#producingrecords

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Michael Cuscuna, photograph by Jimmy Katz

Michael Cuscuna

Michael Cuscuna, one of my great inspirations and sometime collaborator, passed away this weekend (April 19, 2024) from cancer. Being a cancer survivor  last year myself, when someone I’ve known and worked with for over 50 years it hit particularly hard.

Blue Cuscuna: 1999 promotional sampler from Toshiba-EMI [Japan]

Michael has been the most consequential jazz record producer of the past half century, a man who had not only a passion, but the relentlessness necessary to will the entire history of the music into being. Don’t believe it? Check out the more than 2600 (!) of his credits on Discogs. Substantial and meaningful he might have been, but to me, he was a slightly older friend who was always there with a helping hand. Hopefully, I was able to hand something back on occasion. 

As I said when he answered “7 Questions” eight years ago: “I first encountered Michael as a college listener to his “freeform,” major station, radio show in New York, and was fanboy’d out when a mutual friend introduced us at [an] open rehearsal for [Carla Bley’s and Michael Mantler’s] Jazz Composer’s Orchestra at The Public Theater (MC has a photographic memory: “It was Roswell [Rudd]’s piece or Grachan [Moncur III]’s. You were darting nervously around the chairs with your uniform of the time – denim jean jacket, forgettable shirt and jeans.”) By 1972 or 73, he’d joined Atlantic Records as a producer, and since that was my career aspiration, I’d give him a call every once in awhile. He’d patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions, and I never forgot his kindness to a drifting, unfocused, fellow traveler. 

“...patiently always make time for my rambling and inane questions...” says a lot about Michael. His raspy voice could sometimes seem brusque, but ask anyone and they will tell you that he always made time to talk. Especially about jazz. 

I desperately wanted to be a record producer and Michael was one of the first professionals I encountered. He had already produced my favorite Bonnie Raitt LP when somehow or other I bullied my way into his Atlantic Records office, where he was a mentee of the legendary Joel Dorn. Over the next few years, Michael was often amused at some of the creative decisions I made, but he was always supportive and even would sometimes ask me to make a gig when he couldn’t. When I spent a year living in LA, he invited me over to the studio while he was mining the history of Blue Note Records that would define his life for the next half century. I completely failed to understand what the great service to American culture he was about to unleash. Along with Blue Note executive Charlie Lourie, Michael’s research resulted in a series of double albums (”two-fers” in 70s speak), but little did the world know what was on Michael’s and Charlie’s minds.

The Cuscuna/Lourie Blue Note “Two-Fers” that ignited Mosaic Records

“I don’t think it’s generally understood just how imperiled the musical and visual archives of Blue Note Records were at one point, and just how heroically Michael stepped in to make sure this unparalleled American music survived for future generations. If you like jazz, you owe the man.” –Evan Haga 

(Joe Maita does a great interview about Michael's career here.) 

Fast forward a few years. The air went out of my record producing tires, I became the first creative director of MTV, I quit MTV and along with my partner Alan Goodman started the world’s first media “branding” agency. Leafing through DownBeat one day I saw an ad that started a new relationship with Michael that would last, on one level or another, for the rest of his life: the “mail order” jazz reissue label Mosaic Records. 

Charlie Lourie & Michael Cuscuna at Mt. Fuji Jazz Festival, Japan 1987. Photograph by Gary Vercelli / CapRadio Music

Long story short, in 1982 Michael returned my check for the first two Mosaic  releases with a note asking for some help. Initially, Mosaic wasn’t the sure fire, instant success Michael and Charlie had hoped for, did I have any ideas? I did, but no time to do anything other than make suggestions, we were busy trying to get our own shop off the ground. This cycle repeated itself for another couple of years when this time when Michael called he said Mosaic was on death’s door. Fred/Alan was in better shape, so Alan and I, on our summer vacation, came up with the first Mosaic “brochure,” convinced the guys we knew what we were doing (I’d read a few paragraphs in a direct mail book in a bookstore) and, with nothing to lose, Charlie and Michael took the plunge with us. Success! 42 years later, the former Fred/Alan and Frederator CFO at the helm, Alan and I always answer any call from Mosaic.

