Producer Joel Dorn was responsible for some of the most memorable jazz recordings of the last generation as a staff producer at Atlantic Records, as well as his own 32 and M imprints. He's also compiled numerous collections of vintage jazz, including the successful Rhino/Atlantic Jazz Remasters series. We caught up with Joel recently to get his two cents on jazz past, present and future...
Rhino: What turned you on to jazz in the first place?
Joel Dorn: I've been interested in music since a very early age. My mother used to play Al Jolson records for me during WWII when I was like, a year and a half old. And when I got into my early teens, it was in the '50s and it was kind of hip to dig jazz then. That's when all of the Miles stuff and the Brubeck stuff and Horace Silver and people like that were starting to reach out to people once they got past their high school years -- you know, when you kind of got into college and started digging jazz? So there was a lot of jazz around and it was a hip music to dig at that time. I didn't get into it easily at first, because I didn't really understand it -- it sounded strange to me. I didn't understand what the solos were about and why it didn't sound like other music. But there was something strangely appealing about it, and after a while, I got it. And I've loved it ever since.
R: What was the most memorable live jazz performance you ever saw?
J: Well, there isn't one. I grew up in Philly, so I enjoyed going to clubs like Pep's, and The Showboat, and The Cadillac and seeing the jazz groups like Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderly and John Coltrane and Art Blakey and all the singers like Lou Rawls and Johnny Hartman and Oscar Brown Jr., people like that. And the trios like Ramsey Lewis and Les McCann and the exotic performers like Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Yusef Lateef and Eddie Harris. There was a circuit then and guys would play the major cities for a week and Philadelphia had three clubs and I was a disc jockey in those years, a jazz disc jockey, so I was in the clubs every night. So it wasn't so much a particular performance, it was the scene at the time. Although I will tell you that the Cannonball Adderly Sextet that featured Yusef Lateef was one of my favorite groups ever - I loved to see Cannonball, loved to see Horace.
R: What was your first assignment at Atlantic Records?
J: My first assignment at Atlantic Records? I had been in correspondence with Neshui Ertegun from the age of 14. Neshui had been very kind to me - we corresponded and he sent me records and he listened to my idiotic ideas and he actually answered them, answered the letters that contained them. And pretty much from that time I had been begging and pleading to have him give me a job. I had a lot of balls -- I used to beg and plead to let me get a job as a producer at Atlantic while I was still in high school! And when I became a disc jockey, it gave me a little bit more of an entry card. When I went on the air, I became a very effective seller of Atlantic Records in Philadelphia. So my relationship with Neshui tightened up.
It got to the point after I'd produced a few records that I'd gotten independent financing for, Neshui called me one day and said “Do you really want to be a producer?” I said “Yeah” he said “Here's your assignment: go find somebody that no one's ever heard of and I'll give you $1500 to make a record - that covers signing the artist, your producer's fee, paying for the sessions, paying for the cover, paying for mastering.” In those days, you could do an album for $1500, you know? And I said “OK.” And there was a young flute player in Mongo Santamaria's band that I was turned on to by the owner of Pep's Showbar in Philly, Jack Goldenburg, who knew of my assignment. His name was Hubert Laws. And he was the first artist I ever found, first artist I ever signed, first artist I ever produced. And the album was very successful in relative terms and Hubert was the new star of the year in Downbeat that year on flute.
So it was a good beginning and then I continued to produce independently and had a few albums that did fairly well - most especially an album called Bagpipe Blues by Rufus Harley. And then in May of 1967 after bothering Neshui for 11 years he called me to New York and he said “You're gonna work at Atlantic as a producer.” And I worked as his assistant, and as an independent producer, talent scout, promoter, liner note copy checker, album cover maker, you know what I mean - in those days we did everything.
R: Having produced pop recordings as well as jazz, do you consciously approach the two styles differently in the studio?
J: Not really. I mean a record's a record, you know? So I try to approach each record on its own merits. For instance, there was a time when I was simultaneously recording Roland Kirk, Bette Midler, Kate Smith, Asleep At the Wheel, and Don McLean. That's a pretty across-the-board combination of artists. But each album was approached through my general viewpoint. If you were a movie director and you were working on a Western, and then your next movie was a love story and your next movie was a pirate movie, you would have a general way that you would approach anything that you do and then you would adapt that way to each specific film - the same thing with a record.
