Danke einmal mehr – und ich hoffe, Du machst weiter!
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Was „Love In Us All“ betrifft habe ich mir zum Line-Up noch gar nie Gedanken gemacht … ich habe inzwischen das japanische Remaster von 2014 da:
https://www.discogs.com/de/Pharoah-Sanders-Love-In-Us-All/release/8498061
Da gibt es eine Liste der Musiker nur in Japanisch, aber es ist wohl dieselbe wie beim Discogs-Eintrag und ergo auch nicht weiter hilfreich. Und das ist auch mal wieder ein Fall, wo alle einfach einander abzuschreiben scheinen.
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Was das Ende von Impulse betrifft, tippe ich mal ein wenig (die Kapitelüberschrift davor lautet „The last wave rises …“):
… AND CRASHES
As 1974 wore on, it was clear that Steely Dan, Jim Croce, and Chaka Khan (with her group, Rufus) were ABC’s sole hitmakers, and were pulling the company along. But together they could not offset the overextension of resources and chronic mismanagement that its other labels were suffering at the time, including multi-million-dollar contracts for superstar artists whose output never returned the investment. Part of the blame, according to Phil Kurnit, lay with ABC corporate back in New York City.
They saw records as becoming a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. [and] said to ABC, „Do all the things you can to expand the record division and be as aggressive as possible.“ Lasker ran with that [Jay Lasker: ein kurzer Nachruf mit ein paar Infos]. For example, Lasker bought a lot of distributors so ABC really had a branch distribution system [by the mid-seventies]. They had only a little fragment of it under Newton.
Lasker began looking to import hit-producing formulas from outside the company. He began pestering Backer about a sales-topping jazz label run by the man who, ironically, had founded Impulse.
„By 1974, we were going through the down cycle,“ Backer says [Steve Backer – noch ein Nachruf]. „They were cutting their losses. Pharoah Sandes was the best-paid of Impulse at the time–his contract was not renewed. The pressure to equal the success of Creed Taylor at CTI put a different spin on my being able to move forward at the pace that I wanted to. I loved CTI’s records–Freddie Hubbard’s Red Clay, Grover Washington Jr.’s stuff–it was highly produced and highly glossed. The packaging was the Impulse idea taken to the extreme, but the artistry and the production work was different than everybody else in jazz at that point. CTI was the high point of the entire fusion situation.“ [Für alle Fälle: Wir haben hier auch einen CTI-Thread]
Taylor’s winning formula had been to recruit a tight cadre of jazz veterans (Milt Jackson, Stanley Turrentine, Hank Crawford, Hubert Laws, Ron Carter) with an updated repertoire of „standards“ (well-known rock and funk melodies) and employ pop production standards (and budget), adding string arrangements and the like. CTI’s unabashed pop sensibility earned critical reproach yet solid sales, and eventually caught Lasker’s attention.
I remember one meeting specifically, because Jay hat a way of mispronouncing artists‘ names, and so he started by saying, „You know what, Steve? Creed Taylor is really doing well–I should have listened to you, we should have signed that Chuck Corea and Stanley Turpentine“ [laughs]. I said, „Yeah, I guess we should’ve Jay.“
But the writing was on the wall: for the first time in the label’s history, ABC brass was looking to influence the general direction of Impulse.
Before 1974 ended, Steve Backer departed ABC to pursue a leading jazz role at former CBS Records president Clive Davis’s newly formed Arista Records, striking the art-commerce balance anew with a wider view than his acoustic-based approach at Impulse. He was successful almost immediately.
I went to meet with [Davis] about starting a jazz division with him, and we came to terms. It seemed this would be a very aggressive thrust into the marketplace, and that I would have complete artistic latitude. I signed [avant-garde saxophonist] Anthony Braxton, and the Brecker Brothers. … [Tenor saxophonist] Michael Brecker and Randy [his trumpet-playing brother] added amplification to their instruments, so they were a terrific, qualified sort of fusion band that was immensely successful. They sold a quarter-million albums by their second album.
Meanwhile, back at ABC, Ed Michel continued his various studio efforts. His duties at BluesWay had crested in 1973 with the release of a whopping thirty-four albums over a two-year period, spurred by a production and licensing deal with former Vee Jay Records president Al Smith. Included were a plethora of blues musicians like Sunnyland Slim, produced by Smith; others, like Earl Hooker, Charles Brown, and Jimmy Witherspoon, produced by Michel; and John Lee Hooker, whose rock-blues efforts were overseen by Bill Szymczyk. There were also best-of’s from BluesWay’s first wave, plus reissues from the recently acquired catalogs of Vee Jay, featuring Jimmy Reed, and the Houston-based Duke/Peacock, with classic recordings by Bobby Bland, Junior Parker, and other R&B stars.