The first Mosaic Record box set 1983

There aren’t many people in the world like Michael Cuscuna. The world’s culture will miss him. I will miss him. Most of all, of course, his wife and children will miss him. 

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Junior Cook Good Cookin’ Muse Records MR 5159

Produced by Fred Seibert

Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder

Junior Cook – tenor saxophone

Bill Hardman – trumpet, flugelhorn

Slide Hampton – trombone, arranger

Mario Rivera – baritone saxophone

Albert Dailey – piano

Walter Booker – bass

Leroy Williams – drums

Click here for my entire discography

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(Originally posted on LinkedIn December 13, 2022)

Side hustle? Actually, a hobby.

   My day job is producing cartoons, the longest of the "five lives" in my official biography. But the pandemic gave me a kind of freedom to revisit some of my past passions. In particular, my life in producing jazz recordings. No commuting to or from work, no breakfasts, lunches or drinks. At least four extra hours a day. Enough time to get into a little trouble. Some would say a side hustle, some would call it a hobby.  

   50 years ago, two friends of mine and I decided to start a record label –Oblivion Records– in the back of a hippie record store one of them owned. We suspended operations four years later, realizing our enthusiasm was no substitute for knowing how to run the business, and it wasn't until the digital music revolution of the 21st Century that I got our six records back into the marketplace where they've performed better than I could have imagined.  

   This year, I actively revived Oblivion with the digital drop of a two hour concert album I recorded in 1973. Composer and pianist Cecil Taylor (1929-2018) is one of the three major avant-garde, free jazz artists –along with John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman– who reinvented one of America's most vital and satisfying art forms. And word just came that the jazz bible DownBeat, will be the first to announce the album as one of the best historical releases of the year (UK's The Wire will follow, as will others*). On behalf of the concert musicians –Cecil Taylor, Andrew Cyrille: percussion, Jimmy Lyons: alto saxophone, Sirone: double bass– I'm honored.  

   Some –many?!– would ask "why?" Why release a 50 year old musical performance? Why release an album of an artists barely anyone has heard of? Why digital only, you make no money?  

   All good questions, I suppose, and my answers won't be entirely satisfying.  

   It's rare in one's life that you could be involved in history. At least, that's true for me. I've had some amazing, groundbreaking experiences in television, animation and streaming video; only time will tell how they fit into culture. But, time has already given a thumbs up judgement on Cecil and I was beyond lucky to have some tiny involvement in it. Over the past half century he went from being barely able to fill a small jazz club to a concert star of the highest caliber. He was a true artist who incorporated modern dance (yes, he also danced at many of his performances), fashion, and a completely unique approach to his instrument, his compositions and his band leading. He appeared across the globe to rapturous audiences –which, due to his steadfast vision, often included grumbling walk outs– and was in demand until he passed away in 2018. Remembrances and reassessments of his life's work followed from all over.  

   Cecil Taylor fit neatly into the Oblivion ethos. In the infinite wisdom of youth and the idealism of the early 1970s, Tom Pomposello, Dick Pennington and I thought the major companies were ignoring talented artists –including Tom– we thought we were worthy. Maybe we could show the world what they were missing. An ad in the back of a local Long Island music rag pointed us in the direction of a record pressing plant a few miles away, we bought a book that described how to design a cover, and edited a live recording of country blues legend Mississippi Fred McDowell to be our first release. More blues, traditional jazz and electronic (soon to be maligned as "fusion"), and Tom's American roots album followed in the next few years. We sold enough McDowells to keep it in print, borrowed money from ourselves and friends for the others, and even had a hit that basically put us down on the mat.  

   All along the way I recorded other jazz artists at my college radio station and one day I was asked if I could find some equipment to record Cecil's hometown "return" to New York City after years as Midwest university professor. You bet! It didn't matter that this was a no-pay gig. Honestly, I had to borrow the cash from my roommate/benefactor/recording assistant Nick Moy for the cab ride downtown, but the chance to work with a world class, world famous artist was more than A-OK for a 23 year old fan. Not for nothing, Cecil had a worldwide rep but this period was only the beginning of his actually becoming a global star.  

