Steve Shark's Blue Note Bonanza Dept.

Ask a crowd of people [urges Steve Shark - Ed.] in a busy street to name a jazz record label and the few answers you'll get - apart from "HUH???" and "Outta my way, you hipster bum!" - will probably be "Blue Note".

The brainchild of Albert Lion - a German emigre jazz fan - the label took off in 1937 with funding from left-wing activist Max Margulis (who later taught Sir Laurence Olivier how to sing!) and concentrated on boogie woogie and "hot" jazz. Its first hit was Sidney Bechet's "Summertime" in 1939, recorded after several major labels had turned him down. After this, the label soon acquired an "artist friendly" reputation, with sessions scheduled to suit the musicians, liberal alcoholic refreshments provided, and a lot of say in how the recordings were produced.

Rudy n' Alfred, 1960

Lion's friend Francis Wolff soon came on board, but the war put a hold on the label for a couple of years until 1943, when business resumed, with records being supplied to the armed forces. Tenor sax player Ike Quebec was signed and he eventually became a talent scout for the label for nearly 20 years. Even though Quebec was rooted in big band jazz and swing, he brought many bebop acts to the attention of Blue Note. This opened the door for Thelonious Monk, and then a veritable flood of players including Miles Davis, James Moody, Bud Powell and Tadd Dameron, to name but a few of the earlier bop signings.

Over the following years, the players and the records kept on coming, but it's far beyond the scope of this piece to name them all. The label itself changed hands several times, passing as a subsidiary from one major record company to another. At one point it was mothballed for 6 years, but then revived when jazz began to sell to a wider demographic in the mid 1980s.

Fortunately, the label still exists and is rightly famed for its massive and prestigious catalogue as well as its iconic cover art.

So, where do you start if you want to explore the Blue Note output of more than 1000 albums over an 85 year lifespan?

Well, you could do a lot worse than "The Blue Box" [left - Ed.] - a 4 CD set of tracks covering well over half a century of jazz on the label from Bechet's "Summertime" in 1939 to John Scofield in 1993 with "Message to My Friend".

Of course, with all anthologies - particularly one taken from such a vast back catalogue - there are going to be glaring omissions for many disappointed listeners, but it's a very well-compiled collection, which ignores the tracks' chronology to its advantage. Ex-Miles guitarist John Scofield following Monk's "Round Midnight" isn't the jarring change of mood that it could have been, as the track chosen features Sco (with Pat Metheney) on acoustic guitar. Sympathetic sequencing of the 43 tracks makes this a pleasurable and cohesive listening experience.

Accompanying the discs is a booklet detailing each track, the history of the label and mini bios of each performer, together with many of those classic cover photos. It's a nice set!

This post funded in part by Kathy's Katheter n' Krutch Shoppe, Smearville, GA.