Bessie Smith
recording on the Danish radio; it led to an abiding interest in jazz
and blues
music. On his home tape machine, Albertson recorded visiting British New Orleans revivalists
Ken Colyer
, Chris Barber
and Lonnie Donegan
in 1953. These recordings were subsequently released on the Danish Storyville Records
and British
Tempo Records
labels, and remain in the former's catalog.
In 1957, after two years as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio at Keflavík Air Base, in Iceland, Albertson migrated to the United States
(naturalised 1963) initially working in commercial radio in Philadelphia, WCAU (a CBS affiliate) and WHAT-FM, a 24-hour jazz station. At these stations, he conducted a number of interviews, including a rare one with Lester Young
, one of only two extant with the tenor saxophonist.
In 1960-61 he was employed by Riverside Records
' Bill Grauer as a producer. In this capacity, he arranged and recorded the last sessions of blues singer Ida Cox
(whom he brought out of retirement) and legendary boogie woogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis
, and supervised the label's memorable 'Living Legends' series of location recordings. The initial albums in this series were made in New Orleans and featured such pioneer jazz
musicians as pianist Sweet Emma Barrett, clarinetist Louis Cottrell, Jr.
, trumpeters Percy Humphrey
and Kid Thomas
, blues duo Billie and Dede Pierce, and trombonist Jim Robinson
. He continued the series in Chicago, with performances by Lil Armstrong, Alberta Hunter
, Little Brother Montgomery
, and Earl Hines
. Albertson subsequently worked as producer for Prestige Records
, supervising sessions by, among others, guitarist/singer Lonnie Johnson
, whom he had pulled from obscurity while working in Philadelphia. He also started his own production company, supervising sessions that included Howard McGhee
, Roy Eldridge
, Bud Freeman
, Ray Bryant
, and Elmer Snowden
. In the mid-sixties, following a period as general manager of Pacifica station, WBAI, in New York, Albertson went to work for the BBC
in London, advising them on how to adapt their radio programmes for sale in North America.
In 1971, Albertson co-produced and hosted The Jazz Set, a weekly television program that was aired from coast to coast by Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) Public television and featured such guests as Charles Mingus
, Bill Evans
, Randy Weston
, Jimmy Heath
, and Ray Bryant
. At this time, he was also producing reissues for Columbia Records
, most notably the complete Bessie Smith
LP sets. His work on these albums won Albertson two Grammy awards (one in 1971 in the Best Album Notes
category for "The World's Greatest Blues Singer" and a Trustees Award), a Billboard Trendsetter Award and the Montreux Jazz Festival
's Grand Prix du Disque. His standard work, Bessie, a biography of Bessie Smith, first appeared in 1972, with a revised and expanded version published by Yale University Press in 2003). Albertson has written TV documentaries, including "The Story of Jazz" and "My Castle's Rocking" (a bio-documentary on Alberta Hunter
), as well as articles and reviews for various publications, including "Saturday Review" and "Down Beat". He was a contributing editor for Stereo Review
magazine for twenty-eight years.
In recent years, Albertson—who lives in New York City—has been a prominent contributor to several jazz bulletin boards on the internet, and he is currently working on an autobiography.
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based 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...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
.
He was born in Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
and educated in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
before studying commercial art in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
. In 1947, Albertson made a discovery which was to change his life when he happened upon a Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
recording on the Danish radio; it led to an abiding interest in 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...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
music. On his home tape machine, Albertson recorded visiting British New Orleans revivalists
Revivalist artist
A revivalist artist or revivalist band is a musical group, singer, or musician dedicated to reviving interest in a musical genre from an earlier era....
Ken Colyer
Ken Colyer
Kenneth Colyer was a British jazz trumpeter and cornetist, devoted totally to New Orleans jazz. His band was also known for skiffle interludes.-Biography:...
, Chris Barber
Chris Barber
Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber is best known as a jazz trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with...
and Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
in 1953. These recordings were subsequently released on the Danish Storyville Records
Storyville Records
Storyville Records is a large international record label based in Copenhagen, Denmark, specializing in jazz and blues music. Besides its original material, Storyville Records has licensed and reissued many vintage jazz recordings that previously appeared on such labels as Paramount Records,...
and British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Tempo Records
Tempo Records (UK)
Tempo Records was a British record label. This independent label specialized in jazz recordings, and was started in 1949 by Colin Pomroy Jack Clough, and R.E.G. [Ron] Davies . This label had two periods of activity. In the late 1940s and early 1950s musicians working in the revivalist idiom...
labels, and remain in the former's catalog.
In 1957, after two years as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio at Keflavík Air Base, in Iceland, Albertson migrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(naturalised 1963) initially working in commercial radio in Philadelphia, WCAU (a CBS affiliate) and WHAT-FM, a 24-hour jazz station. At these stations, he conducted a number of interviews, including a rare one with Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
, one of only two extant with the tenor saxophonist.
In 1960-61 he was employed by Riverside Records
Riverside Records
Riverside Records was a United States record label specializing in jazz. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer under his firm Bill Grauer Productions, Inc. in 1953, the label was a major presence in the jazz record industry for a decade...
' Bill Grauer as a producer. In this capacity, he arranged and recorded the last sessions of blues singer Ida Cox
Ida Cox
Ida Cox was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings...
(whom he brought out of retirement) and legendary boogie woogie pianist 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...
, and supervised the label's memorable 'Living Legends' series of location recordings. The initial albums in this series were made in New Orleans and featured such pioneer 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...
musicians as pianist Sweet Emma Barrett, clarinetist Louis Cottrell, Jr.