   So we're clear, Cecil's music was never for the faint of heart. An explosive, exacting style, once described by UK writer Val Wilmer as "eighty-eight tuned drums," his seeming random din was already shredding any semblance of "swing" that traditionalists were looking for in their jazz heroes. 

   Cecil released the second half of the concert, which fit neatly on two vinyl sides, on Unit Core, his own label (no other record company would have him at the time) as "Spring of Two Blue-J's." He had little interest in running a company, letting the album go out of print even after Gary Giddins of the Village Voice (one of its few reviewers) praised it as his favorite album of 1974. The first half of the recording sat neglected on my shelf for half a century. It was 90 minutes of sweet and sour cacophony that wouldn't fit neatly on the mediums of the time, and besides I lacked the proper equipment to even listen to it.  

   The digital age and the pandemic changed everything. Now, I could go to YouTube and  learn to use the recording studio built into my Apple computer in 10 minutes. The music could be mastered in the extra hours lock down had gifted me. And since streaming audio has no time limitations I could drop the release -the unreleased first set of the concert, and the original LP performances, more than two hours of music– in its entirety without any annoying fade outs along the way. (By the way, the nothing annoyed Cecil's aging fans and collectors more. Most of them hadn't bothered to figure out how to get their phones to play on their grand music systems.)  

   After I figured that stuff out –I was pretty nervous mixing my first music performances in decades– the rest fell into place pretty quickly. Tunecore, a streaming music distribution service, sent the files across the globe and Bandcamp allowed collectors to buy digital files.  

   Most importantly, my longtime creative colleague Alan Goodman agreed to write the digital liner notes (along with the music, they're available at the Oblivion Records website) and jazz promoter and publicist extraordinaire Lydia Liebman accepted the release for her agency.  

   Alan's extraordinary writing and Lydia's phenomenal efforts spread the story of the Cecil discovery worldwide. While the original LP was virtually ignored in its time, 50 years of global touring and the cultural expansion of an understanding public had its effect. The music was reviewed in dozens of publications around the world, not only in the music press, but in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and all sorts of general interest media. 

"An exhilarating set of Cecil Taylor's Jazz Arrives, 49 years later." Alan Scherstuhl, The New York Times  

"Filling in the Blanks of a Jazz Master's Career." Martin Johnson, The Wall Street Journal  

"The biggest bonus track ever!

"The 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ has folks thinking about other thorny, dense, syntactically intricate classics, of 20th century modernism across all the arts.       "Cecil Taylor’s best work, his return concert included, belongs on that distinguished list.” Kevin Whitehead, NPR's Fresh Air  

   So back to the "why." Cecil Taylor was a important artist, if not a top-of-the-pops one. My partners and I wanted Oblivion to release artists who were significant, if not particularly popular. I had a chance to make my side hustle, my hobby, mean something. Is there anything more satisfying? Not to me. 

* PS: This just in. All About Jazz, The Quietus and Glide Magazine just named Cecil's "The Complete, Legendary..." in their best albums of 2022.  

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My first album release in 50 years.

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Readers of this archive know that before Castlevania, before Adventure Time and The Fairly Oddparents, before Hanna-Barbera, and even before my time at MTV, I was a recording engineer and producer of jazz and blues records. In 1972, two friends and I started the independent American music label Oblivion Records in the back of a Huntington, Long Island, hippie record store in 1972. We released our last record in 1975. That is, until February 15, 2022.

Almost 50 years later, during a worldwide pandemic, I’ve revived Oblivion (of course, while continuing to my primary work on world class cartoons at FredFilms).

I’m proud and honored to announce a truly historic recording by one of the world’s acknowledged innovators and a master of avant-garde jazz, Cecil Taylor. After several years composing and teaching at American universities, Cecil’s ensemble made a triumphant homecoming to New York City at the renowned Town Hall for a concert.

The never heard complete recordings were dropped on global streaming platforms on February 15, 2022; you can listen to the album up above in this post, or here.

There's a story behind this recording, told much much better in the extensive notes by my great friend, longtime colleague and, not for nothing, the father of my niece and nephew, Alan Goodman. Alan has written about jazz for almost 40 years now and there really was no one I could have trusted more to explain Cecil to the under initiated , and my small role in his history.

