Norah Jones & Downloading Help Blue Note Beat Record Industry Ax
By Patrick Cole
Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- As big record companies cut their jazz rosters during the past 10 years under pressure from the downloading juggernaut, EMI Ltd. left Blue Note alone.
It didn’t hurt that the storied label found its own juggernaut in petite Norah Jones while also turning a profit every year since President Bruce Lundvall took over 25 years ago.
Besides elite jazz artists like Wynton Marsalis, Blue Note Records has done well with the crossover appeal of singer- songwriter Jones, whose three albums have sold almost 35 million copies in the past five years. That makes it a little easier in these belt-tightening times for the label to toot its own horn as it celebrates its 70th birthday this year.
“It’s always about finding the most original artists in the genre,” said the 73-year-old Lundvall, dressed in a business suit and matching cream-colored overcoat and fedora, during a recent interview at Bloomberg News headquarters. “The artists keep the label going, not the people in the middle. I’m just a middleman.”
Blue Note kicks off a yearlong birthday bash this week at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in Manhattan with a show by one of the original saxophone masters, Lou Donaldson, who first recorded with the label in the 1950s.
Started in 1939 by two German emigres, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, Blue Note quickly assembled a roster of jazz’s defining artists, such as saxophonists Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and pianist Thelonious Monk.
“Blue Note documented every form of jazz from swing and boogie-woogie piano to hard bop,” Lundvall said. “It documented every major modern jazz player today, from Herbie Hancock and Dexter Gordon to Wynton Marsalis.”
‘A Celebration’
To celebrate the label’s legacy, Lundvall ordered up a studio recording, “Mosaic: A Celebration of Blue Note Records.” Released this month, it features eight jazz classics the label released during the past seven decades, recorded by a septet that includes pianist Bill Charlap, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane and trumpeter Nicholas Payton. The band put a contemporary twist on numbers such as Herbie Hancock’s “Dolphin Dance” and Joe Henderson’s “Inner Urge,” Lundvall said.
The group is on a 50-city tour that includes stops in Tucson, Arizona (Jan. 30), St. Louis (Feb. 22), Chicago (March 20), Minneapolis (March 29) and Washington (Apr. 5). The tour ends with a six-day engagement at New York’s Birdland Jazz Club April 14-19.
Some jazz festivals, including ones in Monterey, California, and Portland, Oregon, will have exhibitions of Blue Note album covers featuring Wolff’s photography.
Selling Downloads
While Blue Note celebrates the past, Lundvall is also focused these days on selling digital downloads of his artists’ work through Web sites, including iTunes, which make up about 20 percent of its revenue. To bolster sales, he’s expanding the roster to include jazz-influenced acts and mainstream artists such as Jones, rhythm-and-blues singer Al Green and Willie Nelson.
“They’re not particularly jazz artists as such, but Norah Jones broke down that wall for us,” Lundvall said. “The door opened all of sudden to everyone who wanted to be on Blue Note, but we’re still trying to be true to the jazz art form.”
The Lou Donaldson Quartet is at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Broadway at 60th Street in Manhattan through Feb. 1. Information: +1-212-258-9595; jalc.org.
To contact the writer on this story: Patrick Cole in New York at pcole3@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: January 29, 2009 00:01 EST |
