#Michael Cuscuna

[fredseibertdotcom]

Michael Cuscuna, photograph by Jimmy Katz

Michael Cuscuna

Michael Cuscuna, one of my great inspirations and sometime collaborator, passed away this weekend (April 19, 2024) from cancer. Being a cancer survivor  last year myself, when someone I’ve known and worked with for over 50 years it hit particularly hard.

Blue Cuscuna: 1999 promotional sampler from Toshiba-EMI [Japan]

Michael has been the most consequential jazz record producer of the past half century, a man who had not only a passion, but the relentlessness necessary to will the entire history of the music into being. Don’t believe it? Check out the more than 2600 (!) of his credits on Discogs. Substantial and meaningful he might have been, but to me, he was a slightly older friend who was always there with a helping hand. Hopefully, I was able to hand something back on occasion. 

As I said when he answered “7 Questions” eight years ago: “I first encountered Michael as a college listener to his “freeform,” major station, radio show in New York, and was fanboy’d out when a mutual friend introduced us at [an] open rehearsal for [Carla Bley’s and Michael Mantler’s] Jazz Composer’s Orchestra at The Public Theater (MC has a photographic memory: “It was Roswell [Rudd]’s piece or Grachan [Moncur III]’s. You were darting nervously around the chairs with your uniform of the time – denim jean jacket, forgettable shirt and jeans.”) By 1972 or 73, he’d joined Atlantic Records as a producer, and since that was my career aspiration, I’d give him a call every once in awhile. He’d patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions, and I never forgot his kindness to a drifting, unfocused, fellow traveler. 

“...patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions...” says a lot about Michael. His raspy voice could sometimes seem brusque, but ask anyone and they will tell you that he always made time to talk. Especially about jazz. 

I desperately wanted to be a record producer and Michael was one of the first professionals I encountered. He had already produced my favorite Bonnie Raitt LP when somehow or other I bullied my way into his Atlantic Records office, where he was a mentee of the legendary Joel Dorn. Over the next few years, Michael was often amused at some of the creative decisions I made, but he was always supportive and even would sometimes ask me to make a gig when he couldn’t. When I spent a year living in LA, he invited me over to the studio while he was mining the history of Blue Note Records that would define his life for the next half century. I completely failed to understand what the great service to American culture he was about to unleash. Along with Blue Note executive Charlie Lourie, Michael’s research resulted in a series of double albums (”two-fers” in 70s speak), but little did the world know what was on Michael’s and Charlie’s minds.

The Cuscuna/Lourie Blue Note “Two-Fers” that ignited Mosaic Records

“I don’t think it’s generally understood just how imperiled the musical and visual archives of Blue Note Records were at one point, and just how heroically Michael stepped in to make sure this unparalleled American music survived for future generations. If you like jazz, you owe the man.” –Evan Haga 

(Joe Maita does a great interview about Michael's career here.) 

Fast forward a few years. The air went out of my record producing tires, I became the first creative director of MTV, I quit MTV and along with my partner Alan Goodman started the world’s first media “branding” agency. Leafing through DownBeat one day I saw an ad that started a new relationship with Michael that would last, on one level or another, for the rest of his life: the “mail order” jazz reissue label Mosaic Records. 

Charlie Lourie & Michael Cuscuna at Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival, Japan 1987. Photograph by Gary Vercelli / CapRadio Music

Long story short, in 1982 Michael returned my check for the first two Mosaic  releases with a note asking for some help. Initially, Mosaic wasn’t the sure fire, instant success Michael and Charlie had hoped for, did I have any ideas? I did, but no time to do anything other than make suggestions, we were busy trying to get our own shop off the ground. This cycle repeated itself for another couple of years when this time when Michael called he said Mosaic was on death’s door. Fred/Alan was in better shape, so Alan and I, on our summer vacation, came up with the first Mosaic “brochure,” convinced the guys we knew what we were doing (I’d read a few paragraphs in a direct mail book in a bookstore) and, with nothing to lose, Charlie and Michael took the plunge with us. Success! 42 years later, the former Fred/Alan and Frederator CFO at the helm, Alan and I always answer any call from Mosaic.

The first Mosaic Record box set 1983

There aren’t many people in the world like Michael Cuscuna. The world’s culture will miss him. I will miss him. Most of all, of course, his wife and children will miss him. 

[thesobsister]

A lot of great previously unissued or little-known music was brought into people’s homes and ears, along with scholarly liner notes, thanks to Michael Cuscuna and his Mosaic record label.

aav.

