#roswell rudd

[koshigurajumy]

Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Sunny Murray, Gary Peacock, Roswell Rudd & John Tchicai - A.Y.

[jt1674]

Alto Saxophone – Jimmy Lyons Baritone Saxophone – Chris Woods Bass – Charlie Haden Bass Trombone – Jack Jeffers Clarinet – Perry Robinson Drums – Paul Motian Electric Guitar – John McLaughlin French Horn – Sharon Freeman Piano – Carla Bley Tenor Saxophone – Gato Barbieri Trombone – Roswell Rudd Trumpet – Michael Mantler Tuba – John Buckingham Voice – Linda Ronstadt Voice – Charlie Haden

[jazzdailyblog]

Exploring the Genius of Steve Lacy: A Jazz Innovator and Soprano Saxophone Master

Introduction: Steve Lacy, born Steven Norman Lackritz ninety years ago today on July 23, 1934, in New York City, was an avant-garde jazz musician and a master of the soprano saxophone. His contributions to jazz span over five decades, during which he pushed the boundaries of the genre, collaborated with some of the most influential musicians of his time, and created a body of work that continues…

[radiophd]

albert ayler / don cherry / john tchicai / roswell rudd / gary peacock / sonny murray -- a.y.

[postpunkindustrial]

New York Eye and Ear Control

1964 · DIRECTED BY Michael Snow

34 mins  

A cutout of a woman’s silhouette is displayed in many locations while a free jazz soundtrack is heard. The jazz musicians will pose later for the camera in a studio.

Literally no credits title card has ever gone harder than:

Michael Snow - Film

Albert Ayler - Tenor Sax

Don Cherry - Trumpet

John Tchicai - Alto Sax

Roswell Rudd - Trombone

Gary Peacock - Bass

Sonny Murray - Drums

[fredseibertdotcom]

THE WATT WORKS FAMILY [1990 catalog]

Download THE WATT WORKS FAMILY at Scribd

This WATT catalog is 35 years old, maybe in the age of the internet, their last one. 

Working with Carla Bley and Michael Mantler was one of the great inspirations of my young work life. Which is probably why I’ve posted a number times of some of their work, from the time I worked with them and afterwards too. 

Why am I so interested? Carla and Mike were perfect models of talent, sure, but also resilience, perseverance, determination, and blind, stupid, confidence. We first became acquainted after I crashed a recording session for Carla’s ‘operatic’ Escalator Over the Hill, which they financed themselves, and out of frustration, released and distributed themselves on JCOA Records. which eventually spawned the self determination of the New Music Distribution Service and WATT Works, a label for their continuing works. 

When I bumped into this 1990 catalog from THE WATT WORKS FAMILY (by then with bass/composer stalwart Steve Swallow, daughter/composer Karen Mantler [and her cat Arnold], and distributed internationally by ECM Records) I was struck, not only by the sheer volume of personal, completely –can I emphasize completely?– independent work, but also the sheer value of creating this work self sufficiently. It made me suddenly aware of why I felt they were so influential to me. 

Are there any other musical composers who’ve succeeded in getting their music recorded with no outside creative interference? Who, because of that complete independence, were able to experiment –often successfully, quite a few, not so much*– across such a wide range of the possibilities of their music? And think about it, what composers have you ever listened to who were completely unafraid of reaching beyond the box they were put in (’jazz’ in their cases) to artists that had the unique talents, and not for nothing, commercial possibilities? (Their records have spanned the Western world of contemporary music... from the jazz world, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Pharaoh Sanders, Charlie Haden, Larry Coryell, Roswell Rudd, but also Linda Ronstadt, Jack Bruce, Robert Wyatt, Don Preston, Terry Adams, and of course, I’ve left out dozens of others.) 

Let me stress, it was unbelievably hard for them to hit those accomplishments,  no one can say that success is easy. But, it is their very independence that gave them room to try. You know what they say... “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

.....

From the introduction: 

Now the truth can be told. The WATT recording label is not the idealistic, uncompromising, visionary creation of two young revolutionaries. No, Michael Mantler and Carla Bley started WATT, almost 20 years ago, to make money. 

Like all musicians, they assumed that once the world got to hear their unique individual styles, fame and riches would follow. So they slaved over each new release, always sure that the latest one would sell millions.