For Impulse, Michel balanced a year’s worth of new titles by the label’s leading artists (Jarrett, Barbieri, Klemmer, White, and Rivers) with in-the-can recordings from Sanders (Village of the Pharoahs [AS-9254], Elevation [AS-9261], Love In Us All [AS-9280]) and Shepp (Kwanza [AS-9262]) and a final psychedelic jazz disc from guitarist Howard Roberts (Equinox Exrpess Elevator [AS-9299]). There were more best-of titles (Re-Evaluation two-fers on Albert Ayler, Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef and Ahmad Jamal) and the increasingly popular Coltrane gems from the vault: Live in Japan [AS-9246-2], Africa/Brass Sessions, Volume 2 [AS-9273], and Interstellar Space [AS-9277].
„I knew there was more unissued stuff when I put out Interstellar Space–which got everybody really excited,“ Michel states. „But I didn’t last much past that.“
As Backer had felt the winds shifting, so Lasker’s turn came to be buffeted. Leonard Goldenson (Nachruf, Wiki), focused primarily on the day-to-day affairs of ABC’s TV network, had left his position as chairman, leaving his assistant Marty Pompadour to deal with the record division. Spying the decrease in ABC Records‘ bottom line, Pompadour had taken the bold move to creating an office above Lasker: his choice was the accountant and business manager Jerry Rubenstein.
„Pompadour felt that Lasker was old hat,“ Phil Kurnit recalls. „He was enamored with Rubenstein, with whom he did a lot of business. Rubenstein was a very bright guy, and a C.P.A. He had something to do with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Poco; and had been handling everything for Mama Cass, who had already passed away. Lasker said, ‚You’re in breach of contract‘ and walked out. It was a surprising move for Pompadour to make and it was a surprising move for Lasker to make, which proved to be Lasker’s undoing in the end. And it proved Pompadour’s undoing–he ultimately was out, and a large part of it was because of what happened with the record division.“
The opening weeks of 1975 saw the news go public in Billboard, while the effect blew hard through ABC’s offices.
„The whole company flushed,“ reports [Dennis] Lavinthal. „It really happened when Jerry Rubenstein came in. Here was a guy who knew very little about the music business but had a lot of clients as a business manager. This is not a story that hasn’t been repeated ad infinitum in the music business over the last thirty years. Corporate guys bring in non-music people to run the record companies, and they toilet them because it’s not a business that you can run with M.B.A.’s and accountants. It’s a feel business.“
In a matter of weeks, all ABC staff linked to Lasker were let go in a regime change.
„Jay Lasker was out, a new team was in, and i was one of Jay’s boys so I was hasta la vista, but I wouldn’t leave the studios. I was working fifty-hour days!“ remembers Michel with a laugh. „I finally had to come back to the building for something and they found me to tell me I was fired. People said, ‚If they knew where you were you would have been fired six weeks ago.'“
Michel remembers that he was let go sometime in early 1975. The House That Trane Built–as an active enterprise operating with the same consistent vision–effectively ended, awaiting tenants and direction from a new landlord named Rubenstein. Goldenson and ABC’s shareholders would soon be forced to divest ABC of its record division. Michel and Lavinthal would continue on their respective paths in the music business. Lasker would jump to the helm at other labels, including Arista and Motown.
Phil Kurnit sums it up: „Lasker survived, ABC ultimately didn’t. Where Impulse figured into any of this, who knows?“
aus: Ashley Kahn: The House That Trane Built. The Story of Impusle Records, New York/London, 2006, S. 256f. & 260f. (S. 258/59 ist eine Doppelseite über Sam Rivers‘ Album „Crystals“)
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Lavinthal, dessen Vater Lou den Vertrieb von ABC leitete, kam jung zum Label und wird bei Kahn (S. 238) so über Michel zitiert:
„My recollection [of Impulse] is a catalog company with Ed Michel making some quirky records and smoking some good weed,“ says Lavinthal. „There were some fun experimental projects that took place–a Howard Roberts album called Antelope Freeway. At the same time, Impulse was this avant-garde, non-melody expression of strong emotion.“
Was in Kahns Buch auch recht klar hervortritt und auch in der längeren Passage oben angedeutet wird, ist der „boardroom divide“ (S. 239) bei ABC: zwischen dem „ABC Brass“ in der Geschäftsleitung und denen, die Platten produzierten, gab es schon zu Beginn mit Bob Thiele eine riesige Distanz. Ein „natural match“ für Impulse war ABC noch nie, aber dort hatte halt damals Creed Taylor so erfolgreich gewirkt, dass man ihn machen liess, als er Impulse auf die Beine stellen wollte. Bob Thiele, der nach dem halben Dutzend von Taylor verantworteten Alben (dieser übernahm 1962 unter dem neuen Besitzer MGM die Leitung von Verve Records, das dessen Gründer Norman Granz gerade veräussert hatte) bei Impulse übernahm und bis zum Ende des Jahrzehnts das Label prägen sollte, wird bei Kahn im Kontext mit dem Bruch, der sich abzeichnete – gemäss Thiele ein „defining point in his career“ (Kahn paraphrasiert die Autobiographie, S. 199) – bei der Louis Armstrong-Session, die „What a Wonderful World“ zeitigte, so zitiert:
In Thiele’s view, „I fought for the black musicians all my life. … What happened in the last few years with me at ABC, the musicians, when they couldn’t get what they wanted, the only person they had contact with was me. And they would blame me, not knowing I was the only one fighting for them all the time.“
Der Präsident von ABC-Paramount, Larry Newton, Thieles grosser Kontrahent, wollte von Armstrong keine Ballade sondern einen Dixieland-Kracher à la „Hello, Dolly!“ … die Single kam ohne grossen Werbeaufwand heraus und wurde erst 1988 zum Hit, als sie im Film „Good Morning, Vietnam“ verwendet wurde. Und klar, ein Plattentitel wie „Liberation Music Orchestra“ – das schon in die Abnabelungsphase von Thiele fällt, als auf den Alben beim Produzenten-Credit stand: „Bob Thiele, for Flying Dutchman Production“, aber Haden trat in diesem Fall selbst als Produzent auf – passte den „suits“ in der Teppichetage von ABC mit ihren überaus konservativen Ansichten ganz und gar nicht in den Kram.