[therecordchanger62279]

Jazz record producer, and archivist Michael Cuscuna passed away this week at the age of 75. He worked on some of the best, and most important Jazz records in history. His story is a good one, and he tells it in this 2019 interview on the Vinyl Guide podcast. R.I.P.

[fredalan]

Michael Cuscuna by Jimmy Katz

Michael Cuscuna R.I.P. 1948-2024

Our fantastic friend, then client, Michael Cuscuna, record producer/historian extraordinaire and co-founder of Mosaic Records, passed away on April 19, 2024. Both of us –Alan and Fred– wrote remembrances that we’re reposting here.

.....

Michael Cuscuna by Thomas Staudter

I knew the voice of Michael Cuscuna before I ever met the man. Growing up in an area of New Jersey where we could pull in both New York and Philadelphia stations, I would listen to him DJ at WMMR out of Philly. He had a quintessential FM DJ voice — soft-spoken, intimate, gravelly, authoritative. He didn’t yammer on, but I remember he was clever and his sense of humor was dry as a bone. He played a mix of progressive rock and some things that clung to the precipice of musical genres.  

Years later our paths merged. I started seeing his name on the backs of albums I’d play on my college jazz radio show — now I was the DJ, and he had become a prolific producer, supervising dates for a diverse list of artists, including many dedicated to the avant garde. He also produced for Bonnie Raitt and other groundbreaking musicians. I am searching my memory in vain to recall how we became connected, but he was also creating a monthly promo disk sent to radio stations by Crawdaddy Magazine and I became his producer, using the free facilities of the college station to record and edit. He would collect the interview tapes from the magazine’s feature writers, I would edit them into a coherent radio show, then he would come in and record his host segments. Out of that association, I started writing reviews for Crawdaddy of new jazz releases. He was as wickedly funny in person as I remembered him on the radio. I was a little in awe of his extraordinary knowledge of music — an artist’s historical significance, how a musician’s style linked that person to the artists that came before and after, and why certain artists deserved more recognition than they had received by the public. He turned me onto a lot of music. I think we did the show for a couple of years.   

More time passed, and Michael came into my life again through my partner at our media advertising agency, Fred/Alan. By now, Michael had established himself as an important compiler of jazz reissues that went above and beyond what was typical at the time. Starting with Blue Note Records, but ultimately including the libraries of other labels, he’d go into the vaults and unearth the unreleased sides and alternate takes and place them alongside the more well-known songs. His two-fer series for Blue Note was particularly noteworthy. On the back of that success, he and a former Blue Note executive named Charlie Lourie created Mosaic Records. Their concept was to do numbered, limited editions in luxurious box sets aimed at the collector market. Initially vinyl only, they switched to CDs when that was the prevailing release format. The boxes were gorgeous, each with a booklet filled with photos, an essay by a prominent jazz historian, and absolutely accurate discographical information. They specialized in “complete” collections depending on the frame they decided was relevant. That frame might have been the three-day recording binge from 1957 by organist Jimmy Smith that resulted in enough material for three CDs, the unreleased complete recordings of Charlie Parker’s live solos recorded by Dean Benedetti, or the complete Capitol recordings of the Nat King Cole trio, a box that weighed-in at 18 CDs. They were sold only through the mail, direct to consumers. But they weren’t reaching the market and needed help. In an earlier era, my partner Fred Seibert had attached himself to Michael to learn as much as he could about producing records. Knowing the two of us, Michael asked if we could come up with a direct marketing campaign. In our typically arrogant belief that we knew how to do almost anything or could figure it out, we said yes. 

We began producing a catalog that was mailed out to jazz enthusiasts, slowing building a list of devoted listeners and buyers. My job was to write that catalog. We dissolved the advertising agency in 1992, and mailed catalogs gave way to internet promotion, but I continued writing the sales copy for each release, save one or two that I didn’t do for reasons lost to time. I just wrote one last month for an upcoming set featuring vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson.  