Carla went through many phases. After realizing that no one was interested in hearing her zany capricious fantastic amazingly intricate concoctions for large assortments of weird and wonderful musicians, she tried to write simple little songs for small, boring groups of anonymous hacks. Mike, on the other hand, stuck firmly to his grandiose style, turning out gaunt tragic forlorn bleak emotionally distraught masterpieces, certain that someday his music would pay off. 

Finally giving up all thoughts of ever cashing in on their own efforts, they formed an·auxiliary company, XtraWATT, and started looking for young talent to exploit. The first sucker that they stumbled upon was Steve Weisberg. He was definitely young, and ready to work for nothing. It wasn't difficult to recruit 20 other desperate musicians to play on his album, I CAN'T STAND ANOTHER NIGHT ALONE (IN BED WITH YOU), by promising to pay them lots of money when it came out. 

Next to fall for the XtraWATT scam was young veteran jazz bassist Steve Swallow, who, desirous of getting his collection of overkeening faux-negre soul ballads recorded, handed over his life savings to Mantler·to cover "expenses", and even agreed to call the album CARLA.

But word of the racket got out, and no one else could be found who was willing to record for XtraWATT. In desparation, Mantler and Bley forced their own child, Karen, to learn a few chords and simple melodies. They even tried to train their cat to sing the resulting ditties. (Most of those efforts had to be replaced by unsuspecting teenaged humans, but the album was still called MY CAT ARNOLD, to avoid paying royalties.)  

In spite of Mantler's greedy misdoings (word has it that Bley is just a pawn in his game), his victims still adore him, having nothing to compare their music business experiences to. Even Weisberg, who has confessed that he has ambitions of someday graduating into the clutches of a big-time criminal at a real record company, is embarrassingly grateful.  

Naturally, the entire WATT/XtraWATT family was honored to go along with his latest plot. Hopefullly, some nice journalist or salesperson will notice how interesting and valuable the music is, and persuade the public to finally fork over those dollars! 

.....

*Some reviews, taken from the catalog: 

“…the finest examples of progressive large ensemble work written and recorded in America in 1975.” –Downbeat 

“This record is a real dog.”  

“It’s delightful.” –Melody Maker 

“…the least listenable record I have ever heard.” –Melody Maker 

“Everything Jesus Christ Superstar should have been and isn’t.” –Changes 

“This is a record which all rock musicians as well as general audiences should listen to with care.” –Rolling Stone 

[soundgrammar]

Listen/purchase: The Camel by Roswell Rudd

[tejedac]

Steve Lacy & Roswell Rudd Quartet

School days, 1963 · play album

Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone), Roswell Rudd (trombone), Henry Grimes (bass) & Dennis Charles (drums).

Mono recording March 1963 (?) live at Phase Two Coffe House, New York City * Lp info

(2002 edition)

[dustedmagazine]

Fay Victor — Life Is Funny That Way (TAO Forms)

Photo by Deneka Peniston

If Herbie Nichols is remembered at all, it’s as a jazz composer and a pianist, not as a songwriter. In the decades since his death he’s carved out a small legacy with musicians like Roswell Rudd, the Clusone Trio and Misha Mengelberg recording albums with his material. These are the records that do the heavy lifting in carrying his music on; Nichols own The Complete Blue Note Recordings (Blue Note, 1997) is a bulky three-CD set that's out-of-print and goes for a premium on the secondary market.

Never a recording success in his short lifetime, Nichols paid the bills by working a variety of gigs: he taught piano, penned articles and poems for magazines, and accompanied singers. Throughout this he was writing music at an almost frantic pace: about 170 compositions, some with lyrics. And even if you don’t know Nichols’s name, you’ve probably heard his most famous one: “Lady Sings the Blues,” a song that Billie Holiday turned into a standard. When Nichols died in 1963, writer AB Spellman noted he’d never had a year where he supported himself solely on his own music.

In recent years, New York based jazz singer Fay Victor has developed her interest in Nichols music with her Herbie Nichols SUNG project. Life Is Funny That Way is the result of these years of work: she’d added lyrics to a set of Nichols’s songs, fleshed out arrangements on others. Over 11 performances, she’s backed with a jazz quartet and brings this music — some of it never recorded in Nichols’s lifetime — to life.

It opens with “Life Is Funny That Way,” a song starting with Victor and sax player Michaël Attias together. When they get to the chorus the band joins in with a nicely swinging groove. Immediately you can hear the chemistry between Attias and Victor: they almost play in unison, his notes mirroring her singing. The other players (Anthony Coleman on piano, Ratzo Harris on bass, and Tom Rainey on drums) create a nice backing for Attias and Victor to branch out on.