In dieser Zeit, als Thiele schon mit einem Fuss zur Tür raus war, haute er ironischerweise noch den letzten grossen kommerziellen Erfolg für das Label raus: Pharoah Sanders‘ Album Karma (AS-9181), „a one-off, two-track album that stood out–particularly on free-form rock radio–with the singular yodeling technique of vocalist Leon Thomas, and proved to be in tune with the spiritual uplift of the day. As underground and college deejays began to program the album’s hit tune, „The Creator Has a Master Plan,“ Karma became the successor–in message, sales, and episodic length–to A Love Supreme.“ (S. 200f.)
Thiele hatte Sanders schon 1965 unter Vertrag nehmen wollen, doch er hörte immer wieder dieselbe Antwort: „What kind of crap is this? This isn’t going to sell.“ – die Widerstände verschwanden selbst beim Erfolg von Karma nicht, das immerhin zwölf Wochen an der Spitze der Jazz-Charts von Billboard stand, wie Thiele sich gemäss Kahn erinnert. Doch nach dem unerwarteten Erfolg hiess es von Seiten des Präsidenten von ABC plötzlich: „‚Hey, did we sign that Pharoah Sanders?‘ I replied, ‚No, you didn’t want to.‘ ‚Oh,‘ he said, ’sign him up now; he’s hot, let’s get him.'“ (S. 201).
Steve Backer, der 1969 zum Label stiess (er kam vom wesentlich jüngeren Verve, wo er z.B. mit Laura Nyro zu tun hatte – Creed Taylor ging zwar 1967 zu A&M, aber im selben Jahr installierte er bei Verve auch das Folk-Sublabel Folkways, das Platten von Nyro, Richie Havens etc. herausbrachte), hatte die Idee, College-Package-Touren zu organisieren, die als langfristige Anlage Impulse-Musiker als Performance-Künstler an Colleges und in Rock-Clubs brachte. Tickets wurden billig verkauft, weil das ganze den Anzügen von ABC erfolgreich als langfristiges Investment verkauft werden konnte. Dabei waren zunächst bei einer „experimental regional tour“ Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, John Klemmer und Michael White. Später folgte eine Tour durch das ganze Land, bei der auch noch Archie Shepp dazustiess (in der Zeit hatten Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Cannonball Adderley und ein paar andere schon den Gang in die Rock-Arenas genommen und spielten in den Fillmore-Clubs in New York und San Francisco). Diese Tourneen halfen, Impulse-Platten abzusetzen und Backer wurde zum „general manager“ des Labels (ähm, mit Prokura, wie sexy ist das denn).
Backer war es, der – ahnungslos im Jazzgeschäft aber ein grosser Liebhaber der Musik und Coltrane-Fan – als erstes mal fünf grossartige Musiker für das Label verpflichten konnte (1972/73): Gato Barbieri, Keith Jarrett, Marion Brown, Dewey Redman und Sam Rivers. Er löste damit in Kahns Worten (S. 244) „the last great avant-garde wave on Impulse“ aus – in derselben Zeit etwa, in der die letzten direkt Coltrane verbundenen Musikern – Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp und Pharoah Sanders – ihre Verbindungen zum Label allmählich lösten.
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Ob das alles noch in den Sanders-Thread gehört? Irgendwie schon, man kann es ja im Bedarfsfall auch noch in den Impulse-Thread rüberholen.
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #158 – Piano Jazz 2024 - 19.12.2024 – 20:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba