Joe Fields

A longtime veteran from the record industry, Joe Fields joined up with as well as Don Schlitten in 1972 to perform Cobblestone (a jazz subsidiary of Buddah) plus they quickly founded the Muse label. For a while Muse and its own sister label Onyx had been run from the duo but a 1978 break up found Areas acquiring control of Muse and Schlitten founding Xanadu. Until 1996 when he offered the label to Joel Dorn (that has since reissued catalog products beneath the 32 Jazz banner), Areas ran Muse, making it one of many hard bop brands of the period. From Houston Person, Pat Martino and Tag Murphy to Richie Cole, Eddie Jefferson and Sonny Stitt, Muse was a vintage label. For an interval Areas also possessed the Savoy catalog (reissuing many vintage classes) and caused the Landmark and Trix brands. After offering Muse, Areas and his child Barney Areas come up with the HighNote label which includes continued documenting highquality sessions within the same hard bop genre.