vendredi 30 août 2013

Le Philadelphia Jazz Label de Jim Miller

Le mois d'août  reste un mois avec peu des activités de jazz; dommage,  mais pour les intéressés  entre vous,  ici l'histoire d'un label de jazz de  Philadelphia , moins connue que les grands label de jazz   comme Blue Note et autres, mais cela faut la peine de lire  au point de vue de l' histoire de jazz .

Record Label Profiles

Dreambox Media: The Philadelphia Jazz Label





By  Published: August 27, 2013
Any fan of the great American music that is jazz is surely aware that the art form's history depended on the convergence of geography, individual talents, and inspiration. Cities such as New OrleansKansas CityChicago, and New York are synonymous with particular styles of jazz. One often overlooked city isPhiladelphia, the birthplace and/or home to artists as diverse and influential as Pat Martino,Billie HolidayStan GetzLee MorganDexter GordonClifford BrownPhilly Joe JonesJimmy Smith,Benny GolsonGrover Washington, Jr.John Coltrane and many more. Paying tribute to this tradition of jazz in Philadelphia, and providing a contemporary slate of first-rate jazz musicians, is Dreambox Media, a strictly Philadelphia jazz label.
Jim Miller, the founder and driving force behind Dreambox Media, is a performing jazz drummer, producer, Adjunct Professor at Rowan University, Jazz History Lecturer at University of Pennsylvania, and advisory board member of JazzBridge.org and the Philadelphia Jazz Coalition. Miller has performed with preeminent artists including Anita O'DayLarry CoryellTony WilliamsLarry McKennaRandy Brecker,Clark TerryRay Mantilla and Evelyn Simms; he has been honored with Philadelphia Magazine's award for Best of Philly Jazz Record Label (1999) and in 2013 received the Jazz Hero award, from the Jazz Journalists Association.
All About Jazz: What are the origins of Dreambox Media? Who was involved, and what was the initial conception of the label?
Jim Miller: I had a band called Reverie, I was on drums, Mark Knox on keyboards, Ed Yellen on saxophones, and Gerald Veasley on bass. We got some free studio time in New York, at a place called the Institute of Audio Research. We were pretty much guinea pigs for people taking a studio engineering class, but we ended up getting a master tape out of it. So anyway, we end up having this master tape, this is in 1980, we had the tape, and a band fund. We were a quartet, and a fifth of the share went into the band fund, where we could fix equipment, the van, whatever. So we had the money, and I said, "Let's just put this out ourselves." We had money actually saved up for a new van, but we put this first album out, and we made enough money for the van and another LP, and I wanted to do another one, because the band was evolving so quickly that I wanted to document it, plus keep our momentum going.
So initially, it was just a vanity label for my band. The second album, we actually did two pressings, about 1000 copies each, then we put out a live third album. I wanted to put out a live thing so people could really tell what we sounded like. Anyway, we'd amassed this database of reviewers and jazz writers, and at that point, the vocalist Suzanne Cloud asked to be on our label, and I hadn't even been thinking of it as a label, it was just a way to put Reverie stuff out. So she did an album called I Like It and she started spreading the word amongst the Philly jazz community. Pretty soon pianist Mark Kramer, Father John D'Amico, flautist Leslie Burrs, and vocalist Evelyn Simms, they all wanted to do things, so I thought "Wow, this is a label."
Meanwhile, we were still shopping our masters around, and I was learning more and more about the music business by the worse and worse deals that we were being offered, and still, in this do-it-yourself mode, I thought, "We have to treat everybody else the same way we want to be treated." So we came up with, I don't know if you'd call it a business model, but we didn't require that we own the masters. The artist still kept their masters, we didn't ask for any publishing split or money from sales at gigs, just a percentage of sales directly through the label, and that just paid the expenses. We wanted to treat everyone the same way the band wanted to be treated by these legitimate labels. It's kind of democratic and idealistic when you think about it—music by the musicians, for musicians, of musicians. In 2006-2008 it was hard with the digital thing, but even big labels were taking hits, the deals were getting even more predatory, and that affected us too, so now it's on life support again.
AAJ: Was it a strictly Philadelphia jazz label by choice?







