[Dixielandjazz] Blue Note Records faces uncertain future.

[Stephen G Barbone]

February 7, 2009 - NY TIMES - by Nate Chinen
At 70, a Legendary Jazz Label Asks, ‘Now What?’

At a recent 70th-anniversary reception for Blue Note Records at  
Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, the alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson played his  
trademark hit, “Alligator Boogaloo,” from 1967.Norah Jones, who made  
her multiplatinum debut in 2002, mingled at the bar. And presiding  
over the evening was Bruce Lundvall, who has run the label for the  
last 25 years.

Mr. Donaldson, Ms. Jones and Mr. Lundvall represent points along a  
continuum in the history of the most storied label in jazz. Founded in  
1939 by a German émigré, Alfred Lion, Blue Note has built a catalog  
that includes almost every major figure in the music, from pioneers  
like Sidney Bechet to modern masters like Wayne Shorter.

Now part of a larger corporate entity, facing both a parlous music  
industry and the looming prospect of Mr. Lundvall’s retirement, Blue  
Note has entered a pivotal moment in its history. Branching beyond  
jazz, it has moved into what Mr. Lundvall calls “the adult  
sophisticated pop area.” Its best-selling release last year was by Al  
Green (“Lay It Down,” which has sold more than 175,000 copies). Next  
in line was a live album from Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson, who  
will reunite for two sold-out shows on Monday and Tuesday at the Rose  
Theater, with Ms. Jones as a featured guest. (Their album has sold  
more than 100,000 copies.)

The quandary for Blue Note is how it can remain the pre-eminent jazz  
label while surviving as a profitable business. “One of the first  
things that Alfred Lion said to me was, ‘What are you going to do to  
be commercial?’ ” Mr. Lundvall, 73, recalled recently in his office.  
It’s a question that resonates even more today.

Blue Note was for many years a shoestring operation run with  
conviction by Mr. Lion and a childhood friend, Francis Wolff. During  
its postwar heyday, the label released a flood of albums that defined  
the hard-bop era and helped document an emerging avant-garde.

“Nowhere else in the pantheon of jazz labels is there one with that  
much majesty or regality in the lineage,” said the alto saxophonist  
Greg Osby, whose Blue Note tenure lasted 16 years.

Mr. Lundvall took the helm in 1984, after more than two decades at CBS  
Records and a stint as president of Elektra. At that point Blue Note  
had been dormant for several years, following the purchase of its  
parent company by EMI. Under Mr. Lundvall, the label has signed the  
jazz singers Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson, along with leading  
instrumentalists like the tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and the  
guitarist Lionel Loueke, who released his debut album last year.

“I think that Bruce Lundvall is like Alfred Lion,” said the pianist  
Bill Charlap, “in the sense that he believes in the musicians and also  
happens to have a great gift for recognizing when someone is ripe.”  
Mr. Charlap, on tour with the Blue Note 7, an anniversary tribute  
band, added, “This is not Blue Note, the small independent record  
label, anymore; this is Blue Note, the subsidiary of EMI.”

Blue Note’s identity shifted with Ms. Jones’s folk-inflected debut,  
which sold five million copies within a year of release. (That figure  
has since doubled.) Suddenly the label was receiving proposals from  
nonjazz artists like Anita Baker, whom Mr. Lundvall deemed too good to  
pass up. Later the label signed folk-rockers like Amos Lee and the  
Wood Brothers, and the retro-pop duo the Bird and the Bee.

“So we’ve extended our reach beyond jazz, but we’ve stayed very true  
to jazz,” Mr. Lundvall said, citing Mr. Loueke and a couple of new  
signings planned for this year. “And it’s going to be that way as long  
as I’m here, that’s for sure.”

But Mr. Loueke’s album, though widely acclaimed, has sold just 6,000  
copies — and that figure is on the high side for a jazz release. “With  
the serious jazz artists,” Mr. Lundvall said, “you look to break even  
or make a small profit. You keep the budgets in line, do the best  
marketing job that you can, and stay with the artists as they develop.”

The ideal result of that investment is catalog, a cornerstone of the  
Blue Note legacy and business. (Last year the 1957 John Coltrane album  
“Blue Train” sold 15,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan;  
Herbie Hancock’s 1965 “Maiden Voyage” sold 10,000.) But where catalog  
once accounted for about half of Blue Note’s revenue, that share is  
now closer to a third, Mr. Lundvall said, because the albums have been  
available for so long.

Late last year the label made a round of catalog deletions; any title  
that sold fewer than 350 copies over a 12-month period was vulnerable.  
Jazz fans noted with alarm that a handful of significant titles were  
on the list. Mr. Lundvall said he understood the outcry: “I’m  
monitoring this like a hawk now. Because some things escaped me the  
last time.”

The deleted albums are still being offered in digital form, he added.  
There are catalog promotions through services like iTunes and  
Rhapsody. In addition, as a 70th-anniversary tie-in, Amazon recently  
introduced an exclusive on-demand CD series, Back From the Vault, with  
more than 200 out-of-print titles.

The digital focus reflects the impact of a recent reorganization. Over  
the last year Blue Note’s operations have been more fully absorbed  
into the structure of EMI, which was bought in 2007 by Terra Firma, a  
private equity firm. Though jarring in some ways — “At first I thought  
I was going to fight it,” Mr. Lundvall said — the change has opened up  
new resources for the label.

“We’re focused on providing jazz artists with a full suite of  
services, and that’s one of the advantages of the way that we’re  
organized right now,” said Howard Handler, the executive vice  
president for marketing at EMI. “There are more resources to do tour  
marketing. We have new technology that gives us insight to get catalog  
to newer generations of fans.”

Mr. Handler pointed to the label’s 70th anniversary as a chance to  
flex some of that promotional muscle. Among the related events is a  
bonanza of concerts and club engagements in New York this month and an  
album and 50-city tour by the Blue Note 7. The Portland (Ore.) Jazz  
Festival, which begins on Friday, will feature past and present Blue  
Note artists. And as part of the Grammy Salute to Jazz in Los Angeles  
last week, the Record Academy gave the label its President’s Merit  
Award.

“It’s an opportunity to mark the occasion and also do a little bit of  
reinvention,” said Nick Gatfield, EMI’s president for A&R. “Blue Note  
as a label and a heritage is very important to EMI. There is no  
question that it’s not going to be just a catalog. It needs to  
flourish and grow.”

To that end, Mr. Lundvall said he still had full autonomy over the  
Blue Note roster. “As long as we’re not seriously in the red — and we  
have never been, as long as I’ve been here, thank God — they’re not  
going to say, ‘Get rid of this one or that one.’ They seem to think we  
know what we’re doing after all these years.”

How much that depends on Mr. Lundvall himself is unclear, but  
increasingly relevant. Onstage at Dizzy’s he noted that this would be  
his 49th year in the record business and said that he hoped to make it  
to an even 50. Whether he serves another year or a few more, there are  
sure to be more changes ahead for the label.

Mr. Osby, the saxophonist, who now runs his own label, was asked to  
picture a post-Lundvall Blue Note. “My answer is I don’t,” he said.  
“He’s the last man standing. He’s Clint Eastwood. And when he saunters  
into the sunset, I don’t see it.”

Of course no one at EMI puts it quite that way. Mr. Lundvall said he  
would start a consultancy after his retirement. “I don’t want to sit  
around the house and mow the lawn,” he said. “I don’t want to be a  
crossing guard for the Wyckoff, N.J., school system. I want to keep  
doing this.”