R: Is there one most artistically satisfying experience you've had in the studio that you could point to?
J: There are many of them. Sometimes it's just one cut on an album, sometimes it's the relationship with the artist, sometimes it's an album in and of itself. I could tell you that it was always a lot of fun working with the jazz guys, especially Kirk and Lateef and Les McCann, Fathead, and Hank Crawford because they were friends as well as artists that I enjoyed working with and respected very much. By the same token, it was great working with the Neville Brothers, it was great working with Roberta Flack and Bette Midler, it was great working with Leon Redbone, you know. There's so many different kinds of artists. For instance one of my favorite cuts I ever produced was “Day By Day” by Jimmy Scott. But then one of my favorite albums was recording Marion Williams in her own church in Philadelphia at a service there.
And you know what? I made a box set for Rhino called The Heavyweight Champion - the Coltrane box set. That was as exciting to work with Coltrane's music as it was to go into the studio and record somebody live -- it was thrilling. Making a compilation like Jazz For A Rainy Afternoon that you just make because you think that it's a good idea and it ends up selling hundreds and hundreds of thousands of albums and spawns a series that sells a million. I'm as surprised by it as anything.
R: You've worked with a wide variety of artists. Is there anyone you would single out as being particularly underappreciated?
J: When I recorded Jimmy Scott in 1969, you couldn't give his records away. Jimmy Scott is an international star now. There are people I've worked with like Les McCann who I always though was never fully appreciated. A pianist like Ray Bryant. A lot of the jazz guys I felt never got their due. Kirk and Lateef. But then, you know I had a chance to work with a lot of people in overdub situations like the Drifters or Joe Venuti. It was just a pleasure to work with them; being able to put the Drifters on a record or put Joe Venuti on a record.
I've been really fortunate in that I've kind of -- not 100%, but it's never 100% -- but I'd say in the '90s for sure I've been able to work with who I've wanted to work with and been able to do with them what I've wanted to do, whether that was saying “Here, do this” or just sitting back and letting them do what they do. For instance, last year I recorded a girl named Jane Monhite - a very nice singer that someone brought to me - and the record's taking off like a rocket. And she's a terrific person to work with and a great young singer. So even though the talent pool for the kind of talent that I like is not what it used to be - I mean by the time I was 30, I'd recorded Charles Mingus and Max Roach, and are not any Charles Mingus or Max Roachs around -- but there are pockets of people here and there that still give me that feeling in my belly. And that's always what I look for.
R: If you could clear up any myth or misconception about jazz, what would it be?
J: I don't think jazz is a music for everybody. I guess, a lot of jazz people when you ask a question like that will say "Jazz is a terrific music and I wish more people appreciated it." For me, I think there's a kind of jazz for a lot of people who don't think they like jazz. And I think the “Jazz For...” series that we did at 32 proved that. So I guess if there's a misconception, it would be: it's not the listener's responsibility to come to jazz, it's our responsibility -- the producer's, the artist's, the record company's -- to present jazz that could be appreciated by more people to those people. To spend the time and the money to market it and get it to 'em. Not try and shove jazz down their throats, but try and expose them to the many varieties of jazz. And then I think people would be surprised at, not how many billions of people would come to jazz, but how many hundreds of thousands would come to it.
R: Would you say that technology is changing jazz the same as it has pop or rock music?
J: Yeah, it's managed to fuck it up pretty much the same way it's done it with the other musics! And by the same token it's made it more accessible to people. For instance, one of my sons, Adam, is an artist, a techno artist I guess you would say because he makes all of his music electronically...
R: Mocean Worker?
J: Mocean Worker, right. And he makes it in his bedroom, he has a studio in the bedroom. So whereas when I was a kid you had to have access to a studio and all those things, now kids can get equipment for not too much money. And they can start to build their own home studios and you can start to make music on your own. So in that way the technology has really made creativity available to a lot of people who might not have had it if they had to go through the whole “I have to have a studio” scene that we did when we were kids. On the other hand, technology sometimes is limiting because it kind of lets you come in a little later in the game than people of my generation had to. The technology does some of the work. Here's the analogy I'm trying to make: if you know how to use a calculator, you might not have to suffer through long division. Does that make sense?