mardi 27 août 2013

Colors par Dave Liebman


Jazz Video

“ Colors with artist Barb Januszkiewicz” by Dave Liebman

Dave Liebman & Barbara Januszkiewicz . Here Dave Liebman and Barbara Januszkiewicz in a wordless conversation, each in their own language responding to the other in a dialogue of musical notes and paint. Liebman's solo saxophone artistry is the inspiration for the kaleidoscope of color, images. As they play off each other's voice or visual expression in an ever-changing musical palette, the music takes on a visual rhythm and colorful beat and transforms the way you look at a painting or listen to jazz music.

Dave Liebman jouait à Junas en 2010 quand le Langudoc-Roussillon accueillait 
New York

vendredi 23 août 2013

Lunel-Viel, Festival piano Jazz et Classique

Affiche un piano sous les arbres
Affiche festival un piano sous les arbres
              
 Un piano sous les arbres est un festival dédié au piano organisé par la commune de Lunel-Viel (34)chaque dernier week-end du mois d'août.
 Toutes les musiques jouées avec un piano
Le festival met à l’honneur un instrument, le piano. Sa philosophie ? Mélanger des musiques dites savantes et des musiques populaires, des musiques écrites et des musiques improvisées. Le festival propose de découvrir des styles variés: classique, jazz, rock, musique tzigane... le piano comme dénominateur commun.
Depuis 2008, la programmation a intégré de la musique cubaine et du raï, du rock et de la musique classique, du jazz et des musiques traditionnelles, de l’Irlande à l'Arménie. Cette année, le spectre est large, de Bach à la musique électronique, en passant par Michel Jonasz.



  • Un cadre unique : le parc de l'Orangerie
Les concerts se déroulent en plein air, le dernier week-end d'août, dans un parc unique par son caractère. Ce cadre exceptionnel, qui abrite le château de Lunel-Viel (actuelle mairie) et une orangerie inscrite au patrimoine des monuments historiques permet de nouvelles formes d'écoute : siestes musicales, concert sous les étoiles...
  • Invités prestigieux et nouveaux talents
Le festival accueille chaque année des têtes d'affiche comme Michel Jonasz, André Manoukian, les pianistes de jazz Bojan Z ou Yaron Herman. Mais il donne également à écouter de nouveaux talents comme Miss White & the Drunken Piano ou les Fourmis dans les mains.
  • Festival et vins ?
Oui, dégustation même, de vins, de muscat, de produits du terroir. En même temps que les concerts, des stands dressés dans le parc permettent de varier les plaisirs en (re)découvrant les produits du Lunellois. Un piano sous les arbres c’est donc la promesse d’une dernière pause avant la rentrée.

jeudi 22 août 2013

Marian McParland vient de nous quitter




Mort de Marian McParland, légende du jazz

Par Europe1.fr avec AFP
Publié le 22 août 2013 à 08h46Mis à jour le 22 août 2013 à 08h46
     
  •  
Marian McPartland, une brillante pianiste de jazz qui a connu une carrière de plus de 60 ans, est morte à l'âge de 95 ans, a annoncé sa maison de disques. D'origine anglaise, la musicienne qui est aussi connue pour avoir animé pendant 30 ans son émission "Piano Jazz" sur une radio populaire américaine, National Public Radio (NPR), est morte mardi soir dans sa maison de Long Island, à New York, a indiqué Concord Music Group.
Epouse divorcée puis remariée du musicien Jimmy McPartland, elle a enregistré plus de 50 albums et a été récompensée par de nombreux prix. Dans son émission de radio, elle a interviewé pratiquement tous les majors du jazz de l'après Seconde guerre mondiale, selon NPR. Elle a raconté à la radio en 2005 que sa passion pour la musique avait commencé très tôt, quand elle était petite, après avoir entendu sa mère jouer du piano. "A partir de ce moment, je ne me rappelle pas quand je n'ai pas joué du piano, j'en jouais jour et nuit, partout où je me trouvais", a-t-elle dit. "Chez ma tante, au jardin d'enfant - partout où il y avait un piano, j'en jouais", a raconté la pianiste qui est décédée d'un arrêt cardiaque