I developed a format for my essays. I started with some thesis about why that artist deserved more recognition, or why the music from that era was crucially important — in other words, why you absolutely had to own that collection. I segued into a couple paragraphs of biography, followed by a few paragraphs where I singled-out important tracks or tried to convey in words the feeling, the sound, the artistry of the musician. I wrapped it up with more “don’t delay” language. In all those years, each and every time I approached a new assignment I had two thoughts crowding my mind — will Michael agree with my thesis? Will Michael take issue with the way I chose to describe the music? Each package gave me an opportunity to do a deep dive into the music, but I knew I didn’t have Michael’s personal connection to many of the artists, or his historian’s perspective on the music. And by the way, he was himself a damn good writer. It never stopped thrilling me when he’d send back an email merely correcting a calendar date, or the number of unreleased tracks, with a message that he thought it was otherwise perfect. More than anything I wanted to impress and satisfy Michael. I was alway so happy that I could.  

I think they had done four releases when we got involved in 1984. The company is closing in on 200 box sets. I can’t believe it’s been a 40-year association. 

We lost Charlie more than 20 years ago. This weekend, Michael passed after a long illness. I will miss his husky laugh, his personal stories about the musicians we both obsessed over, and the gratitude he expressed each time I turned in an assignment. 

To many, his name was a name on the back of an album jacket. To those of us who knew him, we know him as someone who single-handedly rescued the Blue Note archive and other treasures from oblivion, who introduced us to overlooked artists such as saxophonist Tina Brooks, and who demanded we take a second look at music that was significant and mind-blowing. As a colleague, as a client, but mostly as a music lover, I am forever in his debt. My sympathies to the family of this enormously important figure in music. RIP Michael Cuscuna. 

–Alan Goodman (repost from Facebook) 

..... 

Michael Cuscuna, photograph by Jimmy Katz

Michael Cuscuna

Michael Cuscuna, one of my great inspirations and sometime collaborator, passed away this weekend (April 19, 2024) from cancer. Being a cancer survivor  last year myself, when someone I’ve known and worked with for over 50 years it hit particularly hard.

Blue Cuscuna: 1999 promotional sampler from Toshiba-EMI [Japan]

Michael has been the most consequential jazz record producer of the past half century, a man who had not only a passion, but the relentlessness necessary to will the entire history of the music into being. Don’t believe it? Check out the more than 2600 (!) of his credits on Discogs. Substantial and meaningful he might have been, but to me, he was a slightly older friend who was always there with a helping hand. Hopefully, I was able to hand something back on occasion. 

As I said when he answered “7 Questions” eight years ago: “I first encountered Michael as a college listener to his “freeform,” major station, radio show in New York, and was fanboy’d out when a mutual friend introduced us at [an] open rehearsal for [Carla Bley’s and Michael Mantler’s] Jazz Composer’s Orchestra at The Public Theater (MC has a photographic memory: “It was Roswell [Rudd]’s piece or Grachan [Moncur III]’s. You were darting nervously around the chairs with your uniform of the time – denim jean jacket, forgettable shirt and jeans.”) By 1972 or 73, he’d joined Atlantic Records as a producer, and since that was my career aspiration, I’d give him a call every once in awhile. He’d patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions, and I never forgot his kindness to a drifting, unfocused, fellow traveler. 

“...patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions...” says a lot about Michael. His raspy voice could sometimes seem brusque, but ask anyone and they will tell you that he always made time to talk. Especially about jazz. 

I desperately wanted to be a record producer and Michael was one of the first professionals I encountered. He had already produced my favorite Bonnie Raitt LP when somehow or other I bullied my way into his Atlantic Records office, where he was a mentee of the legendary Joel Dorn. Over the next few years, Michael was often amused at some of the creative decisions I made, but he was always supportive and even would sometimes ask me to make a gig when he couldn’t. When I spent a year living in LA, he invited me over to the studio while he was mining the history of Blue Note Records that would define his life for the next half century. I completely failed to understand what the great service to American culture he was about to unleash. Along with Blue Note executive Charlie Lourie, Michael’s research resulted in a series of double albums (”two-fers” in 70s speak), but little did the world know what was on Michael’s and Charlie’s minds.

The Cuscuna/Lourie Blue Note “Two-Fers” that ignited Mosaic Records

“I don’t think it’s generally understood just how imperiled the musical and visual archives of Blue Note Records were at one point, and just how heroically Michael stepped in to make sure this unparalleled American music survived for future generations. If you like jazz, you owe the man.” –Evan Haga 

(Joe Maita does a great interview about Michael's career here.) 

Fast forward a few years. The air went out of my record producing tires, I became the first creative director of MTV, I quit MTV and along with my partner Alan Goodman started the world’s first media “branding” agency. Leafing through DownBeat one day I saw an ad that started a new relationship with Michael that would last, on one level or another, for the rest of his life: the “mail order” jazz reissue label Mosaic Records. 