Louis Cottrell, Jr.
Louis Albert Cottrell, Jr. was a Louisiana Creole jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist. He was the son of the influential drummer Louis Cottrell, Sr., and grandfather of New Orleans jazz drummer Louis Cottrell...
, trumpeters Percy Humphrey
Percy Humphrey
Percy Gaston Humphrey was a jazz trumpet player and bandleader in New Orleans, Louisiana.In addition to his own jazz band, Percy Humphrey and His Crescent City Joymakers, for more than thirty years he was leader of the Eureka Brass Band. He also played in the band of the pianist Sweet Emma Barrett...
and Kid Thomas
Kid Thomas Valentine
Thomas Valentine, commonly known as Kid Thomas was a jazz trumpeter and bandleader.Kid Thomas was born in Reserve, Louisiana and came to New Orleans in his youth. He gained a reputation as a hot trumpet man in the early 1920s. Starting in 1926 he led his own band, for decades based in the New...
, blues duo Billie and Dede Pierce, and trombonist Jim Robinson
Jim Robinson (trombonist)
Jim Robinson, also known as Big Jim Robinson was an American jazz musician, based in New Orleans, renowned for his deep, wide-toned, robust "tailgate" style of trombone playing, which enabled him to achieve a wide swoop between two notes as he moved the slide—while continually buzzing air...
. He continued the series in Chicago, with performances by Lil Armstrong, Alberta Hunter
Alberta Hunter
Alberta Hunter was an American blues singer, songwriter, and nurse. Her career had started back in the early 1920s, and from there on, she became a successful jazz and blues recording artist, being critically acclaimed to the ranks of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith...
, Little Brother Montgomery
Little Brother Montgomery
Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and blues pianist and singer....
, and Earl Hines
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...
. Albertson subsequently worked as producer for Prestige Records
Prestige Records
Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
, supervising sessions by, among others, guitarist/singer Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos...
, whom he had pulled from obscurity while working in Philadelphia. He also started his own production company, supervising sessions that included Howard McGhee
Howard McGhee
Howard McGhee was one of the very first bebop jazz trumpeters, together with Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro and Idrees Sulieman. He was known for lightning-fast fingers and very high notes...
, Roy Eldridge
Roy Eldridge
Roy David Eldridge , nicknamed "Little Jazz" was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos and his strong influence on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most exciting musicians of the swing era and a...
, Bud Freeman
Bud Freeman
Lawrence "Bud" Freeman was a U.S. jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. He had a smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing. He was one of the most influential and important jazz tenor saxophonists of...
, Ray Bryant
Ray Bryant
Raphael Homer "Ray" Bryant was an American Jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ray Bryant began playing the piano at the age of six, also performing on bass in junior High School...
, and Elmer Snowden
Elmer Snowden
Elmer Snowden was a banjo player of the jazz age. He also played guitar and, in the early stages of his career, all the reed instruments. He contributed greatly to jazz in its early days as both a player and a bandleader, and is responsible for launching the careers of many top musicians...
. In the mid-sixties, following a period as general manager of Pacifica station, WBAI, in New York, Albertson went to work for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in London, advising them on how to adapt their radio programmes for sale in North America.
In 1971, Albertson co-produced and hosted The Jazz Set, a weekly television program that was aired from coast to coast by Public Broadcasting Service
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS) Public television and featured such guests as Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
, Randy Weston
Randy Weston
Randy Weston , is an American jazz pianist and composer, of Jamaican parentage.-Biography:Weston studied classical piano as a child. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he ran a restaurant that was frequented by many of the leading bebop musicians...
, Jimmy Heath
Jimmy Heath
James Edward Heath , nicknamed Little Bird, is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger. He is the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.-Biography:...
, and Ray Bryant
Ray Bryant
Raphael Homer "Ray" Bryant was an American Jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ray Bryant began playing the piano at the age of six, also performing on bass in junior High School...
. At this time, he was also producing reissues for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, most notably the complete Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
LP sets. His work on these albums won Albertson two Grammy awards (one in 1971 in the Best Album Notes
Grammy Award for Best Album Notes
The Grammy Award for Best Album Notes has been presented since 1964. From 1973 to 1976, a separate award was presented for Best Album Notes - Classical. Those awards are listed under those years below. The award recognizes albums with excellent liner notes...
category for "The World's Greatest Blues Singer" and a Trustees Award), a Billboard Trendsetter Award and the Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...
's Grand Prix du Disque. His standard work, Bessie, a biography of Bessie Smith, first appeared in 1972, with a revised and expanded version published by Yale University Press in 2003). Albertson has written TV documentaries, including "The Story of Jazz" and "My Castle's Rocking" (a bio-documentary on Alberta Hunter
Alberta Hunter
Alberta Hunter was an American blues singer, songwriter, and nurse. Her career had started back in the early 1920s, and from there on, she became a successful jazz and blues recording artist, being critically acclaimed to the ranks of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith...
), as well as articles and reviews for various publications, including "Saturday Review" and "Down Beat". He was a contributing editor for Stereo Review
Stereo Review
Stereo Review was an American magazine first published in 1958 by Ziff-Davis with the title HiFi and Music Review. It was one of a handful of magazines then available for the individual interested in high fidelity. Throughout its life it published a blend of record and equipment reviews, articles...
magazine for twenty-eight years.
In recent years, Albertson—who lives in New York City—has been a prominent contributor to several jazz bulletin boards on the internet, and he is currently working on an autobiography.
External links
- http://stomp-off.blogspot.com (Blog)