The house that Trane built : the story of Impulse Records

419 Pages·2006·6.51 MB·English

by  Coltrane

CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Introduction

CHAPTER The Man Behind the Signature: Creed Taylor (1954–1961)
1
Ray Charles Genius + Soul = Jazz Impulse A(S)-3
Gil Evans Out of the Cool Impulse A(S)-4
Oliver Nelson The Blues and the Abstract Truth Impulse A(S)-5
John Coltrane AfricaBrass / Impulse A(S)-6

CHAPTER The Re-education of Bob Thiele (1961–1962)
2
John Coltrane / Live at the Village Vanguard / Impulse A(S)-10
Benny Carter / Further Definitions / Impulse A(S)-12
The Ellington Saxophone Encounters
Curtis Fuller / Cabin in the Sky / Impulse A(S)-22
Freddie Hubbard / The Artistry of Freddie Hubbard / Impulse
A(S)-27
McCoy Tyner / Inception / Impulse A(S)-18

CHAPTER Intuition and Impulse (1963–1964)
3
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman / Impulse A(S)-40
Charles Mingus The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Impulse
A(S)-35
Archie Shepp Four for Trane Impulse A(S)-71
John Coltrane A Love Supreme Impulse A(S)-77
CHAPTER The New Thing and Impulse (1965–1967)
4
John Coltrane Ascension Impulse A(S)-95
Pee Wee Russell Ask Me Now! Impulse A(S)-96
Earl Hines Once Upon a Time Impulse AS-9108
Sonny Rollins Alfie Impulse AS-9111
Odds & Trends—Part I Various Artists Various Titles

CHAPTER Between Jazz and a Hard Place (1965–1967)
5
Steve Kuhn The October Suite: Steve Kuhn Plays the Compositions
of Gary McFarland Impulse AS-9136
Odds & Trends—Part II Various Artists Various Titles

CHAPTER Impulse After Trane (1967–1969)
6
John and Alice Coltrane Cosmic Music Impulse AS-9148
Albert Ayler Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe Impulse
AS-9191
Elvin Jones and Richard Davis Heavy Sounds Impulse AS-9160
Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra Impulse AS-9183
Pharoah Sanders Karma Impulse AS-9181

CHAPTER Impulse Out West (1969–1975)
7
Howard Roberts Antelope Freeway Impulse AS-9207
Ahmad Jamal The Awakening Impulse AS-9194
Alice Coltrane Universal Consciousness Impulse AS-9210
Sun Ra: The Saturn Recordings
Archie Shepp Attica Blues Impulse AS-9222
Gato Barbieri Chapter One: Latin America Impulse ASD-9248
Keith Jarrett Fort Yawuh Impulse ASD-9240
Sam Rivers Crystals Impulse ASD-9286
John Coltrane Interstellar Space Impulse AS-9277

CHAPTER The Lives of a Label; The Tenor of a Time (1975–Present)
8
John Handy Hard Work Impulse ASD-9314