Conversely, Coleman and Harris are all but absent on “The Bassist.” It opens with an understated drum solo by Rainey: light rolls, gentle cymbal taps. He builds up until Victor and Attias join in together, again acting as two leads that are mostly playing in sync. But when Victor starts scatting, her and Attias start trading riffs and playing off each other.

Occasionally, the band slows things down to a crawl, giving Victor a chance to stretch out and sing a slow ballad. “Bright Butterfly” has Harris bowing his lines, giving a thick and fuzzy background for Attias and Victor. “The Culprit Is You” has a similar approach, but with Coleman’s sparse piano and little pushes by Rainey’s drumming. It lends this performance a nice smoky, late-night vibe where you can almost see the spotlight closing tight onto Victor as she stretches her notes. And on “Lady Sings the Blues,” Victor’s voice has a bright, almost warm quality as she leans into Billie Holiday’s lyrics.

The band occasionally gets a chance to shine too. Late in the record, they play “Twelve Bars” as a slow mood piece, with Coleman bouncing around his piano as the rhythm section whips up a swirl of noise behind him. It’s one of the more angular pieces here, showing Nichols’ more outside style. He wasn’t just a straight ahead bop pianist.

Life Is Funny That Way offers a nice primer on Nichols: music that’s alternately challenging and straight ahead, close enough to the tradition to seem familiar with enough twists it can catch you off guard. It’s a good way to dive into his music. Let’s hope Victor’s project isn’t a one-off.

Roz Milner

[lboogie1906]

Archie Vernon Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is a jazz saxophonist, educator, and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz.

He studied piano, clarinet, and alto saxophone before focusing on tenor saxophone. He occasionally plays soprano saxophone and piano. He studied drama at Goddard College.

He played in a Latin jazz band for a short time before joining the band of avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor. His first recording under his name, Archie Shepp - Bill Dixon Quartet, was released on Savoy Records and featured a composition by Ornette Coleman. Along with John Tchicai and Don Cherry, he was a member of the New York Contemporary Five. John Coltrane’s admiration led to recordings for Impulse! Records, the first of which was Four for Trane, an album of mainly Coltrane compositions on which he was joined by trombonist Roswell Rudd, bassist Reggie Workman, and alto player John Tchicai. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[projazznet]

Archie Shepp – Four For Trane

Four for Trane is a studio album by tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp released on Impulse! Records in 1965. Four of the five tracks were composed and originally recorded by John Coltrane (released on his albums Giant Steps and Coltrane Plays the Blues) and rearranged by Shepp and trombonist Roswell Rudd. Coltrane himself co-produced the album alongside Bob Thiele. Archie Shepp – tenor saxophone Alan Shorter – flugelhorn John Tchicai – alto saxophone Roswell Rudd – trombone, arranger Reggie Workman – double bass Charles Moffett – drums

[jt1674]

[jazzdailyblog]

Perry Robinson: A Clarinet Virtuoso Who Expanded the Horizons of Jazz

Introduction: Perry Robinson, an avant-garde clarinetist, is often remembered for his unique contributions to jazz and for expanding the musical vocabulary of the clarinet. He defied easy categorization, integrating influences from a wide array of genres, including bebop, free jazz, folk, and world music. Robinson’s career spanned six decades, and he worked with some of the most innovative and…

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Carla Bley: The Top 25 icons in Jazz history

Carla Bley: The Top 25 pearls in Jazz historyCarla Bley: a life in MusicSubscribe & download the best scores and sheet music transcriptions from our Library.Carla Bley Big Band - Festival de Jazz de Paris 1988Track ListPersonnelBrowse in the Library:

Carla Bley: The Top 25 pearls in Jazz history

One of the finest and most productive of all female jazz instrumentalists, bandleaders and composers is Carla Bley. From her sprawling jazz opera Escalator Over The Hill to her arrangements for Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, and from her Big Carla Bley Band to her trio with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist Steve Swallow, she has made her mark on all sizes of composition and ensemble. This ten-piece band toured in the 1980s and catches her iconoclastic reworking of gospel and big band jazz.

