While I usually enjoy a great diatribe, rant or any criticism about the record industry, these things usually carry more weight if the person has some knowledge of what he is criticizing. Steve Griggs' diatribe In Whose Best Interest displays a complete ignorance of the subject he is discussing.

First of all, let's have a little history lesson. When Lee Morgan was at Blue Note, it was a small independent label run by two men who loved the music. The artists were paid a decent wage for their work and after Lee produced one of the label's first hits, The Sidewinder, he was well rewarded. The reasons for his prodigious amount of recordings are two-fold. The first, which I explained in my liner notes, was that Blue Note wanted to document the work of a great artist in a particularly fertile period as often as possible and (Mr. Griggs please note) Lee, and his sidemen, were paid for every session whether it was released or note. So you see it was very fortunate for Lee to go to the studio as often as possible because he was paid every time. Also, Lee wanted to go into the studio as often as possible because of his various well documented habits, which always left him a little short of cash (which is reason number two and I didn't want to discuss this in the liner notes).

Another point Mr. Griggs missed and I glossed over in the liner notes was that these were rejected sessions. Alfred Lion had very high standards and didn't release a lot of great albums that have since seen the light of day. If you have the Dexter Gordon box set, look at the booklet and read the correspondence between Dexter and Francis Wolff. In one letter explaining why he won't release "Club House," which I think is a great record, he says "He (Alfred) is very disappointed. The rhythm is not together and the whole thing sounds bad. Im other words the session no good and we do not plan to release it. Therefore, we will just have to make another session to replace this one." Get the idea. Remember, again, the artists were paid for every session.

So that was the Blue Note of yesterday. How about the Blue Note of today? Blue Note is now a division of Capitol Records, which a division of EMI. Going through the famed Blue Note vaults and finding unreleased sessions by historic artists is of course a benefit to a huge corporation. But remember these sessions were paid for and the artists (or their estates) do receive royalties (though I see this practice is questioned alot on this website) upon release. I do know for a fact that when I worked on the Lee Morgan Live at the Lighthouse re-issue, each musician on the date received a decent check for the bonus tracks.

Sure the label probably benefits the most but isn't the job of all huge corporations to make the most money from all their holdings. I don't think Alfred Lion or Francis Wolff could have foreseen what their little label would turn into. More important to me is that I think Blue Note blew the marketing of the CD (you can go on and on about greed at major labels but a more distressing problem is the general incompetence). It was thrown out on the market as a re-issue (in a 'Standard' series that included CDs of previously released material as well as unreleased sessions). Except for some fine print on the back of the CD there is no mention that this is previously unreleased session. To the naked eye it looked like a compilation. I'm not saying they needed to throw a ton of money into this but at least put a sticker (they cost less than a penny each) on the cover telling people what they have in their hands. They might even have included it in some of their ads. If they had done any of this, how many more CDs do you think they would have sold? So if they are so greedy, they not doing a very good job of it. What is more distressing to me is that most of the new artists on the label today release music that totally besmirches the great Blue Note name. If these artists were help up to Alfred Lion's standards would anything be released.

Another point I want to make is that somehow in this diatribe I come off as a corporate shill exploiting Lee Morgan. I do not work for Blue Note Records, I was hired to review tapes, sequence the album and write the liner notes for the CD because someone at the label knew of my love and knowledge of Lee Morgan. My enthusiasm in this project and in the liner notes is real and sincere. I was thrilled that this record was coming out, I had known about it for some time and always wondered what took so long for it to be released. My first and only reason was of being happy the record was coming out (I know a lot of Lee Morgan fans) not, I'm so happy that EMI will make even more money now. I was in it for the music and I hope I've explained that it all wasn't as sleazy as you make it seem. Enjoy the music and if you are so concerned about corporate exploitation of great artists, don't buy the CDs. Deny yourself some great music to show you are willing to sacrifice for your beliefs, I'll even buy the Standards CD back from you (no taping) so you won't have this symbol of corporation greed sullying your home.