mercredi 21 août 2013

Cedar Walton nous quitte à l'âge de 79 ans





Cedar Walton, Pianist and Composer, Dies at 79

Cedar Walton, a pianist who distinguished himself as both an accompanist and a soloist, and who wrote some of the most enduring compositions in modern jazz while a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the early 1960s, died on Monday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 79.
Rachel Papo for The New York Times
Cedar Walton performing with his quartet in 2009.
Arts Twitter Logo.


    His death followed a brief illness, his manager, Jean-Pierre Leduc, said.
    Mr. Walton sat in with Charlie Parker, spent a year accompanying the singer Abbey Lincoln, and recorded with both John Coltrane and, much later, the saxophonist Joshua Redman. He led a series of successful small groups, including a trio and a quartet that both featured his longtime collaborator, the drummer Billy Higgins. Yet he probably remained best known for his early work with one of the most influential incarnations of the Jazz Messengers, the group that the drummer Art Blakey ran as a kind of postgraduate performance academy for rising jazz stars.
    Mr. Walton joined the Jazz Messengers in 1961, on the same day as the trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. (Among the other members of the group at the time, was the tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter.) It was here that Mr. Walton established himself as a composer; over the years he would write a number of pieces that became jazz standards, including “Mosaic,” “Bolivia,” “Mode for Joe” and “Ugetsu,” also known as “Fantasy in D.”
    Mr. Walton said his time with the Jazz Messengers helped him greatly as an accompanist, a role he often said he preferred to that of leader. Asked in a 2010 interview — conducted in conjunction with his being named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts — what was most important about providing accompaniment in an ensemble that thrives on improvisation, he said, “Total listening.”
    Cedar Anthony Walton Jr. was born on Jan. 17, 1934, in Dallas. His mother, Ruth, played and sang popular songs at home. He was not initially interested in reading music, but he showed an early inclination to compose.
    “Are you making up songs again?” his mother would call out.
    He studied music composition at the University of Denver but later switched to music education. Instead of graduating he left in 1955 for New York, where he soon joined the local jazz scene.
    Mr. Walton’s survivors include his wife, Martha Sammaciccia; three children from an earlier marriage, Carl, Rodney and Cedra; and a daughter from another relationship, Naisha.
    In April 1959, after serving in the Army, Mr. Walton was sought out by John Coltrane to play on a rehearsal recording for what would become one of his landmark albums “Giant Steps.” Mr. Walton played on the technically daunting title song but declined to take a solo. He soon realized that had been a mistake.
    “The song was too hard for me,” he said in a 2011 interview with JazzWax, Marc Myers’s Web site. “But you just didn’t do that. I was young.”
    When the album was recorded, Mr. Walton was out of town and Tommy Flanagan played piano. Years later, the sessions with Mr. Walton were released as alternate tracks. By then, he had long since established himself as a forceful and elegant soloist. His years with Mr. Blakey helped.
    “He had sort of a bombastic style, but he would leave little openings for you,” Mr. Walton said in the 2010 interview. “So you developed your radar when to get in. If you didn’t get in then, you wouldn’t be heard.”