Carla Bley: a life in Music

Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg, May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera Escalator over the Hill (released as a triple LP set), as well as a book of compositions that have been performed by many other artists, including Gary Burton, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Art Farmer, John Scofield and her ex-husband Paul Bley. Every jazz fan knows the name of Carla Bley, but her relentless productivity and constant reinvention can make it difficult to grasp her contribution to music. I began listening to her in high school when I was enamored with the pianist Paul Bley, whose seminal nineteen-sixties LPs were filled with Carla Bley compositions. (The two were married.) My small home-town library also had a copy of “The Carla Bley Band: European Tour 1977,” a superb disk of rowdy horn soloists carousing through instantly memorable Bley compositions and arrangements. Some pieces change you forever. The deadly serious yet hilarious “Spangled Banner Minor and Other Patriotic Songs,” from that 1977 recording, celebrates and defaces several nationalistic themes, beginning with the American national anthem recast as Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata. From the first notes onward, I was never quite the same again. The novelist and musician Wesley Stace has a similar story: “Aged sixteen, and full only of rock and pop music, I came upon Carla Bley by chance through a Pink Floyd solo project, Nick Mason’s ‘Fictitious Sports,’ which I only bought because the vocals were by my favorite singer, Robert Wyatt, once of Soft Machine. It’s a Carla Bley album in all but name: her songs embellished with brilliant and witty arrangements. I wanted to hear more. ‘Social Studies’ (also from 1981) thus became the first jazz album I ever bought, opening up a whole world I knew nothing about. ‘Utviklingssang’ is perfect, all gorgeous melody and abstraction, no words required. She’s everything I want from instrumental music.”

In the last half decade, many of Bley’s remaining peers from the early years have died: Paul Bley, Charlie Haden, Roswell Rudd, Ornette Coleman, Paul Motian. At eighty-two, Bley is still composing and practicing the piano every day. But it also felt like it was high time to rent a car, visit a hero, and try to get a few stories on the official record. Bley and her partner, the celebrated bassist Steve Swallow (and another living link to the revolutionary years of jazz) live in an upstate compound tucked away near Willow, New York. When I drove up, Bley and Swallow were just coming back from their daily walk through the woodland. Their lawn boasts an old oak tree and a massive chain-link dinosaur made by Steve Heller at Fabulous Furniture, in nearby Boiceville. The home offers enough room for two powerful artists and their personal libraries, not to mention striking paintings by Dorothée Mariano and Bill Beckman. Bley’s upstairs study is stocked with hundreds of her scores and an upright piano, on which she played me her latest opus, a sour ballad a bit in the Monk tradition, with just enough unusual crinkling in the corners to prevent it from being too square. When we sat down to talk, Bley proved to be witty and surreal, just like her music. (Swallow is the house barista and fact checker.) Bley’s early development as an independent spirit is well documented in the excellent 2011 book “Carla Bley,” by Amy C. Beal. I began a little further along, and asked her about Count Basie in the late nineteen-fifties. “Count Basie was playing at Birdland, Basin Street, and the Jazz Gallery when I was working as a cigarette girl,” she said. “I got to hear him more than anyone else, and it was an education.” Basie is still her favorite pianist: “He’s the final arbiter of how to play two notes. The distance and volume between two notes is always perfect.” At the end of the decade, her husband, an associate of Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins, wanted to play more as a trio pianist but lacked material. One day Paul Bley came to Carla and said, “I need six tunes by tomorrow night.” There’s an obvious thread of European classical music in early Bley compositions, and this fit perfectly with the sixties jazz avant-garde. Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” is closer to a Mahler dirge than to Duke Ellington; Charles Mingus gave a deconstructed blues composition the European-style catalogue number “Folk Forms No. 1.” Many of Bley’s own pieces from that era have atonal gestures and abstract titles like “Ictus” and “Syndrome.” Among the many musicians listening carefully was Keith Jarrett, who told me that Paul Bley was, “Sort of like Ahmad with certain kinds of drugs.” Ahmad Jamal’s biggest hit was the D-major dance “Poinciana,” a bland old standard given immortality by Jamal’s rich jazz harmony and the drummer Vernel Fournier’s fresh take on a New Orleans second-line beat. Paul Bley’s recordings of Carla’s famous melody “Ida Lupino” have a G-major dance with a new kind of surreal perspective. When comparing “Poinciana” and “Ida Lupino” back to back, Jarrett’s comment—“certain kinds of drugs”—makes sense. However, while Ahmad Jamal had to use plenty of imagination when rescoring “Poinciana,” Paul Bley just needed to get the paper from his wife and read it down: Bley’s piano score of “Ida Lupino,” with inner voices and canonic echoes, is complete. Like many jazzers, I first heard of the film-noir icon Ida Lupino thanks to Bley’s indelible theme. I finally got to ask her about the title. “I just saw a few movies she did, and I thought she was sort of stripped and basic,” Bley said. “She didn’t have all the sex appeal that a female star should have. She was sort of serious. Maybe I felt a bond with her for that reason. I wanted to be serious. It wasn’t anything to do with her being the first female director. I learned that later.” Another significant early Bley work is “Jesus Maria,” first recorded by Jimmy Giuffre with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow for Verve, in 1961. Among the listeners inspired by this trio was Manfred Eicher, who reissued these recordings for ECM, in 1990. The reissue leads off with the rather classical “Jesus Maria,” where the pretty notes seem to suspend in the air, suggesting the famous “ECM sound” several years before the label was founded. I asked Eicher about Bley’s early compositions and he said, “There are so many of them, each as well crafted as pieces by Satie or Mompou—or Thelonious Monk for that matter. Carla belongs in that tradition of radical originality.” Bley was a radical, but she also sought structure. She told me about the early-sixties avant-garde: “In free playing, everybody played as loud as they could and as fast as they could and as high as they could. I liked them, but there was also what Max Gordon said about a bunch of guys screaming their heads off: ‘Call the pound.’ I think the music needed a setting. Just as it was, I thought free jazz needed work.” A key turned in the lock when Bley heard the roiling, church-inspired experimental tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler, who she says was, “Maudlin! Maudlin in the most wonderful way. He gave me license to play something that was really corny and love it.” Another watershed was “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles, a suite of songs that form a bigger picture. “An artist friend of mine came over one day with this album,” Bley told me. “He said, ‘Jazz is dead. All the artists are listening to this. We don’t listen to jazz anymore. This is it.’ ”