Charlie Lourie & Michael Cuscuna at Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival, Japan 1987. Photograph by Gary Vercelli / CapRadio Music

Long story short, in 1982 Michael returned my check for the first two Mosaic  releases with a note asking for some help. Initially, Mosaic wasn’t the sure fire, instant success Michael and Charlie had hoped for, did I have any ideas? I did, but no time to do anything other than make suggestions, we were busy trying to get our own shop off the ground. This cycle repeated itself for another couple of years when this time when Michael called he said Mosaic was on death’s door. Fred/Alan was in better shape, so Alan and I, on our summer vacation, came up with the first Mosaic “brochure,” convinced the guys we knew what we were doing (I’d read a few paragraphs in a direct mail book in a bookstore) and, with nothing to lose, Charlie and Michael took the plunge with us. Success! 42 years later, the former Fred/Alan and Frederator CFO at the helm, Alan and I always answer any call from Mosaic.

The first Mosaic Record box set 1983

There aren’t many people in the world like Michael Cuscuna. The world’s culture will miss him. I will miss him. Most of all, of course, his wife and children will miss him. 

[maximuswolf]

Michael Cuscuna Who Unearthed Hidden Jazz Gems Dies at 75

Michael Cuscuna, Who Unearthed Hidden Jazz Gems, Dies at 75 https://ift.tt/Dq13UfO Submitted April 27, 2024 at 10:50PM by mankls3 https://ift.tt/liw0VOU via /r/Music

[mosaicrecords]

Chick Corea, R.I.P.

On February 9, we lost Chick Corea to a rare form of cancer. Chick was an amazing artist who embraced the full spectrum of music. More than that, he was a smiling, warm spirit, a generous colleague and mentor and as good a friend as anyone could ever hope for. This Francis Wolff photo is from the Bobby Hutcherson Total Eclipse session on July 12, 1968.

-Michael Cuscuna

The following statement was posted on the Chick Corea Facebook page: It is with great sadness we announce that on February 9th, Chick Corea passed away at the age of 79, from a rare form of cancer which was only discovered very recently. Throughout his life and career, Chick relished in the freedom and the fun to be had in creating something new, and in playing the games that artists do. He was a beloved husband, father and grandfather, and a great mentor and friend to so many. Through his body of work and the decades he spent touring the world, he touched and inspired the lives of millions. Though he would be the first to say that his music said more than words ever could, he nevertheless had this message for all those he knew and loved, and for all those who loved him: “I want to thank all of those along my journey who have helped keep the music fires burning bright. It is my hope that those who have an inkling to play, write, perform or otherwise, do so. If not for yourself then for the rest of us. It’s not only that the world needs more artists, it’s also just a lot of fun. “And to my amazing musician friends who have been like family to me as long as I’ve known you: It has been a blessing and an honor learning from and playing with all of you. My mission has always been to bring the joy of creating anywhere I could, and to have done so with all the artists that I admire so dearly—this has been the richness of my life.” Chick’s family will of course appreciate their privacy during this difficult time of loss.

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[mutant-distraction]

John Coltrane, Blue Train session, Hackensack, NJ, September 15, 1957. A cropped version of this Francis Wolff photograph became the cover for Blue Train, Coltrane’s only Blue Note album and his first recorded masterpiece. Pulling back to view the full image, Blue Note founder and producer Alfred Lion is seen behind Coltrane.

For years, many jazz fans, especially those that had once played saxophone, thought the Coltrane was moistening a reed in his mouth as saxophonists were wont to do before putting the reed on their mouthpiece. When we developed the full image, it became evident that John Coltrane at that moment in the Blue Train session was deep in thought and sucking on a lollipop!" - Michael Cuscuna

Michael Cuscuna (born Sep 20, 1949 in Stamford, Connecticut) is an American jazz record producer and writer. He is a leading discographer of Blue Note Records.

High quality 1469x1463

[dustedmagazine]

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers – Just Coolin’ (Blue Note)

As Blue Note owner and operator, Alfred Lion was famous for favoring an ambitious recording docket that often outpaced his humble label’s release schedule. The talent bench was so deep that dates quickly started to stack up and by the time Lion sold the venture to the larger Liberty imprint in 1965, a sizeable archive of shelved sessions numbered well into the dozens. Cue the adage of finite supply frequently acting as an amplifier of perceived worth. It’s a chief reason why finds like the previously unreleased Art Blakey session Just Coolin’ garner immediate cachet, ears unheard.  

