ALFRED LION
Written by Lea Julienne
BLUE NOTE RECORDS A VISUAL HISTORY 1939 1965 REID MILES 1
THE BARBICAN 15 March 21 June 2020
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B SIDES A VISUAL HISTORY OF BLUE NOTE RECORDS 1939-1965
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TAKIN OFF The History and ethos of Blue Note Records
THE FREEDOM RIDER Jazz and the civil rights movement.
32 INVENTION & DIMENSIONS The photography of Francis Wolff
40 NO ROOM FOR SQUARES The Record Cover designs of Blue Note Records
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Blue Note Records are concerned with identifying its impulse not its sensational and commercial adornments.
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1 Ike Quebec by Francis Wolff. New York City, 1959.
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1 Rudy Van Gelder in the studio. New York City, 1953. 2 Alfred Lion and . New York
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THE HISTORY AND ETHOS OF BLUE NOTE RECORDS
INTRO
Founded by two German refugees 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. 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. Co-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. Respect for musicians also meant that Blue Note, in contrast to its competitors, offered payment for rehearsals so that, unlike the blowing sessions on standard material being produced by most other New York independents, Blue Note recordings increasingly featured carefully arranged original material, opening a new avenue for jazz creativity that the label would document in the ensuing decades.
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Alfred Lion, as many have noted, was driven by a love of music, not commerce.
Alfred Lion understood the value in trusting musicians
THE HISTORY AND ETHOS OF BLUE NOTE RECORDS
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One of the central motivations that Alfred Lion brought to the recording process was the idea that musicians’ achievements needed to be documented, to balance the live but ephemeral achievements of jazz performance. Alfred Lion, as many have noted, was driven by a love of music, not commerce. Indeed, this was set out in the brochure that Lion had put out when he and Francis Wolff had launched Blue Note in 1939. Blue Note Records are designed simply to serve the uncompromising expression of hot jazz and swing in general. Blue Note Records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercial adornments. Over the years this focus on quality paid off, and as Eric Nisenson has argued, jazz fans came to realise that Blue Note records constantly had such high standards that many would buy a Blue Note album even if they had never previously heard of the musician who was the leader’. It is this idea of Blue Note as a signifier of quality that would underpin the re-release programmes in the 1990s and into the new millennium, reinforcing and reproducing the value of Blue Note as a significant jazz brand.
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Indeed, many of the key artists in the new forms of jazz that were being developed in the 1950s appeared on Blue Note and not only did they appear on Blue Note, over the years many critics have regarded their Blue Note releases as their best, while also nominating Blue Note releases as among the best jazz LPs ever released of all time. Alfred Lion understood the value in trusting musicians. When talking about the soul and ethos of Blue Note Records, Herbie Hancock says in an interview, what they were searching for was to get the heart of the individuals creating the music. To have a platform for expression and that heart was affected by the times because we were living in it. Frank and Alfred supported the goal of allowing the music to emerge, without being shackled. B SIDES
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1 Alfred Lion and Hank Mobley. New York City, 1961. 2 Alfred Lion and Rudy Van Gelder. New York City, 1961. 3 Alfred Lion, Dexter Gordon and Francis Wolff. New York City, 1961.
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They were a bunch of scoundrels, but not Alfred.
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He just let us do what we wanted to do 1
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1 Lou Donaldson by Francis Wolff. New York City, 1958.
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What they were searching for
To have a platform for expression
Alfred and Frank supported t goal of allowing the music emerge.
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was to get the heart of the individuals creating the music. and that heart was affected by the times because we were living in it.
the to Without being shackled. 23
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Blue Note Records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercial adornments.
