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Roots & Influences - The World of Blue Note
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The planet's hippest jazz label dug out its roots from the swampy riverside sounds of New Orleans' Dixieland to the uptown elegance of Harlem's Renaissance. Wanna hear history being made? Then jump in the time machine with us and travel back to December 23, 1938, when a 29-year-old Alfred Lion heard the rocket-fueled boogie-woogie of pianist Meade Lux Lewis and decided to start his own label. We can't guarantee that Lewis' finger-blistering performance of "Cavalcade of Boogie" specifically sent Lion into the record biz, but Lion signed up Lewis for Blue Note's first-ever session a few weeks later. Even at age 16, a young Lion sat awestruck in his Berlin hometown as Maestro Sam Wooding y Sus Chocolate Kiddies introduced him to this newfangled jazz music, oompah-ing and scatting their way through "Tiger Rag" (complete with banjo solo). And a lush-life, supper-club chic cradles Billie Holiday's sultry vocals in "Fine and Mellow," straddling an ever-blurry jazz-blues borderline . . . just like Norah Jones would do on Blue Note 60-some years later. From Louis Armstrong to T-Bone Walker, from big band swing to downtown soul, all the raw ingredients for Blue Note's casserole of cool are right here at your fingertips.