Epilogue
Alice Coltrane Translinear Light Impulse B-0002191-02

Discus Personae
Source Notes
Impulse Records Discography, 1961–1977
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
Copyright
Also by Ashley Kahn
INTRODUCTION
The music of a well-ordered age is calm and
cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a
restive age is excited and fierce, and its
government is perverted. . . .
—The Annals of Lu Buwei,
quoted in Herman Hesse’s Magister
Ludi
Orange and black. Fire and ebony. Fury and pride.
From 1961 through 1976, Impulse Records wore its signature colors proudly
and raised its exclamation point high, producing albums with hinged, brightly
hued covers that opened wide, attracting generations of listeners into an exciting
and far-ranging world of improvised music. The sound in its grooves bristled
with the spirit of the sixties, swinging with the musical experimentation and
political outrage of the day. To many who made it through the era, the label was
an inherent part of the velocity, keeping pace with—and at times predicting—the
sound and politics that lay ahead.
“That’s where it’s at right now,” explained Bob Thiele, the veteran record
producer who headed Impulse through most of that period, in 1966. “Jazz music
has always reflected the times. Today, there are violent social transitions taking
place, and these changes that are sometimes confusing come out in musical
expression.”
But Impulse did so much more than reflect a revolutionary time. It fit
perfectly into the golden age of jazz, that brief window from the late fifties to the
seventies when more jazz players than ever before (or since) were alive and
active, representing every era of the tradition. Think Armstrong to Ayler, swing
to the “New Thing.” No, Impulse didn’t record them all. But it certainly tried
harder than any other label, and managed to unify all these styles and approaches
into a uniformly modern sensibility that has yet to fade.
Modern enough to still be a leading go-to record label for today’s top mixers
and hip-hop producers. The proof can be found in the orange-and-black spines
peeping out of deejay record crates, and in the Impulse samples popping up in
the freshest dance-floor grooves.
Invoke the label to anyone today who is music-aware, not only the jazz-savvy.
The typical response mentions the music, the sixties-seventies overlap, and, just
as often, fold-out covers and something about orange.
“In school, I could tell how much someone knew his music by the orange I
saw on the shelf,” states Daniel Richard, a record executive who, among other
duties, is responsible for marketing Impulse recordings in France. “There was a
certain mystery about those records,” says jazz journalist and critic Gary
Giddins. “When I was in high school, the question with Impulse was, did you
alphabetize them with all the other albums or did you keep them together so you
could have the big orange stripe on your wall?”
“The branding was terrific,” offers Don Heckman, another veteran jazz critic.
“I seem to recall that we were annoyed by the gatefolds initially because it took
up more space on the shelves, but then you valued having that additional space
for the liner notes and photographs and so forth.”
It was branding that reached far beyond the jazz sphere, helped attract a whole
new generation to jazz, and burned itself into the public consciousness. The
rhythms and freedoms that resounded when Impulse LPs spun on turntables in
the sixties and seventies resound as strongly today. In its day, the Impulse logo
promised forward-looking music in a design that was unforgettable—and
functional.
“Those gatefolds were a wonderful development because they served as a
deluxe rolling tray to manicure your marijuana,” sixties political gadfly and jazz
booster John Sinclair recalls. “The best Impulses had the most seeds stuck in the
middle.”
A new generation turns on to Trane: David Crosby of the Byrds (right) and brother Ethan with
Coltrane’s Ballads album.
At the midpoint of the sixties most jazz record labels were identifiable by a
consistent character and style. Columbia, the Tiffany of the lot, was really a
general pop music label that boasted an upper tier of post-bebop jazz: Miles
Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Dave Brubeck. Atlantic balanced modernists like
the Modern Jazz Quartet and Rahsaan Roland Kirk with the soul-and blues-
tinged sounds of David “Fathead” Newman and Hank Crawford. Verve
specialized in vocals and well-crafted productions, finding commercial gold first
in the bossa nova craze with Stan Getz and others, then with pop-friendly titles
by the likes of Wes Montgomery. Prestige and Blue Note had come to rely
primarily on the overlap of hard bop and soul-jazz stars like Gene Ammons,
Jimmy Smith, and Lee Morgan. Finally, there was a new crop of
experimentalists: Eric Dolphy and Sam Rivers on Blue Note; Albert Ayler and
Pharoah Sanders on the tiny ESP label. From the early sixties on, they led a
cadre of avant-gardistas (to borrow a term coined by Archie Shepp) who were
building a more aggressive stratum atop the innovations laid down in the fifties
by Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane.
Impulse stood out from the crowd in a number of significant ways.
Impulse was born fully mature, Athena-like, to the ABC-Paramount Record
Corporation, unlike the many celebrated jazz independents like Blue Note and
Riverside that struggled to distinction. Impulse rocked to life with a Top Ten pop
hit, “One Mint Julep,” courtesy of Ray Charles, and never felt dire financial
pressures until well into the seventies. Those gatefold covers with glossy
photographs did not come cheap—nor did the creative, large-budget recording
projects for which the label became known. For Impulse—thinking like an
independent and spending like a major—the support of a corporate parent was
instrumental and distinctive.
While most groundbreaking labels stay sharp and modern for maybe four or
five years, Impulse delivered a cutting edge for an impressive fifteen-year run,
absorbing progressively new sounds and innovations, a restless rara avis in an
industry where locking into formula is the rule and happens all too quickly.
Much of Impulse’s later output is still fanatically praised by a portion of fans and
musicians, while remaining as divisively controversial today as it was when first
released.
Impulse initially stood out from other labels of the day by covering a vast and
variegated overview of the music, from swing to the extreme experimental edge
of sixties jazz. Eventually, the label fine-tuned its focus almost exclusively on
the avant-garde, and distinguished itself further by marketing that music
successfully.
How the label was first perceived—and how that perception evolved—is one