Blue Note: Uncompromising Expression (Hardback) /anglais - Hardcover

HAVERS RICHARD

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500517444 ISBN 13: 9780500517444

Publisher: THAMES HUDSON, 2014

Synopsis

Purveyor of extraordinary music and an arbiter of cool, Blue Note is the definitive jazz label—signing the best artists, pioneering the best recording techniques, and lead cover design trends with punchy, iconic artwork and typography that shaped the way we see the music itself. The roster of greats who cut indelible sides for the label include Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Norah Jones, and many more. Published for Blue Note's seventy-fifth anniversary, this landmark volume is the first official illustrated story of the label, from 1939 roots to its renaissance today. Featuring classic album artwork, unseen contact sheets, rare ephemera from the Blue Note Archives, commentary from some of the biggest names in jazz today, and feature reviews of seventy-five key albums, this is the definitive book on the legendary label.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Havers has curated box sets on the music of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald and is the author of an anniversary book on the jazz label Verve. He lives in the Lammermuir Hills in southern Scotland.

Review

A Holiday Gift Books pick
"The founder of Blue Note, the great record label, was Alfred Lion, a German Jew who grew up in the jazz-crazy bohemian world of 1920s Berlin. Making his way to New York before World War II, he visited such iconic venues as the Roseland Ballroom and Harlem's Cotton Club, eventually making recordings of artists he believed deserved a wide hearing. Thus was born a label that survives today, having recorded all the greats since 1939, including Miles, Monk, Coltrane and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Richard Havers's illustrated history, 'Blue Note: Uncompromising Expression', presents dozens of period album covers as well as candid photographs of nightclub scenes and recording sessions."
-The Wall Street Journal

Holiday Gift Pick
"The story of the fabled jazz label Blue Note Records, with studio photos and ephemera, portraits and, most important, the world-famous LP jacket art, groundbreaking not only for its crisp, modern design but for portraying black men like John Coltrane and Art Blakey with gravity and dignity."
-Seattle Times

"'Uncompromising Expression' is a must for any hepcat."
- San Francisco Chronicle

"This authoritative 400-page book compiles the definitive history of what was arguably the most influential jazz label in the history of modern music. On the 75th anniversary of Blue Note-and through the use of narrative, rare photos of the artists and reproductions of the iconic album cover art-author and editor Richard Havers chronicles the genre's social history and traces the evolution of jazz, from the boogie-woogie and hot jazz of the 1930s through bebop, hard-bop, avant-garde and fusion, and right up to the label's current eclectic mix of straight-ahead jazz and R&B."
- Pacific Sun

"I can't think of a single jazz fan - young or old, novice or expert - that wouldn't adore this lavishly illustrated, 400-page history of the iconic Blue Note Records label...the photographs, especially the unpublished and uncropped pics from recording sessions or cover shoots (including contact sheets) are extraordinary."
-Detroit Free Press

Edition details

• Publisher: THAMES HUDSON
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500517444
• ISBN 13: 9780500517444
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400