Concert Series at Ford Theatre to Celebrate Blue Note’s 50th

Blue Note Records is undoubtedly the oldest continuously active jazz company in the world and is not in the least shy about admitting it. In fact, it is being shouted from the rooftops of New York to a mountaintop in Japan.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, a whole season of concerts was lined up featuring past and present associates of the label. Three have taken place in New York, Montreux and Nice; three more will be presented locally by KLON-FM on successive Sundays, starting this Sunday at 2 p.m. at the John Anson Ford Theatre.

The program will be a cross-section of then-and-now Blue Note achievements. The Ralph Peterson Quintet, a new group whose recent debut drew five-star accolades, will open, followed by an eight-piece ad hoc band with James Moody, Lou Donaldson and Tal Farlow. Wayne Shorter, some of whose greatest LPs were made for Blue Note in the 1960s and ‘70s, will wind up the show, leading a quartet with Teri Lyne Carrington on drums, Mitch Forman on piano and John Patitucci on bass. Ruth Lion, whose late husband Alfred Lion founded the company and who herself was active in its operation in the early years, will be on hand as a guest of honor.

Shortly after the final Hollywood concert Aug. 20, a large contingent of Blue Note stars will head for Japan, the virtual adopted land of jazz, where they will celebrate the 50th anniversary at the annual Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival. Sales in Japan have played an increasingly significant part in Blue Note’s success.

A commemoration more permanent than the concerts is “The Blue Note Anniversary Collection,” a 58-track, five-CD set (BM92547) tracing the company’s story from Sidney Bechet’s “Summertime” in 1939 to Bireli Lagrene’s “Timothee” in 1988. This valuable anthology could make a fine starting point for any tyro collector. (Blue Note’s only major goofs: It never caught up with Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker.)

“We’re keeping up a heavy schedule of reissuing many of our jazz classics--Art Blakey, Bud Powell, Horace Silver--along with the development of new artists,” said veteran pop and jazz producer Bruce Lundvall. “We think it’s working.”

His claim has been justified by the success of Stanley Jordan, the most original new guitarist of the decade, and singers Bobby McFerrin (who will divide his time between pop records for EMI and jazz releases for Blue Note) and Dianne Reeves.

The Blue Note story began when Alfred Lion, a refugee from Nazi Germany, arrived in New York in 1938. Inspired by John Hammond’s legendary “From Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall, he decided to start recording. His first session was a boogie-woogie piano duo date with Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis on Jan. 6, 1939. Over the next decade he moved from pianos to small groups and from traditional jazz to swing to be-bop.