There are ecstatic reviews in the world's major press outlets, various posts about recording Cecil here; I'll let you wade through them if you dare.

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Willis Jackson > Single Action

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Willis Jackson with Pat Martino Single Action

Produced by Fred Seibert

Willis Jackson: tenor saxophone

Pat Martino: guitar Carl Wilson: organ Jimmy Lewis: bass Yusef Ali: drums Ralph Dorsey: percussion

Willis Jackson single handedly pulled me away from the avant garde and towards the soulful, bluesy expression of jazz that was popular in the African American neighborhoods of mid-century America. He didn’t mean to, he didn’t want to, it was just that he was so damn good.

Less a producer than actually a recording supervisor (my credit on this album) I arrived at our first session together (Muse’s In the Alley) with virtually no information on what we were recording or who was playing. Willis was tough and a little paranoid so this situation played out during the three or four sessions we did together. I’d never heard any of his music (it wasn’t cool enough within the jazzbo circles I traveled in) and when I looked into the studio I thought I’d been time warped into the 1950s: five African Americans 20 years older than me in conked processes and starched white shirts and ties. They hit the first tune and didn’t stop until Willis looked up at me and asked if they had enough to fill the record. When informed they were eight minutes short he revved up a blues and kept it going until I faded it to make the length.

By the end of the five hour session I’d stopped making fun (in my head) of the tenor saxophone/organ based soul jazz, and realized why it spoke to so many millions of people. It wasn’t an intellectual exercise but a human one. They were playing songs that people knew and loved, with a feeling that anyone could understand. I was late to the party, but it wouldn’t be over for me even 30 years later. ….. Credits

Muse Records MR 5179 Willis Jackson with Pat Martino Single Action

Recording supervisor: Fred Seibert Engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey April 26, 1978 Cover Design by Ron Warwell/NJE Cover photo by Clarence Eastmond

LINER NOTES COMING SOON

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….. Copyrights and masters owned by their respective owners. I’m posting many of my out-of-print record productions from the 1970s. If any of them are re-released, or the copyright owners object, I’ll delete the posts.

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Willis Jackson > In the Alley

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Willis Jackson In The Alley  Muse Records MR 5100

Produced by Fred Seibert

This recording session was my very first as a paid "producer" (recording supervisor was more accurate; most of the jazz albums I worked on were, in reality, the sole provinces of their leaders), my first gig with Muse Records, and my first with the world class Willis Jackson.

[Click on track names for LP transfers to MP3]

Fred Seibert · Willis Jackson Alley

….. From the liner notes:

PERSONNEL WILLIS JACKSON, Tenor Saxophone SONNY PHILLIPS, Piano CARL WILSON, Organ JIMMY PONDER, Guitar JIMMY LEWIS, Bass YUSEF ALI, Drums BUDDY CALDWELL, Congas and Percussion

Produced by: Fred Seibert Recorded at: Dimensional Sounds Studio, N.Y.C. Engineers: Malcom Addey and Fred Seibert

Art Direction/Design/Photography by Hal Wilson …..

The “Gator” is back and Muse has got him. Willis Jackson and Muse… a natural if you have been into what is happening you know that Muse has recently turned us on to such greats as Clifford Jordan, Richard Davis, Woody Shaw, Buster Williams, Houston Person, the up and coming David Schnitter and others who are causing jazz listeners to exclaim, “That is great; who was that?” This new and exciting album by Willis will keep that sound and trend moving along.

Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson’s road has not been an easy one. Willis was with The Cootie Williams band when he had his first hit record, “GATOR TAIL”. the song naturally gave him his nickname. Jackson was leader, for a period, of a big band that featured his wife at the time, Ruth Brown; an outstanding vocalist. Willis then formed the smaller groups which included artists like Jack McDuff, Pat Martino, Mickey Tucker, to name a few. Still there were those know-it-alls and chest-thumpers who would say that Willis was a Rhythm and Blues player; not a jazz player. Well, I agree with Willis who said that “rhythm and blues and jazz are just words. It only counts at the horn.” What comes forth is the real happening, so judge for yourself. I did and Willis passed the test. If you hear a taste of the blues, well, Willis put it best — “Jazz has roots and blues is the roots. Maybe they understand this: the blues, you got to have it, that’s the roots of it. Some people read a book and decide they know who’s what, but you’ve got the live the music, you can’t read it.” This is what he said in 1974 and it also takes care of now.

