Decca Information can boast an exquisite and eclectic again catalogue that features The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Vera Lynn, George Formby, Luciano Pavarotti… and Winston Churchill. However the label has additionally been residence to some terrific jazz over the many years as nicely.
The primary commerce adverts for the “Decca Record” appeared within the July 1929 version of Melody Maker, and inside two years, the document firm had acquired the British franchises of Brunswick – bringing their first jazz stars, equivalent to Cab Calloway and The Mills Brothers, into the fold.
“Where’s the melody?”
One of many label’s largest successes within the mid-30s was with the million-selling Andrew Sisters, who had modeled themselves on the singing of Ella Fitzgerald, the jazz singer chargeable for so many nice Decca recordings throughout 1934-55. Musicians knew that Decca was a benchmark for top requirements. “Decca’s studios in New York City were in a long, rectangular room. At the far end was a large picture of an Indian maiden, standing up and holding her hand in the air, as if signaling that she had a question,” recalled singer Maxene Andrews. “In the ‘dialogue balloon’ she was asking: ‘Where’s the melody?’ As you were recording at the opposite end, you couldn’t help seeing that question. It was staring you in the face the entire time you were singing.”
In Europe, Decca additionally pressed a big proportion of early Riverside, Modern Vogue, and Esquire releases, ensuring that their first-class engineering abilities had been put to good use, and permitting them to launch music by jazz musicians as acclaimed because the saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
“Gives the song a whole new value”
The jazz maestro Louis Armstrong joined Decca in 1935 and, over the subsequent 9 years, he laid down greater than 150 sides along with his bands, a few of them extremely industrial tracks. “A musician ain’t supposed to just play one type of music,” Armstrong mentioned on the time. The outcomes spoke for themselves, as Armstrong’s Decca singles comprise a few of his best-known music – recordings that stay massively common.
Billie Vacation had grown up as a fan of Armstrong and was more than pleased to document for a similar label as him. She joined Decca on August 7, 1944, when she was 29. She was delivered to the label by Milt Gabler – the person who had been courageous sufficient to document her music about lynching, “Strange Fruit,” for Commodore Information – after he had change into the A&R chief at Decca.
Vacation’s first music for Decca, “Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)” – a gradual ballad usually merely often known as “Lover Man” – reached No.16 within the charts and was later inducted into the Grammy Corridor Of Fame. Throughout her years at Decca, Vacation’s voice turned increasingly delicate. Bob Haggart, who was Vacation’s musical director on among the Decca classes, was all the time enthralled by her reward of re-shaping melodies. “The 1947 song ‘There Is No Greater Love’ is an excellent example of how Billie could take a standard tune and add her Midas touch to the existing melody – giving the song a whole new value,” mentioned Haggart.
In September 1949, on certainly one of her final Decca appearances, Billie Vacation shared a recording date with Armstrong. Trumpeter Bernie Previn, who performed on the session, recalled how excited she was on the prospect of working along with her idol. They collaborated superbly on “You Can’t Lose a Broken Heart” and “My Sweet Hunk O’ Trash.”
“One of the coolest and most prestigious labels of all time”
Different greats of the period to document for Decca and its subsidiaries included Louis Jordan – his fantastic hit music “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” – bassist Ray Brown, singers Mel Tormé and Teddy Grace and bandleaders Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, and Duke Ellington. Right now, Decca in America was producing round 135,000 discs a day.
The 2013 compilation Depend Basie: The Unique American Decca Recordings – which seems in our information to the 50 greatest jazz albums of all time – introduced collectively all the perimeters that Depend Basie recorded for Decca between 1937 and 1939, and captured one of many best ever swing bands at their most vibrant. Basie’s good band on the time included the saxophone maestro Lester Younger, in addition to vocalists Jimmy Speeding and Helen Humes.
Within the post-war period, Decca turned a groundbreaking residence of pop and rock – with a steady that included The Rolling Stones, Them, Tom Jones, The Who, The Moody Blues, and David Bowie – however they continued to again jazz, together with some early British releases by George Melly. As a part of his work for Decca, the late producer Tony Corridor, who died in June 2019, revived the subsidiary Tempo label and produced classes by jazz acts equivalent to Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Dizzy Reece, and Victor Feldman for the label, earlier than the imprint was discontinued in 1961.
Jazz within the twenty first century
In current occasions, among the hottest jazz musicians of the twenty first Century have signed to Decca Information. When Common Music’s Common Classics and Jazz (UCJ) labels had been rebranded Decca in 2009, it introduced Jamie Cullum into the fold. Cullum had been snapped up by Tom Lewis in 2003 and went on to ascertain himself as a world star. New Jersey-born singer Melody Gardot was one other vital signing.
In September 2013, Gregory Porter launched Liquid Spirit on Decca within the UK (through Blue Observe France), an album that introduced chart success with the title music, “Hey, Laura,” “The In Crowd,” “No Love Dying,” and “Water Under Bridges.”
In 2018, Decca signed the actor and jazz fan Jeff Goldblum to make his recording debut on piano. “I’m so happy to be in cahoots with the wonderful people at Decca, one of the coolest and most prestigious labels of all time,” Goldblum mentioned.
Any label that may swing with Basie, scat with Armstrong, beguile with Vacation, and entrance with Ella actually deserves to be known as “cool” and “prestigious.”
Searching for extra? Uncover the complete historical past of Decca Information, “the supreme record company.”