In this case there’s also the presence of colorful pushback to any expectant claims of untapped greatness surrounding the six selections that originally made it to tape in engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s studio back in March of 1959. Producer Michael Cuscuna, who was granted the keys to the Blue Note vault in 1975, infamously referred to the music as “a funeral parlor where nothing caught fire.” He shared other choice epithets as well, and the disappointingly dismissive appraisal explains why the album never made the cut for the prolific revival campaign for the label that unfolded under his aegis.  

Now in commercial circulation thanks to the persistence of producer Zev Feldman, the album isn’t the abject disaster that Cuscuna made it out to be. Blakey was never much of a composer, preferring to defer to his sidemen in that department. Tenorist Hank Mobley, back in the Jazz Messenger ranks for a brief tenure, contributes three tunes to pianist Bobby Timmons one, with the standard “Close Your Eyes” and a fast blues, “Jimmerick,” rounding out the program. It’s standard hardbop fare for the quintet with accommodating heads-solos arrangements the order of the day amidst relaxed interplay.   

What pushes the music outside the otherwise quotidian is the judicious solo space allotted the players. Blakey parcels explosive improvisations fueled by his patented press rolls on several tracks and bassist Jymie Merritt even gets a rare spotlight the closing title piece. “Quick Trick” is the most harmonically challenging and brings out the playfully combative sides of Timmons and the horns. Blakey responds with another thunderous signature as sign-off and the horns amble amicably through a final summation of the theme statement.  

A month later, the same band would convene at the Manhattan jazz temple Birdland with Van Gelder once again manning a portable tape console. Selections from that date came out shortly thereafter on tandem Blue Note LPs, effectively initiating the earlier studio session’s sequestration and an exile that would end up extending sixty-years. While far from the aural equivalent of a Faberge Egg, it’s still a welcome opportunity to hear Blakey and crew in decent fettle.  

Derek Taylor  

[blue-note-lp]

ModernJazzDaily: MosaicRecords: McCoy Tyner R.I.P. Our Michael Cuscuna remembers McCoy. https://t.co/7wChzrBMbC #jazz https://t.co/86uXbN7tOF http://twitter.com/BlueNoteVinyl/status/1236042672000901120 BlueNoteVinyl

ModernJazzDaily: MosaicRecords: McCoy Tyner R.I.P. Our Michael Cuscuna remembers McCoy. https://t.co/7wChzrBMbC #jazz https://t.co/86uXbN7tOF

— Blue Note Collector (@BlueNoteVinyl) March 6, 2020

from Twitter https://twitter.com/BlueNoteVinyl March 06, 2020 at 04:35PM via IFTTT

[modernjazzdaily]

MosaicRecords: RT fredseibert: American Routes Shortcuts: Michael Cuscuna | WWNO The story of ⁦MosaicRecords⁩ https://t.co/7n6bBibuHg

MosaicRecords: RT fredseibert: American Routes Shortcuts: Michael Cuscuna | WWNO The story of ⁦MosaicRecords⁩ https://t.co/7n6bBibuHg

— Modern Jazz Daily (@ModernJazzDaily) February 25, 2020

from Twitter https://twitter.com/ModernJazzDaily February 24, 2020 at 10:49PM via IFTTT

[whileiamdying]

Miles Davis et John Coltrane, le printemps d’une révolutionMiles Davis et John Coltrane, le printemps d’une révolution

Un coffret rassemble cinq concerts de la formation des deux musiciens lors d’une tournée européenne, en mars et avril 1960.

Par  Sylvain Siclier   Publié le 29 mars 2018 à 09h01 - Mis à jour le 29 mars 2018 à 09h01

Une affiche de rêve pour tout amateur de jazz, le trio du pianiste Oscar Peterson, le quartette du saxophoniste Stan Getz et le quintette du trompettiste Miles Davis. Tel est, du 21 mars au 10 avril 1960, le triple plateau, une trentaine de minutes par formation, proposé par le ­producteur Norman Granz pour une tournée européenne. Laquelle donnera lieu à des publications de certains des concerts enregistrés par des radios. En particulier ceux de l’orchestre de Miles Davis.