A few more things about Willis’ background, he was born in Miami, Florida. At age seventeen, he was playing around town with a couple of musicians named Blue Mitchell and Cannonball Adderly; on to Cootie Williams and “GATOR TAIL”, the small groups and his own very successful recordings.

This is the “Compleat” Willis Jackson. This is the Gator-Tail Willis Jackson groove on the track, “GATOR’S GROOVE”. “IN THE ALLEY” is the Willis Jackson who takes up where “HEADED AND GUTTED” and “WEST AFRICA” albums leave off. He tried his hand at disco, but that is not the “Gator” that I know and love.

We have a beautiful jazz audience in Denver and many of them are in the process of “getting into it”. It is not like Los Angeles, New York or Chicago, where jazz has been around forever, or so it seems. Jazz is relatively new in Denver. Yet, when I played a track by Willis Jackson, featuring his GATOR HORN, (remember that?) a listener phoned to give me a complete rundown on the Gator Horn and closed by saying, “When is he coming back?” Well people, the “Gator” is back.

Willis is working with some outstanding musicians. Other than guitarist Jimmy Ponder, who has released some albums as a leader, the other names have regional followings and will not be too familiar until you hear them “get it on”. Sonny Phillips will make his presence known with some of the finest piano playing that has been heard in quite awhile, as well as writing one of the tunes, “NIAMANI”, a barn burner! Yusef Ali, the drummer contributes “GATOR’S GROOVE” which, incidentally, was the title of an album that Willis did back in 1969. Carl Wilson really strokes the organ and I am sure that your ears will come away completely satisfied with Wilson’s actions. Carl may not have the big name such as Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, etc., but he sure has the talent. You will also be turning the names, Jimmy Lewis and Buddy Caldwell, in your minds. Listen and your shall hear!! So what are you waiting for? Do as I did — rush over to the turntable, drop “IN THE ALLEY” on the spindle. Listen to “Gator” go to work. Yes Indeedy, Mr Tweedy!! Gator’s back and Muse has got him!

Bill Neal KADX-FM the JAZZ STATION Denver, Colorado ….. For a free catalog send to MUSE RECORDS, A DIVISION OF BLANCHRIS, INC., 160 WEST 71st STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10023 ⓟ© 1977, MUSE RECORDS, A DIVISION OF BLANCHRIS, INC. 

……

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Copyrights and masters owned by their respective owners. I’m posting many of my out-of-print record productions from the 1970s. If any of them are re-released, or the copyright owners object, I’ll delete the posts.

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“We started out to make a record, and ended up with a band.” The saga of Dr. C. Or, the end of my fantasies of my pop recording career.

Well, not exactly. The appropriate quote should have been, “We started out to make a film, and ended up with a band.” And, in my case, pretty much the end of the idea that I would become a pop music producer.

My friend, partner and brother-in-law to be, Alan Goodman, was in film school at Columbia in New York, and sometime in 1976, one of his professors was making a short film. It was about... well, it doesn’t really matter. But the star, a character called “Dr. C”, was played by pianist/singer Rusty Cloud. The doctor had a soul band and we recorded a demo that Alan asked me to produce.

Rusty Cloud, photographed by Charlie Reilly, circa 1976

I was more than eager. After a few years of recording blues and jazz musicians, I was eager for pop, my comfort zone. And soul? Yes! Rusty had written an original, the band –keyboards, bass, guitar, drums, saxophones and trumpet– was modeled after the classic Memphis powerhouse Stax Records. Rusty brought some guys, Alan and I did too (in fact, Alan played trumpet on the soundtrack).

The demo hit the right notes for me (pun intended) and right then and there we started thinking about making Dr. C a working band that might have a chance to be signed to a actual record company. My indie company, Oblivion Records, had just crashed and burned, and anyhow, I wanted to taste the real thing.