Subscribe & download the best scores and sheet music transcriptions from our Library.

Carla Bley Big Band - Festival de Jazz de Paris 1988

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQUHXCEflK0 Track List 00:00:09​ - Song of the eternal waiting of canute 00:10:24​ - The girl who cried champagne - I 00:18:05​ - The girl who cried champagne - II 00:21:50​ - The girl who cried champagne - III 00:29:29​ - Real life hits 00:40:53​ - Fleur carnivore 00:52:48​ - Lo ultimo 01:00:51​ - end credits Personnel Carla Bley - piano Christof Lauer - saxophone-soprano Wolfgang Puschnig - saxophone-alto Andy Sheppard - saxophone-tenor Roberto Ottini - saxophone-baryton Lew Soloff - trompette Jens Winter - trompette Gary Valente - trombone Frank Lacy - cor Bob Stewart - tuba Daniel Beaussier - oboe, flute Karen Mantler - orgue Steve Swallow - bass Buddy Williams - batterie Don Alias - percussions Read the full article

[anohiroba]

20240608

work in progress

自分をあまり介入させずに写す事に集中していたけど、途中から父と息子の写真がジャケットになってるのがこれ、すごくいいなと思い始めたら父（Roswell Rudd）が息子を見る眼差しや表情を自分なりにちゃんと写しとらないとと思って気がつけば真剣になって描いていた

聴いたことのないJAZZのアルバムジャケットを真剣に描いているという点は自分で何やってるんだろうと思う　でも聴けないレコード盤を手にした時からじわじわとこれは描かないといけないなと宿命のようなものを感じた

なんだか学校で出された課題に取り組んでいるような感じに近い毎日

今まで絵を描いたりしてはいたものの図形や模様の研究のような事をしていたから今回やってみたら、これまでなんだかよくわからないかなり偏ったところに居たんだなと気づく

絵を描いてみるとなんとなく自分への挑戦のような、できんの？みたいな圧がずっとあった

ジャケット写真に近い完璧な仕上がりとはほど遠いけどこういった事はほんとにやってこなかったから新鮮で、ふと思ったのは絵を描く事は自分自身の現時点を知る方法のひとつのような気がした

切り絵を少し前まで集中してやってたのが良かったのか目が慣れてる感じがした　光と影を観る事　繋がって活かされている

今まで背を向けていたものを肯定し始めたら自分の中での拡がりや意識して観るところ、シンプルにもっと描いてみたい気持ちが芽生えてきたように思う　今度は今までの図形や模様も取り入れて、自分を介入させていこう

JAZZアルバムは木枠フレームを取り付けてプラスアルファをしたら完成かな

こうしてTumblrに言葉でも記録している事、建設的に文章化する事もつくる事に繋がるんだと思うと好循環していると思った

[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.