Keeping Blue Note in the green

"This young kid nailed this song completely. And I said, 'How do you even know this song?' " he remembers of their first meeting, which came about when a Blue Note employee working on the business side - who didn't know Lundvall - brought Jones to his attention.

A fan of jazz since childhood, Lundvall was tapped to take over Blue Note in 1984, some years after it had changed hands and gone dormant. When he left Elektra (where he was president, and had started a jazz label) for EMI, it wasn't the first time he had looked to Blue Note for employment. After graduating from college in the late 1950s, he went to Mr. Lion looking for a job and was turned away, told that Lion and Mr. Wolff preferred to do things themselves. When Lundvall took over, he and Lion were in weekly contact about the label.

Lundvall says he sticks to the basics. "You don't always make great records, or great decisions," he explains. "But the best signing that you can possibly make is an artist that has originality and has a vision about what they want to do."

One of the label's top musicians, Joe Lovano, a Grammy-winning tenor saxophonist, has been with Blue Note for more than a decade. Now in his early 50s, he grew up listening to Blue Note artists such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and drummer Art Blakey.

What attracts him to the label, he says, is his rapport with Lundvall, who gives artists the freedom to make the albums they want and trusts the results will be good. "With Bruce, and Blue Note Records in particular through the years, I think the artists have really had a chance to be themselves."

It doesn't bother Mr. Lovano that the label is broadening its roster beyond traditional jazz musicians. "If they're going to be releasing old hits, and just reaching backwards, I'm not going to be so happy," he says. "But if they're going to create some new music and ... have a vision and idea about moving into tomorrow, that's what jazz is about."

Jazz writers, too, are fairly respectful of the label's recent decisions. Mr. Mandel says there are some who take issue with Jones being pushed as a jazz artist - arguing she doesn't swing or improvise. But there's more to the label than Norah, he suggests, pointing to its contemporary artists and lucrative catalog of classics.

"As long as they keep putting out Greg Osby records and they go back into their vaults and find an Andrew Hill record from 1969 that was never out before ... as long as Blue Note is doing that, I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of complaint," Mandel says.

The label has drawn criticism for some of its experiments, such as a hip-hop remix album by the group Us3 in the early 1990s. Still, Lundvall shows little sign of being intimidated by the "jazz police," as he calls purists. The label's credibility is hard to question, he says, pointing out that in the past couple of years he has signed Mr. Marsalis, and is nurturing young performers such as Jason Moran and Stephon Harris.

"If we're going to have a future in this business, we have to be very open-minded. I'm not saying that we make pop records," he says.

Lundvall sees his role as that of advocate or middleman. "The future of jazz comes not from me, it comes from the musicians."

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