Indeed, during its first few years, the label seemed unaware of the be-bop revolution that was happening around it. Rarely making anything resembling a profit even at the height of its artistic success, Blue Note should have gone the way of its competitors, folding after a few yearsįounded by two German emigres with no background in the recording industry, and rarely making anything resembling a profit even at the height of its artistic success, Blue Note should have gone the way of its competitors, folding after a few years.īut from the beginning, the label showed a respect for the music, for the musicians who made it, and for the listeners who supported it, that set it apart.Ĭo-founder and producer Alfred Lion, born in Berlin in 1908, was a genuine fan of the music, and although he was selective about the artists he recorded and dogged in his pursuit of recording quality, he produced with a light touch, understanding his artists, getting out of their way and giving them licence to create according to their own muses.īlue Note’s earliest recordings, made during the war years, were of old-school jazz musicians such as Sidney Bechet and James P Johnson. When it began, Blue Note was just one of a dozen or so small independent labels in New York city, most run by amateur enthusiasts, documenting the radical sounds happening in the city’s jazz clubs.
Well, inside may be found some of the greatest art of the 20th century, the work of a surprisingly small and tight knit community of African-American musicians who left a legacy that will live for as long as there are ears to hear it. Those hip covers are the embodiment of jazz cool – iconic portraits of the label’s artists paired with daring typography that still define jazz in the public consciousness. The Blue Note label, which celebrates that remarkable anniversary this year, exerted an influence on modern jazz that is impossible to overstate.
"The Finest in Jazz since 1939" says the famous tag line, and 80 years later it's still hard to disagree.