Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Jazz Festival New York Posts 2025 Lineup
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
Taylor’s label was a landmark in funk-influenced jazz-fusion.
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)Legendary record producer and label head Creed Taylor died at age 93 on Aug. 22. He was well known for his foundational work at Impulse!, Verve and A&M Records, but primarily for founding Creed Taylor International — also known as CTI Records — in 1970. Through his label, Taylor coached some of the greatest talents in jazz during the ’70s into recording many hugely selling releases, archly controlling every aspect of CTI projects. He worked closely with engineer Rudy Van Gelder and photographer Pete Turner to make his albums uniform in sound and appearance. Taylor didn’t stop there, founding the more R&B-influenced label Kudu as a subsidiary to CTI.
In its day, CTI put out albums by Airto, Allan Holdsworth, Bob James, David Matthews, Deodato, Don Sebesky, Esther Phillips, Fats Theus, Freddie Hubbard, Gabor Szabo, George Benson, Grover Washington Jr., Hank Crawford, Hubert Laws, Idris Muhammed, Milt Jackson, Joe Farrell, Kenny Burrell, Lalo Schifrin, Randy Weston, Ron Carter, Stanley Turrentine and more. The label is a landmark in funk-influenced jazz-fusion.
Taylor was expert at assembling players for these releases. Interviewed by Wax Poetics magazine in 2009, Taylor described his methods: “Well, look, it’s like a baseball manager,” he said. “It’s a different aesthetic. But it’s similar.”
Unfortunately, by the end of the 1970s, CTI folded after having over-expanded into distribution. Yet its legacy, and Taylor’s, looms large in jazz. DB
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