    dimanche 18 août 2013

    David Stone Martin et les Pochettes de Jazz

    Trouvé sur You Tube: l'art de Davis Stone Martin pour les pochettes de Jazz



    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puo1cJD9BLM

    mardi 13 août 2013

    Trois concerts de Junas 2013 sur Arte Liveweb

    Steve Swallow Quintet
    Que ce soit en tant que musicien, compositeur ou producteur, Steve Swallow a su imprimer sa marque sur l'univers jazz de ces quarante dernières années. Il est aujourd'hui entouré d'une nouvelle formation composée de Chris Cheek (saxophoniste, 60 albums à son actif), Steve Cardenas (guitariste, ex-collaborateur de John Patitucci et Charlie Haden) et Jorge Rossy (batteur, camarade de Joshua Redman et Brad Mehldau). Pour ne rien gâcher, la grande Carla Bley s'est jointe à l'aventure (comme si ce quatuor ne contenait pas assez de talents).

    Cela faisait des lustres que Steve Swallow n'avait pas créé de groupe bien à lui. Heureux de voir (et surtout entendre !) que notre attente a été récompensée.



    http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Steve_Swallow_Quintet_feat__Carla_Bley_au_festival_Jazz_a_Junas/

    Daniel Humair est l'un des meilleurs batteurs jazz du monde, une véritable légende. Loin de s'enfermer dans son succès, celui qui a collaboré avec les plus grands s'entoure aujourd'hui de jeunes artistes prometteurs.

    Excellente idée car du Daniel Humair Quartet est née une superbe création : Sweet & Sour. Un petit bijou de jubilation, en totale avec adéquation avec cette formation ayant pour mots d'ordre "rencontre" et "échange". En live, cela donne des prestations pleines de complicité, de spontanéité et de plaisir. De la musique aigre-douce ? Tant qu'elle est comme celle-ci, on en redemande !

    http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Le_Daniel_Humair_Quartet_au_festival_Jazz_a_Junas/

    "Tribute to Tony Williams". L'objectif de Joël Allouche est clair : rendre hommage à celui qui a tant apporté à son instrument de prédilection, la batterie. Découvert par Miles Davis à seulement 18 ans, Tony Williams a en effet modifié en profondeur la façon de jouer des batteurs. Par fracturation du temps, il a donné naissance à de nouveaux rythmes et à de nouvelles accentuations.

    Pour ce projet, Joël Allouche s'est entouré de deux artistes confirmés : la trompettiste Airelle Besson, et le saxophoniste Pierre-Olivier Govin; mais aussi deux jeunes talents : la contrebassiste Gabrielle Koehlhoeffer et le pianiste Rémi Ploton. Comme quoi la musique n'a que faire des générations.


    http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Le_Joel_Allouche_Quintet_au_festival_Jazz_a_Junas/


    Peu de nostalgie avec Chet Baker

    Chet Baker (4) et Paul Bley, seuls ensemble

    LES DISQUES RAYÉS |
    Le 
    François Gorin
    Le 27 février 1985, Chet Baker est de passage à Copenhague. Depuis sept ans, il est devenu citoyen d'Europe. Itinérant – un genre de rom à la trompette. C'est un âge décadent pour sa santé (dentition incluse), mais prolifique. Des dizaines d'albums, pour presque autant de labels. Dont le danois Steeple Chase, label chez qui Paul Bley vient de graver Questions. Il y a passé les deux nuits précédentes. Survient Chet et les deux se mettent au boulot. A part une brève performance au festival de Juan-les-Pins, ils n'ont pas joué ensemble depuis trente ans. En 1955, Chet avait attiré en Californie le pianiste canadien, encore étudiant à Juilliard. Par la suite il a vu pas mal de chatouilleurs d'ivoire, et pas les pires. Bill Evans est surChet (1959). On continue de rêver à ce qu'aurait donné le duo sans l'excellente compagnie qui l'escorte. Vraiment alone together, juste eux deux.
    Les huit morceaux de Diane sont peut-être ce qui s'en approche le mieux. L'aventureux Bley, celui qui se piquait d'égarer ses sidemen dans les allées de n'importe quel standard, observe ici une discipline idéale. Ce soir du 27 février, Chet Baker veut le lancer sur Elsa, que jouait Evans avec son Trio de 1961. Ça coince. Ils plongent dans How deep is the ocean… Le souffle du trompettiste est un mince filet d'air. Il n'en veut pas plus. Il lui faut juste le minimum pour produire la voix qu'il aime sortir de l'instrument. Ce son, suave et ténu, sombre et vaporeux, c'est aussi parfois sa voix humaine. Chet sings, par exception mais avec le même naturel, toujours confondant. You go to my head est le deuxième morceau de l'album et c'est en prêtant l'oreille qu'on entend son chant. Les mots sont distillés avec parcimonie, au-delà de la douleur que sublimaient chacune à sa façon légèreBillie Holiday et Beverly Kenney, dans l'évocation d'un amour toxique. Puis la voix repart comme elle était venue, sur la pointe des lèvres, et l'un des plus beaux disques du monde suit son cours.


