Keeping the groove going:
As Record Store Day approaches, Bay Area shops adapt, improvise to survive pandemic.
Highly sought after by jazz connoisseurs, tastemakers and hiphop producers around the world, albums from Oakland’s longdefunct Black Jazz Records label will finally be widely available — and just in time for Record Store Day this year.
The independent record label, active from 1971 to 1975, showcased Black musicians, employed an allBlack staff and reflected the era’s social activism with releases like Doug and Jean Carn’s “Revelation,” Rudolph Johnson’s “Second Coming,” and Henry Franklin’s “The Skipper at Home.” Those albums and more will now be given new life as the Orange County label Real Gone Music is doing a deluxe LP and CD reissue of all 20 Black Jazz Records releases, starting with three set to drop on Friday, Aug. 28. Another will drop 24 hours later to mark Record Store Day, which will be celebrated on three dates this year.
After that, Real Gone Music plans to continue rolling out releases through December 2021. Each reissue will include new liner notes written by Oakland’s Pat Thomas, the author of “Listen Whitey! The Sounds of Black Power.” Real Gone Music will also contribute $500 per rerelease to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that provides legal representation to those who say they have been wrongfully convicted, unfairly sentenced or abused in U.S. jails and prisons.
“We may have been a little ahead of our time,” says Calvin Keys, whose first two albums as a bandleader were released by the label, in a phone interview from his home in Oakland. “Black Jazz Records was part of a movement that’s still going on now. The logo we had, a Black handshake (a.k.a. ‘soul brother’ handshake), caused a lot of stir in certain places.
“But the music speaks for itself,” the 77yearold guitarist says. “Jazz is one of the most powerful forces. Everywhere this music has played, they never recovered — that’s how strong it is — and so Black Jazz Records is an example of that.”
Keyboardist Gene Russell, who died of a heart attack in 1981, was active on the Los Angeles jazz scene when he
conceived the idea for Black Jazz Records. He recruited many L.A. players, including Keys, bassist Henry Franklin and drummers Chester Thompson and Michael Carvin, for future recording sessions. Russell relocated to Oakland (Keys eventually followed), home of the thenfledgling Black Panther Party, and partnered with percussionist Dick Schory, who owned the country music label Ovation Records in Chicago. Ovation Records funded and then distributed each Black Jazz album, which was helpful when it came to having a guaranteed recording budget.
The relatively low initial supply of original Black Jazz Records albums and the fact that the label shuttered more than four decades ago has led to a steady demand on the secondary market, Real Gone Music CoPresident Gordon Anderson, 58, says during a phone interview from his home office in West Hollywood.
Double bassist Harish Raghavan, 38, was known for his record hunting when he toured internationally with drummer Eric Harland, Oaklandbred trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and pianist Taylor Eigsti, a Menlo Park native.
“I’ve been trying to come upon the Henry Franklin album ‘The Skipper’ for some time,” Raghavan says of the Black Jazz Records release. “That’s so great that they’re all being reissued.
Those are hardtofind records and very expensive when you do find them.” (The rerelease of “The Skipper” is scheduled for Feb. 26.)
While jazz in the ’70s is best known for the rise and dominance of fusion — a blending of acoustic and electric instruments and jazz, rock ’n’ roll and funk styles — Black Jazz Records built on earlier traditions.
“Unlike a lot of labels, Real Gone Music is kind of genre agnostic,” Anderson says, pointing to the reissue house’s catalog that includes releases by both “fifth Beatle” Billy Preston and celebutante Paris Hilton’s debut albums as well as the vinyl version of Cyndi Lauper’s first Christmas album, “so the fact that this label dovetailed with my own soul jazz and free jazz tastes was a bonus.”
The first four albums in the Black Jazz Records reissue series reflect the Oakland label’s variety of styles: Two of the first set of albums, Russell’s “New Direction” and fellow keyboardist Walter Bishop Jr.'s “Coral Keys,” were Black Jazz’s first two releases back in 1971. The former captures Russell’s elegant souljazz playing, while the latter styles range from bossa nova to hard bop and knotty postbop.
Pianistorganist Doug Carn’s “Spirit of the New Land” and the Chicago group the Awakening’s “Hear, Sense and Feel” were both released a year later. Carn featured his thenwife, vocalist Jean Carn, on spiritual empowerment anthems “Arise and Shine” and the nearly 12minute title track. The Awakening, a sextet with three horn players, presented a mystical album that included a prologue and an epilogue.
“The recordings are excellent. The production’s really good, and the playing is really, really fantastic,” Anderson says. “Gene Russell obviously knew what he was doing in the studio.”
Black Jazz Records released Keys’ debut solo album, titled “ShawnNeeq” after his niece, in 1971. “We tried to capture the beauty of bringing a brandnew baby into the house,” he says. Its reissue is set for Feb. 5, 2021.
“Proceed With Caution!,” originally released three years later, was Keys’ sophomore effort that took his work from the personal to the political. It’s now scheduled for rerelease Dec. 3, 2021.
“During that period we were going through our identity in this country as African Americans, and we were marching and doing a whole lot of other things,” Keys says.”That’s where ‘Proceed With Caution!' came from. We had to proceed with caution because it was crazy. We didn’t know what was happening with this country and the government and racism.”
In 2020, it’s as much a musical — and practical — message as it was for 1974.