Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz

Blue Note was not the only jazz label recording America’s indigenous music from the ‘30s to the present, but it may be the only one that mattered. The title Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz is not an idle boast. In the 1950s and ‘60s, Blue Note provided urban America its soundtrack, a gritty, organic, humid music, the love child of be bop and cool jazz, Hard Bop.

But the story begins well before this with the arrival of two German Jewish émigrés, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, in the late 1930s. Lion Had tried to immigrate a decade earlier but was stricken with disease and was forced to return to Germany. By 1939, Lion and Wolff were together in New York City, recording the boogie-woogie piano duo of Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. The company’s first hit was Sidney Bechet’s “Summertime.”

The documentary focuses on Lion and Wolff and their relationships with artists of the day. In the face of oppressive racism, Lion and Wolff offerd their artists the European respect that those same artists experienced when touring Europe. These artists lovingly imitated Lion’s thick German accent and mannerisms that they witnessed during recording.

The musicians interviewed included Tommy Turrentine, Johnny Griffin, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, and Freddie Hubbard. Ira Gitler, Michael Cuscuna, and Bob Belden also play critical roles in the film. The result is a well-rounded look at not the entirety of jazz, but an entirety contained within the Blue Note story, a considerable part of jazz, to be sure.

Also addressed in this film was the photography of Francis Wolff and the artwork of Reid Miles that made up many of the most influential album covers, now an art form in themselves. This marriage between the visual and auditory became a hallmark for the label in the post-war period. This artwork and selected concert footage was used intelligently and appropriately, making Blue Note: A Story of Modern Jazz an enjoyable and informative documentary on jazz.

Production Notes: 91 minutes. Format: Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, 16/9 anamorphic, NTSC. Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1. Number of discs: 1.

This article was first published in All About Jazz.