    Chet Baker & Paul Bley You go to my head (1985)

    lundi 12 août 2013

    Trois Femmes de Jazz

    VIDÉO. ACS : trois femmes, trois générations de jazz




    Par 



    Au loin, un piano retentit, une batterie donne le rythme et une basse résonne dans la chaleur marseillaise. Ce sont les trois filles d'ACS qui font leurs balances dans le jardin du palais Longchamp. Plus tard dans la soirée, Geri Allen (piano), Terri Lyne Carrington (batterie) et Esperenza Spalding (contrebasse) uniront leur talent en l'honneur des 80 ans du grand Wayne Shorter, dans le cadre du Festival Jazz Cinq Continents de Marseille.
    D'une fraîcheur incroyable, ce trio, symbole de trois générations de l'histoire du jazz moderne, saura parfaitement revisiter les morceaux - tel "Mysterious Traveller", "Nefertiti" et "Virgo" - qui ont fait la renommée du saxophoniste vétéran. Thèmes parfaits, solos majestueux et aura incroyable. Au point que le maître lui-même a confié au micro de FIP que la célébration de son anniversaire importait bien moins que la prestation de ce trio exceptionnel dans un domaine toujours dominé par la gent masculine.
    Les trois musiciennes et compositrices, qui ont chacune fait leurs preuves de leur côté, s'étaient réunies une première fois autour du projet The mozaic Project de Terri Lyne Carrington. Après le magnifique set qu'elles ont offert à Marseille, elles comptent bien poursuivre l'aventure. Pour le plus grand plaisir des amateurs. 
    REGARDEZ le trio ACS le 23 juillet à Marseille :
    http://www.lepoint.fr/musique/videos-live/video-acs-trois-femmes-trois-generations-de-jazz-10-08-2013-1712947_1432.php

    Trouvé sur: All About Jazz

    Genius Guide to Jazz

    What Is Jazz

    What Is Jazz
    By  Published: August 12, 2013
    Being the Dean of American Jazz Humorists®, I am often called upon to weigh in on a variety of important issues affecting the future of Jazz. For instance, I weighed in at 294 pounds on the topic of "Why Jazz Still Matters" and a relatively svelte 275 on the topic of "Where is the Next Generation of Jazz Coming From?" I won the first debate by fall in 2:35, and the second by a 8-1 majority decision. So, let's consider those matters settled.
    Still, there are a great many issues facing Jazz as the very fabric of society changes rapidly, almost daily. The most pressing, in my opinion is "What Is Jazz?" Or, more to the point, "What Is Jazz Right At This Moment?" The old definitions, which themselves were inadequate and vague, composed of personal biases and half-truths, are now completely antiquated. Just think about the difference between what defined the simple telephone thirty years ago, compared to today's reality of what a telephone is. And compare today's smartphones to what a telephone was just five years ago. The more you think about it, the more you realize not only how far things have come, and how quickly they are changing, but how much your own initial definitions are rooted in long-held ideas that no longer apply. Then, you will come to the conclusions that it's probably best to just say "to hell with it" and have a nice soothing glass of bourbon until your head stops spinning and you no longer feel like you're 150 years old.
    For the longest time, Jazz could be more or less accurately described as "an acoustic, improvised music created in America by a melding of African and European influences using traditional instrumentation." It was, indeed acoustic; electric instrumentation didn't made any significant inroads, beyond the occasional use of the electric guitar, until the 1960s. It was predominantly improvised, using a predetermined melody and set progression of chord changes. It would grow less improvised with the strictly charted tunes of the Big Band era, with improvisation reserved for designated solos. Jazz would not be completely improvised until the advent of Free Jazz, and you see how that turned out. Our Music was indeed created in America, and mostly from African and European influences. But the mixing of those influences is so complex, so multifaceted, that it would almost be easier to make your own Worcestershire sauce at home than it would be to sort out the exact blend of influences that contributed to Jazz.

