Recently I had occasion to read a thread on another BBS that tends to cater to more straight ahead jazz discussion. It had to do with opinions about vocalist Kurt Elling.

I was amazed at all the praise heaped upon him while he was putting out music for the Blue Note record label. But when he switched to Concord the praise descended into less-than-complimentary posts about his "Nitghtmoves" release.

For me "Nightmoves" is one of his very best and it got me to wondering how many of us will judge an artist strictly by the label with which he records? Jazz purists are obviously guilty of this, but I wondered about c-jazz fans.

Opinions???

Phil. Just go to All Music and read the comments about albums of contemporay jazz interprets. It sometimes really ridiculous how the jazz critics insist on non-jazz elements as malus.

Interesting question, Phil. I know there are people loyal to certain labels, but that has a lot more to do with how happy they are with the music put out by that label than it has to do with how an artist's sound may change after a switch.
Hbh is correct about AMG. Sometimes, the information there is helpful in getting some historical or factual information, but the writers' biases are very disturbing.

No, I am not loyal to any record label, but I do pay attention to them as a guide to what may appeal to me. After all, any company wise enough to have both the Yellowjackets and Spyro Gyra on its roster may have other good artists. Peace and goodwill.

I see the interest or loyalty to labels as a general music nerd thing, not just a jazz thing, because I've seen fans of other music do it too. Who else but a record geek would care, you know?

Personally it's interesting to me see who is where, but even some esteemed labels make absurd decisions about people's work, or someone amazing may be on a random label. It's a point of interest but not a foolproof barometer, that's for sure-- especially as so many are going indie now.

Maybe it's a carry-over from the 60's-70's time frame....in those days, it was a useful tool to get an idea of what a new artist may sound like; like Capricorn, which had the Allman Bros and other southern rock bands. Of course one totally different band of the time was on there, Sea Level, which I truly loved their music but it was waaay out of the Capricorn box; I would never had heard of them, tho, if not for the label.
Of course that whole label ended up badly anyway.....won't go there.

Another example is Atlantic ( sub division was Atco)- at the time, I thought, man if you've gotten signed by Atlantic/Atco you must be something great; those days they threw a lot of bucks at developing artists and promoting them. Like Led Zep- and lots of other styles of music, but generally good bands, like Rush, Matchbox 20, Genesis, Average White Band, Clapton, etc.
But they are obviously not what they used to be...just go to wikipedia and type in atco, look at the artist list. Wow.

With indie, self production, and "boutique" labels, the big labels seem to be more just about distribution than artist development...I doubt many major labels these days would put up with a Rolling Stones type band that needed years to develop.

Just my 2c...Clearly don't make buying decisions based on labels anymore.

Count me as a record geek, Leslie

TonyY

Labels? We don't need no stinkin' labels.

It's about the music, man....Couldn't care less.

COULDN'T AGREE MORE!

But on the other hand, which instrumental artist has so much money to make an expensive record, only labels can finance.

I honestly feel an Independent artist can track, mix, produce and master a great-sounding CD in his/her converted garage - thanks to 2008 technology.
Will the final product sound as good as if it were recorded at The Record Plant, for example? No, we still need those mothership recording studios to achieve that overwhelming, huge sound only the $200/hr studios can produce.

Having said that, it's very scary how close a good Independent artist can come to achieving that sound with today's technology. In fact, with the right engineer, today's artists ARE releasing tracks that sound BETTER than anything recorded before 1980 - ALL produced in their home studios.

That fact still doesn't diminish the appeal pre-1980 songs still hold today. Though not sonically equal to 2008 garage studio technology, these songs are still selling...
It IS all about the music!

The BIG money is needed for marketing, packaging, distribution and courting radio stations to play your music.