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THE FREEDOM RIDER
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JAZZ & THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Jazz has uncertain and contested roots. The term may or may not have origins in Chicago, New Orleans, Africa, or baseball, although all would make sense given subsequent associations. We do know that the word jazz was, during the 1910s, increasingly used to describe a musical orientation being developed by composers, solo pianists, and ensembles of various size. The music’s hybridity plotted its emergence at a particular set of coordinates in Black diasporic time and space. It sounded a contradictory postemancipation experience defined by movement across regions, from country to city and sometimes to metropolis, as it wzthe encounters with different kinds of labor, and the thrill of new forms of sociability and intimacy. Jazz may thus be understood alongside other, sometimes mutually influential, diasporic expressions son cubano, for example that articulated the pulse of Black modernity in the early twentieth century. Jazz quickly became viewed as a symbol of, and a vehicle for conversation about, the United States, Africa, African American social and political aspiration, embodied Blackness, sexuality, changing gender roles, modernity, the city, and much more. B SIDES
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The advent of bebop and the move to playing for listeners rather than dancers had also started to encourage musicians to see themselves less as entertainers and more as artists. Thus, as jazz musicians started to have a more artistic self-image, so the idea of documentation of performances and compositions became more important driving forces in their recording careers. Musicians moved from a blowing session logic of playing to be paid, to a desire to see their work more widely disseminated and their reputations built through their artistic achievements. The very approach that Blue Note had already adopted.
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Capturing the musicians as autonomous artists, rather than boxed as subordinate night club entertainers.
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1 Art Blakley and Hank Mobley by Francis Wolff. New York City, 1960.
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THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS WOLFF
Alfred Lion encouraged the use of photography by Francis Wolff, his partner, during music sessions. The photography was furthering the label’s practice of documentation. However, the photographs taken by Wolff are excellent in their own creative right; capturing the musicians as autonomous artists, rather than boxed as subordinate night club entertainers. Reid Miles used Francis Wolff’s images in his cover designs. While we may be used to staged photoshoots specifically done to promote an album, Wolff’s images were capturing real moments during music sessions. As Derrick Hodge once commented in ‘Blue Note Records: Beyond the notes’, a documentary about the label, “Frank would be walking around taking photos until the music got good, then he started dancing”. The Blue Note Musicians are shown in a serious manner, completely immersed in the art they were creating. Reid Miles would take shots, crop them (much to Wolff’s annoyance), tint them and use them alongside playful or systemic typography. The photographs themselves were graphic in terms of contrast in darks and light. For two decades, Francis Wolff showcased jazz photography by photographing every jazz session that Blue Note Records made. He not only preserved a major part of jazz history, but with his remarkable eye, he captured B SIDES
INVENTION & DIMENSIONS amazing candid portraits of great artists that reveal the joy and intensity of jazz at the point of creation. Those photographs, taken for Blue Note by Alfred Lion’s owner partner Francis Wolff, speak so much of the agency of the musicians presented. The posed shot, the stagey gimmick, these were almost completely alien to Blue Note’s covers. Wolff’s expert photos were almost always taken in the Van Gelder studio as the musicians recorded, and what is seen materialises the room heard on record. Musicians are shown immersed, serious, business-like, thoughtful, energetic, and heard that way too. Musicians can recall Alfred screaming at Frank during sessions in a thick German accent, “Stop! You’re clicking on my record!.” But Alfred knew that Wolff was creating an archive of great photographic value and a visual documentation of jazz history unmatched at any other record company. Likened to that of the great portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh, his ability to frame, capture and light a shot was equally remarkable. But where Karsh had an afternoon and an obedient subject to get a shot, Frank had only an instant with a preoccupied musician. Still his candid portraits have astonishing precision. His eye and his technique nailed it, usually in the first shot…..not unlike the way great jazz musician can masterfully nail a solo on the first take. Wolff had the uncanny ability to capture his subjects’ soul and essence with the same profound artistry. Despite their practical function, Wolff’s photos go far beyond the promotional; they are a part of the Blue Note label’s authentic devotion to the artists. In recording and promoting jazz, Lion and Wolff called attention to black American artistic heroes—many of whom they brought from merely local renown to the enduring spotlight—and Wolff’s photographs reflect the depth of his admiration for them, artistically and personally. (It’s exemplified in his habit of photographing artists from low angles—he’s literally looking up at them.) If there’s an element of mythology in the images, it’s one that’s rooted in truth—in the authentic artistic power of musicians who may have been at the margins of mainstream media but who, for Wolff and Lion, deserved the canonization of any of the cultural celebrities of the time. 42
THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS WOLFF
1 Max Roach by Francis Wolff. New York City, 1956.
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1 Miles Davis by Francis Wolff New York City, 1953.