    samedi 10 août 2013

    Boris Rose: premier 'bootlegger' de jazz

    Peu des activités de jazz  dans le Midi  pendant la période de vacances en mois d'août!

    Régalez-vous avec la vraie histoire du premier 'bootlegger' de jazz : Boris Rose à New York


    Birdland-Sessions-CD1-1800
    Boris Rose: archivist of live jazz
    A little research lifted the lid on the prolific archivist of live and radio jazz performances, Boris Rose. Rose literally made a career of recording jazz - in the manner of a would-be Rudy Van Gelder but with a "the world is my studio" motif, elevating the status of the  "bootleg" to a serious independent jazz label, without payment of royalties. The ever helpful Discogs community identifies ten vinyl editions from the Session Disc "catalogue" (though not my Bill Evans volume)
    With many artists already having released a large numbers of studio-quality live recordings at the time, Blakey must have several dozen, you ask why you need more in the form of amateur recordings, but some of these artists are so special and the venues unique, so there are selectively to be welcomed. Boris succeeded in capturing in the raw something not unlike a "real" imperfect live experience, the balance dictated by whichever musician happened to be nearest to his presumably concealed tape recorder. Some of his recordings were made from radio broadcasts, so the quality Certainly superior to today's life through a camera-phone experience.
    BORIS-ROSE-SESSION-DISCS-1800-lJC
    More of the story behind Boris's nocturnal tape recording activities emerges from this interview with Rose's daughter, Elaine, in the redoubtable Wall Street Journal, which I have taken the liberty of reproducing here:
    Wall Street Journal December 4, 2010
    NYBORIS1
    Elaine Rose, daughter of famed jazz archivist Boris Rose, holds a portrait of her father in front of a small portion of his many master tape recordings from Birdland and a number of other New York jazz venues.
    In a dark basement in a quiet residential neighborhood in the Bronx, a well-known archive of privately recorded live tapes and acetates is gathering dust and waiting for some institution to acquire it. The Boris Rose archive, named for the New Yorker who amassed it, is so capacious, in fact, that no one has even cataloged all of it and Elaine Rose, who has owned it since her father died 10 years ago, can't even begin to guess how much it's worth.
    "This collection certainly deserves to be in a major institution, such as the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, or Institute of Jazz Studies—intact," said John Hasse, the curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institution.
    The collection contains everything from rare performances by modern jazz legends like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane to swing stars like Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Mr. Rose's own favorites, like Sidney Bechet and Eddie Condon. Ms. Rose is well aware of the need for finding a permanent repository; the acetates and the tapes are, she said, in delicate condition.
    "It needs a home. I just can't keep it in storage. I'm giving myself a time frame of six months to a year to do something with it," she said.
    NYBORIS3
    Boris Rose (1918-2000) was one of those legendary characters who seem to proliferate in the world of jazz. He was tall, articulate, always very well groomed—and by all accounts an outrageous character. An inveterate prankster, he dreamed up a dizzying array of fake label names (including "Titania," "Ambrosia," "Caliban," "Session Disc," "Ozone" and "Chazzer Records"), many of which he tried to pass off as European imports. Most of his albums bore an address on the front, such as "A Product of Stockholm, Sweden." But if you looked closely on the back, it would say something like "Manufactured in Madison, Wisconsin" in much smaller type.
    The truth was that Mr. Rose produced them all from his brownstone on East 10th Street. He told me once that he took great delight in confounding collectors and discographers, whom he regarded as the bean counters of jazz.
