Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Moanin, 1958

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Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939, which was run by Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff for many years, and is currently owned by the EMI Group. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. more...

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Blue Note is principally associated with the "hard bop" style of jazz (mixing bebop with other forms of music including soul, blues, rhythm and blues and gospel). Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan and Art Blakey were among the label's leading artists, but almost all the important musicians in postwar jazz recorded for Blue Note on occasion.

History of Blue Note records

Early years

Lion was a German who first heard jazz as a young boy in Berlin. He moved to New York in 1937, and in 1939 recorded Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis in a one-day session in a rented studio. The Blue Note label initially consisted of Lion and Max Margulis, a communist writer who funded the project. The label's first releases were traditional "hot" jazz and boogie woogie, and the label's first hit was a performance of "Summertime" by Sidney Bechet. Musicians were supplied with alcoholic refreshments, and recorded in the early hours of the morning after their evening's work in clubs and bars had finished. The label soon became well known for treating musicians well - setting up recording sessions at congenial times, and allowing them to be involved in all aspects of the record's production.

Francis Wolff, a professional photographer, emigrated to the USA at the end of 1939 and soon joined forces with Lion, who he had known as a boy in Germany. In 1941, Lion was drafted into the army for two years. Milt Gabler at the Commodore Music Store offered storage facilities and helped keep the catalog in print, with Wolff working for him. By late 1943 the label was back in business recording musicians and supplying records to the armed forces.

Bebop

Towards the end of the war, Ike Quebec was among those who recorded for the label. Quebec would act as a talent scout for the label until his death in 1963. Although belonging to a previous generation, he could appreciate the new bebop style of jazz, largely created by Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.

In 1947 Thelonious Monk recorded several sessions for the label. These were his first recordings as a leader, and also saw the Blue Note debut of Art Blakey. Monk's recordings for Blue Note between 1947 and 1952 did not sell well, but have since come to be regarded as amongst the most important of the bebop era. Other bebop or modernist musicians who recorded for Blue Note during the late forties and early fifties were Tadd Dameron, Fats Navarro, Howard McGhee (featuring J.J. Johnson), James Moody and Bud Powell. The sessions by Powell, like those his close friend Monk recorded for the label, are among his best. J.J. Johnson and Miles Davis both recorded several sessions for Blue Note between 1952 and 1954, but by then the musicians who had created bebop were starting to explore other styles.