Blue Note. A Story of Modern Jazz (BBC)

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1

Well, you know, I was a young boy

and I used to go skating and...

roller-skating in a place called

the Admiralspalast, I think it was,

and, one day, I went there

with my skates

and they told me there was no skating

today.

They had a dance there

and I saw a poster on the wall

and it said Sam Wooding

and his Chocolate Dandies

and I didn't know anything about it

but it looked strange to me,

different, you know?

TRAIN RUMBLES:

MUSIC:
Sam Wooding

and his Chocolate Dandies

And I went in, checked out my skates

and sat down

and there was Sam Wooding.

It was the first time I saw

coloured musicians, you know,

and all the music

and I was flabbergasted.

I couldn't, you know...

It was something brand-new,

but it registered with me

right away, you know?

I couldn't really put my fingers

on it, but it was the beat.

You know, it was the beat.

That beat, you know,

I got it in my bones!

For those of you who come in late,

we are now having a little

cooking session for Blue Note

right here on the scene.

Putting the pot on in here

and we'd like for you to join in

with us and have a ball.

APPLAUSE:

This is the story of Alfred Lion

and Francis Wolff,

two German immigrants who founded

a jazz record company in 1939

that became very famous

in its genre.

Unlike any other jazz label,

Blue Note Records influenced

the revolution of music and sound,

style and technical standards.

Each of the Blue Note

recording sessions

was documented by the photographs

of Francis Wolff.

Alfred Lion's vision of music

and Francis Wolff's clear view

of the recording sessions

are a legacy of the unique

creative achievement

that continues to this very day.

Hello, there. This is

Freddie Hubbard,

trumpet man.

Blue Note.

Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff.

My men.

He realised that he was a catalyst,

a walking, living human catalyst.

You get him hearing artists like

Thelonious Monk or Bud Powell

and he instinctively knew

that they had it down deep

and he could draw that ability out

of them and get it on a record

and he did it by not talking about

record sales and commercialism

and who the big names on the date,

he never got into that.

He was interested in you

and your thoughts

and getting you to have an

unrestricted flow of your ideas

in his recordings.

Not many people have that and he

never made a mistake.

Out of over 1,000 records

that Alfred produced

in the years that he had Blue Note,

easily 900-950 of them are classics.

MUSIC:
Cantaloupe Island

by Herbie Hancock

'Ladies and gentlemen...'

I'm Herbie Hancock

and I'm a musician.

Oh, boy.

A jazz musician.

When I was a child and I first came

to San Francisco,

Lee Morgan, Sidewinder, and

Horace Silver, Song for My Father...

We call it Song for my father.

And, so, the music was like a diary

of what was going on.

My name is Horace Silver

and I've recorded for the Blue Note

record label for about 28 years

for Alfred Lions and Frank Wolff.

And on and on, you know,

Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock

and all the people who recorded

in Blue Note.

They would play on the radio along

with Willie Nelson or Chuck Berry.

Empyrean Isles, Herbie Hancock.

The Un Poco Loco.

Lee-Way, Lee Morgan.

Oh, Un Poco Loco. Bum-bum-ba!

Inventions & Dimensions.

..Sonny Rollins to you.

One Step Beyond, Jackie McLean.

..et Johnny Griffin aussi.

I am authentic.

John Arnold Griffin III.

Otherwise known as Volcano,

Vesuvius

or the Little Giant.

You know what they recognised?

They could recognise when something

was grooving and when it wasn't.

The band must shring.

They couldn't dance.

They both had two left feet.

We must have shring-ing.

If something was grooving, you know,

Frank would go like...

He would start doing

his little two-step thing.

You know, and if he wasn't doing

his dance, it wasn't grooving.

Yeah, I knew it from the beginning.

When I first saw Alfred,

I was a disc-jockey on WLV

in New York

and I walked into this place

where I worked

and he was sitting there eating

a hot sausage sandwich

and I said, "There's my life,"

and he wouldn't look at me, hardly,

for 11 years.

11 years. That was what he was doing,

was that Blue Note

and it hurt, because I knew,

you know,

but I spoke with a lot of musicians

about it.

Women will not be, ever,

as important as the music

and, if a woman thinks she can,

she's kidding herself

because a guy who really

loves the music,

that's where he's going to be.

MUSIC:
Cantaloupe Island

APPLAUSE:

When Hitler arrived on the scene,

Alfred disappeared

because he was smart

and he knew

there was trouble, abroad,

and so he left.

He came to this country,

barely spoke English,

he was alone and he was

self-sufficient

and he struggled,

but he was terrific.

He brought Frank over later,

after he had arrived here.

MUSIC:
La Mesha

by Joe Henderson

The negro

with the trumpet at his lips

has a head of vibrant hair,

tamed down, down,

patent-leathered now,

until it gleams like jet,

were jet a crown.

The music from the trumpet

at his lips

is honey mixed with liquid fire.

The rhythm through the trumpet

at his lips

is ecstasy

distilled from old desire.

Desire that is longing for the moon

where the moonlight's but

a spotlight in his eyes,

desire that is longing for the sea

where the sea's a bar-glass

sucker size.

The negro with the trumpet

at his lips

whose jacket has a fine

one-button roll

does not know upon what riff

the music slips

its hypodermic needle to his soul,

but, softly, as the tune

comes from his throat,

trouble mellows in a golden note.

# Dee-bee di-bi

Bi-dee-dee-doo-dee.

Yes.

Baby, huh, what can happen?

I think Alfred started right when

he recorded Ammons and Lewis.

He was just sort of like going

with the trends

and he happened to discover two

really quintessential musicians

in the process and that led him into

a thing of capturing musicians

whose prime had been passed

but yet were still vibrant

and moving forward.

Bechet, George Lewis,

The Port of Harlem Jazzmen,

were sort of his first groups

that represented a kind of

modernist approach,

and the Meade Lux Lewis

Celeste Quartet.

It wasn't until he really, you know,

was able to develop a following

with the label that he could take

a chance on modern music.

This is the original recording,

original pressing,

Sidney Bechet, Summertime,

from 1940.

This was their first hit.

This is what created the cash flow

that allowed Blue Note to continue.

It was like blood, like water,

like air, you know? I mean...

'We'd like to do a brand-new thing

for you, at this time,

'from our most recent

Blue Note album.'

That's got it.

There was a whole thing...

That whole thing,

that funky piano thing

that went down there for a minute,

you know?

Freddie Hubbard. Clifford Brown.

Oh, Un Poco Loco. Bum-bum-ba!

I don't know that Alfred was an

everyday, garden-variety German.

Unadulterated. Undiluted. Pure.

The real deal is all Alfred Lion and

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