R: Can you give us your take on the state of jazz today - who you think the major players are and where they'll take the music?
J: I think jazz now is a music that's being maintained. So I applaud the young players who are keeping the music alive. What's sad for me in a certain way is that we're not living in a time of giants, that we're not living in a time of originals. There are very few originals. So, while there are some excellent musicians, and while they're playing very well, when I grew up you had Miles, Trane, Mingus, Monk, Horace, Cannonball, Basie was still wailin', Lester Young was alive, Billie Holiday was alive, Ellington had a band, you know what I mean? It was one seminal artist after another - Louis Armstrong was playing someplace every night. Now you have a lot of excellent musicians - and I won't negate their excellence - but it's not a time of people who are originals and giants and where you can turn around and hear something stunningly new and world-class practically anyplace you turned to. But you have to have in-between periods like this, until you get to the next generation of giants and originals.
R: Could you pick your top 3 or 4 all-time favorite jazz records?
J: Well, obviously Kind Of Blue, you know, because it's just so definitive. And then um... it's less jazz records that I like than jazz artists. I've always been drawn to Cannonball's best work, to Horace Silver's best work, to the albums by Coltrane - especially Favorite Things and Giant Steps and the album he made with Johnny Hartman and the best of the things he did on Impulse! I like Monk, especially the Riverside things, you know. There's so much, it's really difficult to pinpoint it. There would be a time when I could tell you “yeah, these are my three favorite records.” I'm too old and I've been around too long to have three favorite records anymore!
R: Let's finish up with some of you favorite memories of working at Atlantic
J: Well, you know, working at Atlantic was the favorite memory. Because I was working for one of the absolute giants of the recording industry, Neshui Ertegun, a man of exquisite taste and vision. And also his brother Ahmet and Jerry Wexler. They put together a company where the only thing you chased was excellence. And even though I started there as the jazz producer, I could sign a Bette Midler, I could sign a Jimmy Scott, I could sign a Roberta Flack - and still work with Les McCann, Eddie Harris, Fathead, Hank Crawford, Rahsaan, or Yusef, that gang of people. I'll tell you it was thrilling the night we recorded “Killing Me Softly” 'cause I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But it wasn't any more exciting than doing “Day By Day” with Jimmy Scott. Or “Ladies Man” with Oscar Brown Jr. Or recording the Layers album or the Invitation To Openness album with Les McCann. Or going in and just recording Yusef and Rahsaan twice a year and being surprised by the magic stuff they would continue to bring in and never repeat themselves. It was some experience. Man, let me tell you, when I say those days are over, please believe me.
R: Do you have more personal memories of some these folks? What sticks out in your mind about, for instance, Charles Mingus?
J: I knew Mingus from my disc jockey days in Philadelphia because he came by the station. The first interview I ever did with an artist - when I was 19 ; I'd never interviewed anybody in my life - and the first one was an absolutely livid Charles Mingus! Who burst into the studio when I was on the air doing a blizzard because someone had said something about him in a newspaper - he was ready to kill somebody. So, when I got to record Mingus (we did the reunion concert at Carnegie Hall), he was as sweet as sugar the night we worked together. Then I'd see him come up to Atlantic sometimes and it was practically a cavalry charge on the building, you know! He was a very mercurial, volatile person. Don't forget I was a kid, I was in my teens, when I started this stuff and it's really an interesting thing to go and buy a Max Roach record and then eight months later be working in the studio with him. That's a lot for a kid. Or to pick out people when I was a disc jockey and say “when I get to be a record producer this is my guy” and sign Roland Kirk or Yusef Lateef or Les McCann or Eddie Harris, you know? I absolutely started at the top of the food chain by working for Atlantic, and I learned my craft and hopefully a little bit of art on the fly. You can't imagine; I thought that was normal!
I've really been lucky; you know if someone can say they're blessed - in September of this year 2001, it'll be 40 years I'm doing this. It's still exciting, it's still fresh, I can still get excited by a new concept, a new idea, a new artist. I don't know if that happens in a lot of lives. I will also tell you that it's a roller coaster ride and it's an up-and-down kind of life and you have to reinvent yourself all the time and you gotta stay fresh and you gotta keep your edge and you gotta keep reaching. But it beats working for the government, you know?
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