    "I always felt something about jazz," Mr. Rose said in an undated interview with historian Dan Morgenstern that was taped for German television. "As far back as 1930, I listened to broadcasts from the Cotton Club. I heard Duke, I heard Don Redman, I heard Cab Callaway."
    During his years at City College, Mr. Rose practiced the c-melody saxophone but began to find his calling when he got a job at the MRM Music Shop on Nassau Street.
    "As far back as 1940, I purchased a home [disc-cutter] recorder and I began to dub records," he told Mr. Morgenstern. "For the next few years while I was in the Army, I was able to dub records for collectors who couldn't find the originals."
    From there, he branched out to recording radio broadcasts and then live bands in clubs. "Getting out of the Army in 1946, I had professional equipment, and began to take down all of these jazz broadcasts," he explained. "First on 16-inch acetate discs. Later on, when tape came into the picture, I was able to record on tape."
    Mr. Morgenstern remembers Mr. Rose as "a man who never sat down—he was always monitoring three or four tape recorders or disc-cutters at any given time." For decades, Mr. Rose ran a thriving business, recording jazz wherever he could, then making and selling copies or trading them for rarer material.
    He operated from 10th Street, but stored most of his original tapes and acetates in the basement of his house in the Bronx, where he raised his three daughters.
    NYBORIS2
    One of Rose's tape recorders
    It's still fairly well-organized: Discs are mostly in one area; soundtracks are in one set of cabinets; 10-inch reels are in one spot and 7-inch reels in another. 78 RPM discs and LPs are all over the place. A thick layer of dust rests on top of everything, but considering the vastness of the collection, the few tapes I recently took out and examined seemed to be in good shape—though neither tape nor shellac will last forever.
    Mr. Rose kept detailed notebooks of almost every recording he made. The trick, though, is to find the tape to match the written entry.
    "We won't know what's in there—or what shape it's in—until somebody wants it," Ms. Rose said.
    The centerpiece of the Rose archive is the Birdland Collection: Mr. Rose recorded virtually every band that played this most legendary of jazz joints, either directly off the airwaves or by smuggling a concealed tape recorder into the club.
    Over time he amassed a spectacular library of modern jazz from the glory years—the 1950s. His friends found this amazing since he rarely listened to the stuff himself; his own tastes ran to Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory. Still, he documented an entire era of music, the great majority of which hasn't been heard in 60 years.
    Around 1970, Mr. Rose's business entered a new phase when he began using some of his material for mass-produced LPs that were distributed internationally, generally bearing amateur-looking artwork and misleading information. According to friend and researcher Arthur Zimmerman, Mr. Rose rarely if ever bothered to negotiate with the actual musicians or pay mechanical royalties for the compositions (with the exception of several country albums by Gene Autry, after the singing cowboy's lawyers got in touch). He sold Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday material to ESP Records, and a famous double-LP set of Parker at Birdland to Columbia Records.
    In the end, Mr. Rose released hundreds of albums, under dozens of label names, up through the mid-'80s. When compact discs took over, he gradually lost interest. In the '90s, he made it known that the archive was for sale, but kept raising the price whenever anybody expressed interest.
    "He left it to me so I could have an income," said Elaine Rose. "His words to me were, 'Make money with it.' But it's a whole different era now."
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Credits:This article was bootlegged from The Wall Street Journal.  Boris would no doubt have approved.