Ovation TV | Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz

Earlier this year, Ovation TV did a spotlight on Blue Note Records and analog mastering engineer, Stan Ricker.

Ovation TV | Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz

The story of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff - two Jewish immigrants who founded Blue Note Records, the record label that helped bring jazz music to the mainstream.

Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion, Francis Wolff and Max Margulis. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. Blue Note Records is currently owned by the EMI Group and in 2006 has been expanded to fill the function of an umbrella label group bringing together a wide variety of EMI-owned labels and imprints specializing in the growing market segment of music for adults.

Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk...these names are synonymous with the great Jazz Age. But how many people know Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, to whom we owe the recorded memory of our Jazz legends? Two German Jews who emigrated from Nazi Germany to New York "discovered" an American art form, which at the time received little serious attention from mainstream America: jazz music. Without money or connections and speaking little English, the two men began to record practically unknown musicians, following their own taste and judgment. Today this list of artists reads like the who's who of jazz. Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz tells the story of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff and their record label. It is the story of the rise of Modern Jazz, of a friendship in exile and of uncompromising artistic excellence. Told by the musicians, by friends and associates, and by fans of the Blue Note recordings from all walks of life, Blue Note recreates an era of American cultural history.