Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. 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 was expanded to fill the role 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.
Blue Note was acquired by Liberty Records in 1965 and Lion, who had difficulties working within a larger organisation, retired in 1967. Reid Miles' association with the label ended around this time. For a few years most albums were produced by Wolff or pianist Duke Pearson, who had filled Ike Quebec's role in 1963, but Wolff died in 1971 and Pearson left in the same year. George Butler was now responsible for the label, but despite some good albums, the commercial viability of jazz was in question, and more borderline and outright commercial records were made (often by artists who had previously recorded straight jazz for the label - Bobby Hutcherson, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Grant Green, Horace Silver).
EMI purchased United Artists Records in 1979, which had absorbed Liberty Records in 1969, and phased out the Blue Note label which lay dormant until 1985, when it was relaunched as part of EMI Manhattan Records, both for re-issues and new recordings. Some artists previously associated with Blue Note, such as McCoy Tyner made new recordings, while younger musicians such as Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Greg Osby, Jason Moran and arranger / composer Bob Belden have established notable reputations through their Blue Note albums. The label has also found great commercial success with the vocalist Norah Jones, and released new albums by established artists on the fringes of jazz such as Van Morrison, Al Green, Anita Baker and newcomer Amos Lee, sometimes referred to as the 'male Norah Jones'. Two of the leading trumpeters of the 1980s Jazz Resurgence, Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard signed with the label in 2003.
Blue Note has also pursued an active reissue program in recent years. Bruce Lundvall was appointed to oversee the label at the time of the revival and Michael Cuscuna has since worked as freelance advisor and reissue producer. Some of Blue Note's output has appeared in CD Box sets issued by Mosaic Records (also involving Cuscuna), and there has been a series of reissues of older material, much of it in the RVG series , remastered by Rudy Van Gelder. Blue Note Records became the flagship jazz label for Capitol Jazz and Classics and was the parent label for the Capitol Jazz, Pacific Jazz, Roulette and other labels within Capitol's holdings which possessed a jazz line.
