Today marks the 70th anniversary of the great Blue Note Records. The label was started by Alfred Lion, a German immigrant who recorded his first session just two weeks after the Dec. 23, 1938, Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall featuring pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis. The two cut 18 tracks, issued as The First Day.

According to the history of the label find on its web site, the first brochure for the label included a statement of purpose:"Blue Note Records are designed simply to serve the uncompromising expressions of hot jazz or swing, in general. Any particular style of playing which represents an authentic way of musical feeling is genuine expression. By virtue of its significance in place, time and circumstance, it possesses its own tradition, artistic standards and audience that keeps it alive. Hot jazz, therefore, is expression and communication, a musical and social manifestation, and Blue Note records are concerned with identifying its impulse, not its sensational and commercial adornments.”

The best the label has had to offer in the 70 years since has lived up to that creed. Plenty of questionable sides have been issued with the Blue Note logo on back, but the label's hits far outnumber any missteps, and its classic period in the '50s and '60s is peerless in recorded music.

The label is perhaps best known among non- or casual jazz fans for its distinctive album covers. But to those who love jazz, the name in synonymous with great hard bop. Pick up a Blue Note disc from Lee Morgan or Art Blakey or Hank Mobley or Horace Silver or Lou Donaldson or... well, you get the idea. Do so, and you'll find a great batch of deep grooves and soulful playing.

The label will celebrate with a tour by the Blue Note 7, a group of younger stars who will perform classic Blue Note sides. The group includes pianist and musical director Bill Charlap, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, alto saxophonist Steve Wilson, tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, guitarist Peter Bernstein, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash. The tour runs now through April 19. A disc from the group, Mosaic: A Celebration of Blue Note Records, is due Jan. 13.

In addition, author Ashley Kahn, who has penned interesting books about Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Impulse Records, is writing a book about Blue Note: Somethin’ Else: The Story of Blue Note Records and the Birth of Modern Jazz. The book is due in the fall. Blue note will issue a two-CD companion compilation at that time.

All in all, it's a good excuse to listen to some great jazz. Happy anniversary.

Labels: jazz, music