FILE - An original handwritten song by Lionel Hampton titled "Hamp's Boogie Woogie" is seen at the Colored Musicians Club in Buffalo, New York, Jan. 14, 2005.
Richard PaulMay 12, 2014 2:38 PM
This year marks an important anniversary for American jazz, one that - on a number of occasions - looked like it would never arrive. The legendary Blue Note record label is celebratating its 75th birthday.
Nothing that becomes legendary starts out that way. In 1939 Blue Notes Records was the grain of an idea by Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff - two Germans who fell in love with music like that by the boogie-woogie piano player, Albert Ammons.
They first heard jazz improvisation as young men in Germany during the early years of the Nazi regime. Richard Havers is writing a book about Blue Note, called "Uncompromising Expressions." He says that, to the Nazis …“jazz was everything that they hated. It was freedom of expression. It was not regimented. It didn't go to a militaristic beat.”
Lion and Wolff pursued their love of jazz and freedom by leaving Germany for the United States. Shortly after arriving and hearing Ammons and another boogie-woogie piano-player, Meade “Lux” Lewis, they scratched together some money, put Ammons in a studio, and Blue Note Records was born. The label was swimming against the tide by promoting boogie-woogie.
Read more: http://www.voanews.com/content/blue-note-records-celebrates-75th-anniversary/1913041.html
0 Comments:
Post a Comment