Cinq d’entre eux viennent d’être réunis pour ce que les producteurs Steve Berkowitz, Michael Cuscuna et Richard Seidel présentent comme la première parution « légitime » de ces documents, et dont la prise de son a été améliorée. Ils constituent, dans un coffret de quatre CD, le sixième volume de la collection « The Bootleg ­Series », consacrée à Miles Davis.

Les évolutions les plus récentes de Coltrane sont encore peu connues lorsqu’il arrive en Europe

Avec le trompettiste, il y a le saxophoniste John Coltrane, le pianiste Wynton Kelly, le contrebassiste Paul Chambers et le batteur Jimmy Cobb. Tous figurent sur le récent album de Davis, Kind of Blue, sorti en août 1959 – avec Bill Evans au piano pour quatre des cinq compositions et Cannonball Adderley au saxophone, lui aussi pour quatre titres. Kelly, Chambers et Cobb ont aussi participé aux séances de Giant Steps, de Coltrane, publié en janvier 1960.

Les albums ne sortent pas alors au même moment aux Etats-Unis et en Europe, les concerts ne se retrouvent pas sur Internet quelques heures après avoir eu lieu. Les évolutions les plus récentes de Coltrane, même si son précédent album en leader, Soultrane, a donné des pistes, sont donc encore peu connues lorsqu’il arrive en Europe. C’est son premier séjour au sein du groupe de Miles Davis. Et ce sera leur dernière tournée ensemble. Lors des concerts, les interventions solistes de Coltrane, circulation autour d’une même note ou d’un groupe de notes, vibrato aux extrêmes du spectre sonore du saxophone, tranchent avec la manière plus classique de ses camarades. Miles Davis, suave, sensuel, délié, Wynton Kelly dans un superbe découpage swing.

Envols lyriques

Il est dit dans le livret que Coltrane aura suscité quelques réactions négatives. Surtout lors des deux concerts à l’Olympia, à Paris, le 21 mars. Au milieu des applaudissements, quelques siffletsà la fin des solos de Coltrane sur On Green Dolphin Street et Walkin’, plus marqués au cours de Bye Bye Blackbird. Son solo le plus avancé à Paris.

Le lendemain 22 mars, au Konserthuset de Stockholm, là aussi pour deux concerts, puis le 24 mars au Tivoli, à Copenhague, le public est plus réceptif à son art. Ces trois concerts débutent par So What, tiré de Kind of Blue, pour dire l’urgence musicale à venir. Thème esquissé, tempo plus rapide que sur l’album, Miles Davis qui entre tout de suite dans le jeu, en courtes phrases, avec des silences qui sont de la musique, avant de laisser à Coltrane toute latitude pour développer les envols lyriques, emportés, qui seront sa marque dans les années suivantes. Il est magistral durant All Blues à Stockholm, l’un des sommets de cette parution.

Miles Davis & John Coltrane, The Final Tour : The Bootleg Series vol. 6, 1 coffret de 4 CD Columbia Records-Legacy/Sony Music.

[the1959project]

March 10, 1959

Wynton Kelly, 1957 (Michael Cuscuna)

Wynton Kelly recorded part of Kelly Blue on March 10, 1959 as a trio with his Miles Davis bandmates Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb.

[diginsider]

Excellence in Design: The Look of Jazz

Excellence in Design: The Look of Jazz

You probably don’t know the name Reid Miles, but you probably know his work. He was the art director for an extensive series of significant Blue Note jazz albums. For those who care about jazz, and design, and typography, and photography, this is a lesson worthy of your time and attention.

You may know the name Francis…

[diyeipetea]

365 razones para amar el jazz: un libro de fotografía. Jazz Katz In NY (Jimmy Katz & Michael Cuscuna) [326]

Un libro de fotografía de jazz. Jimmy Katz & Michael Cuscuna: Jazz Katz In NY (Jazzprezzo, 2007)

Seleccionado por Sergio Cabanillas

[mosaicrecords]

Jaco Pastorius: Introduction to a Jazz Legend

Martin Johnson’s essay on Jaco Pastorius took me back to 1974, when Paul Bley asked me to produce a series of albums with him on his newly created Improvising Artists Inc. label. The most unusual of the bunch was an album recorded at Blue Rock studios on Greene Street, with Bruce Ditmas on drums and two relative newcomers: Pat Metheny on guitar and Jaco Pastorius. Fusion was in its heyday thanks to Return To Forever, Headhunters and Weather Report, but it was clear from that first exposure to these musicians that they were creating and pursuing their own paths.

-Michael Cuscuna

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