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1 Art Blakley by Francis Wolff New York City, 1961.
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1 Wilbur Ware by Francis Wolff New York City, 1963.
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1 Herbie Hancock by Francis Wolff New York City, 1948.
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1 Lee Morgan by Francis Wolff New York City, 1964.
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2 John Coltrane by Francis Wolff New York City, 1957
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Brockmann demands the use of the grid as an ordering system, expression of a mental attitude in as much as it shows that the designer use it as an organisation system.
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Reid Miles’ attitude, however, was to use the grid as playground for subjective compositions. While he adopted an internationalist vocabulary, Reid Miles use of it was anything but formally pure.
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DESIGN
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Blue Note Records was not only concerned with high quality jazz, there was also a focus on beautiful, cohesive record sleeves. The thought put into the cover designs was hardly seen amongst other labels. This was no accident, Lion and Wolff regarded Blue Note records as a whole package, not as disposable objects. They provided somewhat of a template that has been repeatedly replicated since the Blue Note releases. Alfred Lion was insistent that every aspect of the label have a high standard, he once said, everything was always quality with Blue Note...it had to be right from A to Z. It was in 1956 when they hired Reid Miles as their designer, who set the standard over the course of 15 years with Blue Note. He was a fan of classical music and didn’t have much time for jazz. Alfred Lion would instead describe the energy of the music recorded to Miles and then from this description he would design the cover. Miles worked for several labels, but it was with Blue Note that his work was most closely identified, label co-owner Alfred Lion’s purposeful oversight of the production process stimulating exceptional responses from all its participants. These now canonical covers, hundreds of them, are not best characterised by the organic forms, freehand lettering and intuitive composition common in B SIDES
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modern American graphic design during the 1950s, rather, the artwork of the mature Miles was indeep dialogue with an international typogrpahic style of design that emanated most strongly from Switzerland and Germany. Rule-based and clean, rational and cool as is common in design history, Reid Miles is often lionised as a lone genius, but the extent to which he shared these values and techniques with his European counterparts is plain. There, an enduring influence of constructivism identified above all with Soviet poster design, and involving the incorporation of photo images and type combined with a newer sobriety and limitation of resources, often based around an exact use of the inevitable compositional grid this often remaining visible in the finished design. Brockmann demands the use of the grid as an ordering system, expression of a mental attitude in as much as it shows that the designer use it as an organisation system. Reid Miles’ attitude, however, was to use the grid as playground for subjective compositions. While he adopted an internationalist vocabulary, Reid Miles use of it was anything but formally pure. Expression has the upper hand in the battle against control. If Brockmann believed in objectivity, the contrast of flat graphics to the texture of Lee Morgan photographed, alongside the specific design choices Miles made in relation to Alfred Lion’s descriptions of the music, gave the upper hand to subjectivity in the dialogue the covers had with international design style. Reid Miles’ take on international design style created individually suited covers, but that fit into a cohesive stream which gave the label a definite visual identity. You know a record is a Blue Note record before listening, through Miles’ designs. Not only did the process of producing jazz records establish Blue Note as a leading record label among musicians, and among jazz buyers, the thought that went into the presentation of their releases also added a value that was seldom present for other labels’ releases. However, while the documentary logic, and seriousness of jazz, clearly contributed to the con- solidation of Blue Note’s position, the label’s continued appeal has been enhanced by the move to 58
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The value of good record design is apparent and recognize this period of jazz as one of the key periods in the history of jazz. In other words, while the elements outlined above are vital for understanding the label’s continued appeal, it is also important that the period of Blue Note’s major activities has become seen as one of the most vital periods of jazz of the second half of the twentieth century. proven commercially, Wolff agreed that the American sleeves better designed, more informative and far more durable than the vast majority of British disc covers, might have had a part in the big sales. The real value is proven however in the longevity of the designs. To this day they are still seen as modern and fresh as when they were first released. The designs of Blue Note raised the standard of sleeve designs in the industry, the tone they made has the bar of how jazz records are now expected to look. The success of the label was achieved through attention to detail stemmed from a true love of artistic expression over commerce.
