Like footsteps in the sands of time, record companies have provided the raw material around which jazz history has been constructed — RCA Victor, which recorded the first bona fide jazz band in 1917 and was the first to cash in on the post-first world war jazz craze, and Columbia, which quickly followed. As a burgeoning record industry blossomed in the 1920 and 1930s, a vast array of companies with romantic-sounding names like Decca, Okeh, Vocalion, Harmony, Parlophone and Brunswick sprung up that were host to some of the great names in jazz — Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.
After the second world war, most of these companies had disappeared through corporate mergers and takeovers as the industry consolidated into the hands of a few major players such as Columbia, RCA Victor and Decca. And, while the majors continued to play their part in documenting the history of the music, most key developments were now being charted by small independent companies — Blue Note, Contemporary, Savoy, Prestige, Riverside, Verve and Pacific Jazz. They were often run on a wing and a prayer by highly motivated entrepreneurs who captured vital work by such key figures as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman at a time when the big major recording companies were not interested.
The last of the historically significant American jazz record labels, Impulse Records, emerged in 1961. The spiritual home of saxophonist John Coltrane, who helped define the label almost from its beginnings through to his death in 1967, Impulse! championed what was known in the 1960s as ‘The New Thing’. An angry, confrontational style of jazz, it emerged at the hands of politically conscious, free-jazz-inspired Afro–American musicians, whose demand for musical freedom echoed the Freedom Now crusade of the Civil Rights campaign. It meant that if you wanted to know what was going on in jazz in the 1960s, you checked out Impulse! first. Its advertising slogan said it all, ‘The New Wave of Jazz Today!’, and it is a reflection of the inspired artistic choices that went into building the label’s catalogue that some of these recordings are more exciting and adventurous than anything currently going on in American jazz.
In fact, Impulse! did much more than reflect the revolutionary times. It also fit perfectly into what is now regarded as the ‘Golden Era’ of jazz by recording a wide range of gods from the jazz pantheon, including Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Earl Hines, Benny Carter, Sonny Rollins and Duke Ellington. But, as author Ashley Kahn points out in his new book, The House that Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records, it was John Coltrane’s creative drive that propelled the label along its experimental path, something that continued for almost a decade after his death.
Presentation was all — each album exuded class. This strategy was the brainchild of producer Creed Taylor, who founded the label under the auspices of the ABC Paramount corporation. He spent twice the going rate on album covers, using top portrait photographers of the day, expensive gatefold covers, lengthy explanatory liner notes and plenty of photos from the recording sessions. Each album was conceived as a complete musical experience, with what many thought at the time was insane attention to sound quality, which is why the music sounds so fresh today.
From its very beginning, Impulse! seemed to leap fully formed into the music marketplace and was immediately rewarded with a Top Ten hit, ‘One Mint Julep’ by Ray Charles. It was the pace-setting label in jazz until the mid-1970s. With corporate takeovers, the Impulse! catalogue now rests with Universal/Vivendi, which has produced a number of tie-ins to coincide with the publication of Kahn’s book, including the eponymously titled four-CD set The House That Trane Built. It provides a solid representation of the label’s output from 1961 through to 1976, during which time a succession of determined producers left their imprint, none more so than Bob Thiele, who succeeded Creed Taylor, guiding the label from 1961 to the middle of 1969. His close personal relationship with Coltrane made the saxophonist the label’s standard-bearer. While most labels remain hot for just a few years, Impulse! delivered cutting-edge jazz for a decade and a half. In an industry that often resorts to formula, Impulse’s output covered a vast and variegated view of music that went from straight-ahead offerings of high quality to head-banging experimental jazz still capable of scaring the bejusus out of you. It says all you need to know about the label that these albums still remain as controversial as the day they were made.
The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records (Granta) was published on 8 August.
Comments