Alfred Lion

Alfred Lion was the founder of Blue Be aware Records, and in his and Francis Wolff’s leadership, Blue Be aware was for quite some time the top unbiased jazz label. Lion initial uncovered jazz when he noticed Sam Wooding’s Orchestra in Berlin within the ’20s. He emigrated to america in 1938 and inaugurated Blue Take note with an Albert Ammons-Meade “Lux” Lewis program on January 6, 1939. Wolff became a member of the label that Oct and would talk about creative control of Blue Take note with Lion until his loss of life in 1971. Initially, Blue Note focused on small-group golf swing, Dixieland, and boogie-woogie. Nevertheless, in 1946, Lion and Wolff had taken time off to improve the focus from the label. Motivated by Ike Quebec, who described a number of the greats of contemporary jazz, Lion shortly registered Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. Although Blue Take note acquired always been amazing, the company actually came into its in the middle-’50s when it began documenting hard bop thoroughly, including Artwork Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Horace Metallic, as well as the up-and-coming organist Jimmy Smith. Lion thought that every record ought to be unique, so rehearsal frequently occurred before classes, an unheard-of practice for a little jazz label. The 1955-1967 period is usually regarded as Blue Note’s excellent, when they got such major performers as Lee Morgan, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Curtis Fuller, Wayne Shorter, Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, and many more recording gems frequently. Furthermore to hard bop and soul-jazz, Lion was available to the audio from the avant-garde, and Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman documented major models for the label. In 1966, Lion and Wolff offered Blue Be aware to Liberty, and drop soon occur. Lion retired entirely in 1967, but thankfully, he lived lengthy enough to find out Blue Be aware revived within the middle-’80s.