If Brockmann believed in objectivity, the contrast of flat graphics to the texture of Lee Morgan photographed, alongside the specific design choices Miles made in relation to Alfred Lion’s descriptions of the music, gave the upper hand to subjectivity in the dialogue the covers had with international design style.
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Unity, Larry Young. Hub Tones, Freddie Hubbard. Search for New Land, Lee Morgan. Out to Lunch Eric Dolphy.
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In N Out, Joe Henderson. Midnight Blue, Kenny Burrell. Uno Mas, Kenny Dorham. No Room for Squares, Hank Mobley. Its Time, Jackie McLean.
10 The Sidewinder, Lee Morgan.
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Hub Tones Record Cover for Freddie Hubbard 2 Reid Miles. Hub Tones. 1962
Rule-based and clean, rational and cool as is in design history, Reid Miles is often lionised as a lone genius, but the extent to which he shared these values and techniques with his European counterparts is plain. This can be seen in Reid Miles design for Freddie Hubbard’s Hub Tone’ album cover. In keeping with the ethics of international typographic design style. his designs are organised by a grid, keeping maximum two fonts styles and three font sizes with a minimal colour palette.
Its Time Record Cover for Jackie McLean 9 Reid Miles. Its Time, 1965.
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The use of typography by Reid Miles has the set standard of coolness when it comes to record design. This can be seen with Jackie Mc Leans’ Its time album. It’s a limited Palette, as with all his album cover designs, in alignment with swiss design ethos. Miles designs black type on white with 244 exclamation marks that follow the name of the album. The eye catching design perfectly captures the urgency not only in the name of the album, but also of the music inside. It demands attention, forcing the listener or record shop browser to pay attention to the record.
THE COVERS
Searching for New Land Record Cover for Lee Morgan 3 Reid Miles. Searching for New Land, 1966.
It is interesting to see how Miles cropped images to tell a different story from its origin. For example, Lee Morgan’s search for the new land album cover. The cover shows a brooding Morgan, it looks as though it was taken purposefully for the cover. In reality Morgan was listening to his album back with Alfred Lion sitting next to him, eyes closed in reverence of the music they were both listening to.
Midnight Blue Record Cover for Kenny Burrell 6 Reid Miles. Midnight Blue, 1963
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Kenny Burrel’s Midnight Blue with its strong graphic presentation, the title takes up the whole sleeve in two colours and a sans serif font, has become one of the key cool motifs’ in style iconography with uses ranging from other LP covers, a Stax blues collection, and an Elvis Costello album to name but two, to various adverts over the years. Likewise, the use of colour the white parts of a black and white photo rendered in a striking colour to give a two-colour cover, well exemplified by Hank Mobley’s Soul Station or John Coltrane’s Blue Train, also has been re-used again and again in the music industry and beyond.
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WORKS CITED
Porter, Eric What Is This Thing Called Jazz, African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists University of California Press. 2001.
Lopes, Paul The Rise of a Jazz Art World. Cambridge University Press. 2002.
May, Christopher A political economy of Blue Note Records. A Jazz Research Journal, online, pp 26-42. 2007.
Muller-Brockmann, Josef Grid Systems in Graphic Design, Niggli.
Perchard, Tom Mid-Century Modern Jazz, Music and Design in the Postwar Home, Popular Music, vol 36. 2017.
Huber, Sophie Beyond the Notes. 2018. Documentary. Directed by S. Huber. New York, Mira Film.
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