Blue Note. A Story of Modern Jazz (BBC) Page #4

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the bedroom and the living room

and put in a couple of

panes of glass,

and he had the Ampex in there

and a mixing board.

And Alfred went out there,

looked around

and Rudy played some things for him

and showed him how it all worked.

And Alfred came out and he went,

"Yeah, yeah, we do the things here."

Hello. I am Rudy Van Gelder

and I make jazz records.

I think they were totally involved

with the sound of the records

they wanted to make...and the music

they wanted to record and...

..let people hear it.

It was, I think...

One word that would describe it

was they wanted to communicate

that music to other people.

Everything was directed into that.

As I look at it, from the

historical point of view,

their importance is the fact

that they documented something that

perhaps nobody else really wanted

or did at that particular time.

That was their importance.

We wouldn't have had all that

wonderful music of Horace Silver's

and we wouldn't have had that

imagination that Art Blakey

expresses in his music.

It's just something very special.

It's a music that grew

out of the black experience.

Jazz speaks about

the human condition.

It's an expression of the capacity

for human beings to take

adverse circumstances

and turn them into medicine.

We are three things. Animal, human,

divinity, which is light.

The resonance, which is music,

unites the animal

and the human to the light.

We have light in our bodies.

We have eternal energy in

our bodies, beyond the molecule.

We call it inspiration,

we call it vision.

We call it things that we cannot

touch, taste or feel.

It translates to faith.

You know, there's no music

more conducive to healing

and soldering back the molecule

with the light other than

John Coltrane, that I know

of on this planet.

Coltrane made one album

for Blue Note.

And that album was Blue Train.

And what Blue Train really does

is...it's absolutely a perfect

example of what sets Blue Note

off from everything else that was

going on during that time.

As great as John Coltrane's output

was on Prestige, there was

nothing that really

approached Blue Train.

Well, you know,

we have to start somewhere.

I heard Naima on a Cherokee

commercial and it sounded fantastic.

I couldn't care

whether it was selling anything.

Just the song sounded so beautiful

coming out of the television.

Whether it's a hip-hop beat and

Coltrane on top, it don't matter.

They just have to get it.

When I first heard about Blue Note,

it was actually when I was a kid.

I was about ten years old.

My father had a massive collection

of Blue Note records and, you know,

I didn't know what jazz was,

I didn't know what Blue Note was.

Then when I went over

to London in 1990...

..and I saw people dancing to Art

Blakey. I was like, "What is this?"

I mean, it was this total culture

shock for me, even though

it was, you know, my culture.

I mean, I grew up with it,

but I was ignorant of it. And...

You know, I hear people talking

about how they sample

the Blue Note things and so forth.

Cos it was a company that,

on any given album,

there was always something that

just groove you out.

You didn't leave unless...

Something was swinging on it,

and you were not going to

leave this place.

And therefore, it was a different

period. You really felt like...

..you know, the music had

a nice feeling.

It was still dance music

at that time,

which the three of us came through.

At our age,

the music was danceable.

So, a jazz group...

You could go on at the club,

and the people would be dancing.

There were listeners,

but if it didn't feel good,

your butt was out of there.

# Yo, check it out,

I got a hype rhyme for ya

# That I'll rock from London,

England, to the boondocks of Georgia

# Intelligent, benevolent, super

# All the qualities of H-I-C,

the alley-ooper

# My main man and me,

we've been cool since day one

Scooping all the fly girls,

having all the fun...

My hope is that some of the young

folks out here who hear

some of these samplings will say to

themselves, "Well, what was that?"

Or "Who was that? Oh, that's

Horace Silver.

"Let me check out some of his

recordings and see how well I..."

Maybe they'll say that about

Herbie Hancock

and about Stanley Turrentine,

and Donald Byrd and all the

different tracks that they're using

from these guys. Maybe they'll

go and check out the original.

And, who knows, eventually

we might pull some of them in

as jazz fans, you know?

And it's just so fortunate that

the person who happened

to be on the scene for the recording

sessions of such a major,

major body of work happened to be

a master artist in his own right.

And he was able to document this

photographically,

almost at the level of the music

that was being created.

It's just a phenomenal coming

together of two art forms,

at a level that is rarely achieved.

APPLAUSE:

Whoa! You know, they're all...

All of them, they really give

a very high quality.

It's almost like these

people who have the

cameras are looking at royalty.

You know what I mean?

It's just like a photograph

like that.

This is somebody who saw

the musician for what he was doing.

I mean, that energy! When you look

at that picture,

the horn's blowing at you.

You can hear it. You know, you can

feel the person's energy, you know?

My name is William Claxton.

I'm a photographer and I'm best

known for my jazz images.

CAMERA SHUTTER SNAPS

I wasn't aware of Francis Wolff's

pictures until...

..I guess the mid-'50s, really.

But once I started seeing

Francis Wolff's

pictures on Blue Note, I became

very much aware of them,

because he definitely had

a look going.

And I think the look was

definitely his look.

And what I first noticed

about his look

was the seemingly

simple lighting

he always had of a single flash.

And the pictures were

usually quite sharp,

and the backgrounds were always

black. And he caught great moments.

But that was his look, I think.

And he was consistent all

the way through.

We would walk down 57th Street

and pass the Museum of Modern Art.

And I'd say, "Frank, your photographs

need to be in there." You know?

Well, he didn't think so!

Alfred could not have survived

artistically or business-wise

or as in friendship without Frank.

They were like Siamese twins except

that they were separated. You know?

But somehow joined spiritually.

So the Blue Note story is a very

wonderful story of friendship,

of loyalty, of being

involved in a great endeavour.

And I think every musician

that was lucky enough to

get on Blue Note was really

happy about it.

1961, when I first went to

New York from Chicago with

Donald Byrd Pepper Adams Quintet,

Donald Byrd became my roommate.

One time when he said to me,

"OK, Herbie, it's time for you to

"make your own record." I said,

"What?!" And I said, "No, Donald,

"I'm not ready, Donald. I'm not

ready." And he said, "Yes, you are.

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