Dr. C, performing at "Home," upper East Side, Manhattan, New York, circa 1977 (L-R) Irv Waters, guitar; Cleveland Freeman, bass; Rusty Cloud, vocals & piano; unknown, trumpet; Jim Clouse, saxophone; Bruce Kapler, saxophone; David Longworth, drums

Long story short, we shuffled a few folks in the group, started playing “showcases” around town. Alan and I presaged the branding and advertising we’d do during the 80s and put together some hype materials.

Written by Alan Goodman, Designed by Mark Larson

And? Nothing. I couldn’t pull it off. At least, that’s how I looked at it. It wasn’t that we weren’t good enough, I thought, the band was great! So what if Rusty couldn’t really reach all his notes? We rocked. Soul music fronted by a white guy? Perfect! We just needed to hustle. And hustle more.

I was a decent producer. The material was decent. The hustle? In retrospect, it wasn’t me. At least the get-a-band-signed type of hustle wasn’t.

Dr. C quickly ran out of gas. My hopes for a pop recording career did too. I didn’t realize it at the time, but soon enough I was working in radio, then television, where I belonged.

PS: Not for nothing, Rusty was also a talented jazz musician and composer. I leaned on my friends and former employers, Mike Mantler and Carla Bley to give us a day in their Grog Kill Recording outside Woodstock, NY to put some of Rusty's work on tape. Frank Olinsky, who in the future would part of the design collective Manhattan Design that designed the MTV logo for me, illustrated an awesome album cover, that like Dr. C., was not to be.  

Fred Seibert

·

RCQ

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Recording Gunter Hampel @WKCRFM 

Most people have never heard of composer, multi-instrumentalist*, and former Olympic basketball player Gunter Hampel, or even most of his collaborators. But for several years he was very important to me and a few friends at WKCR-FM. Gunter was the first person to put my name on a record, the person who lit the path that it was possible for a son of pharmacists from Long Island to get into the music business. 

It was either David Reitman or Jim Carroll, college radio colleagues, who introduced me to Gunter when he came up to the station for a live radio shot with vocalist Jeanne Lee and clarinetist Perry Robinson. I set up the microphones and beheld some of the wildest sounds my rock’n’roll ears had every heard. Mesmerized, horrified, and enchanted, I stared and smiled simultaneously. A few hours later, Gunter politely asked if he could have a copy, so I ran it off for our station library and handed over the master. And promptly forgot about it. 

Several months later a package arrived for me with several copies of Spirits and this liner...

It was almost shocking, I couldn’t believe it. “...engineered by Fred Seibert.” My first credit on an actual 12″ vinyl LP. And my name was spelled correctly; well, he was German, after all. I’d dreamed about being in the recording industry but had no idea that it was at all practical. There was no internet guidance in those days and I knew no one who knew anything about anything I was interested in. Honestly, I couldn’t even fathom that I was at a genuine radio station. 

But, simple as pie Gunter made it real for me. From then on there’d be no stopping. 

We got along well, Gunter and Jeanne (they were a couple) were fantastically nice folks. I engineered a few more sessions for Gunter’s groups. It wasn’t easy for as unreconstructed an avant-gardist as he to find inexpensive ways to get recorded, and I was a conduit for free sessions. He continued to come up to the station, once squeezing nine players into a studio that was maybe comfortable for five. I got permission from Mike Mantler and Carla Bley when they were traveling to use their 16-track home studio outside Woodstock NY for one of his dates featuring Anthony Braxton. That was the end of our association, since, innocently, they left the Mantler/Bley kitchen a complete mess with their food; Mike was not happy with me that day. 

It was a great run I had with Gunter Hampel. I loved the music, as challenging as it was (once, Alan Goodman and I went to see one of Gunter’s 15 piece bands in a loft; we were the only two in the audience). I didn’t see him again after the Woodstock session; sadly Jeanne Lee –the mother of his children and a total sweetheart with an amazing set of pipes– passed way too early. 

The man gave me a chance. He gave me hope. Thanks Gunter. 

.....

*vibraphone, bass clarinet, piano, saxophones, clarinet, flute

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