“No.” “Well, I’m afraid we can’t help you.” “Please understand,” I said. “We’re talking about Bud Powell, an American treasure.” There was a pause. “All right, we’ll see what we can do.” Then, at 3:00 a.m. the following morning, Nica called: “Mr. Stollman, the police have found Bud, seated on a doorstep in Greenwich Village. I’ve sent my chauffeur to get him. Would you like to come visit me in Weehawken?” Nica had a beautiful, modern flat-roofed house, on the cliffs above the Hudson River, whose panoramic picture windows provided a stunning view of the New York skyline. In its huge salon was a grand piano. On a large antique couch, in the center of the living room, dozens of cats were perched. Still more cats perched on couches that lined the picture windows. A small crowd had gathered: Francis Paudras, Ornette Coleman, and my youngest brother, Steve. As we waited for Bud, his teenaged daughter, Celia, and her mother, Mary Frances Barnes, arrived. Nica served us Château Lafite Rothschild.
Ornette cornered me. “Bernard, why aren’t you helping me?” I said, “Why should I start again?” This was some months after I had done the other work for him. “We’ll make an agreement, but”—this was just before anything had been released on ESP—“you must license the Town Hall tape to me; I’ll produce the record of it myself.” Ornette had left with me a two-track tape of a portion of the concert. I sat down and I typed out an agreement, and he signed it, as we waited for Bud Powell.
That same night, Francis Paudras played me a solo performance by Bud that he had recorded on his Nakamichi professional tape recorder, while Bud stayed in Francis’s apartment in Paris. He had locked Bud in, turned on the machine, and gone out to do his work as a graphic designer. It was stunningly beautiful. When Bud arrived, he sat at the piano and played briefly. Then he pulled me aside and spoke to me in a soft voice: “Mr. Lawyer, can you help me? I don’t want to go back; I want to stay.” Mary Frances and their daughter Celia invited him to live with them in Brooklyn. Francis was dismayed, realizing that his idol would not accompany him back to Paris. Francis said to me, “I have to go back, but I need money.” He had graphic images with him that he had made of Bud. I said, “All right, Francis, I’ll give you the money you need, but I want to license this art.” It was three hundred dollars. These images were used for the covers of his ESP album Live at the Blue Note in Paris, 1961, a tape that was brought to me in 1966 by Buttercup Powell and its producer, Alan Douglas. Francis wrote to me following his return to France. Phonogram wanted to put out a record by Bud, offering a thousand dollars. I had become Bud’s manager. I wrote him back and refused, as it appeared to be too small an advance. In retrospect, I think Francis had personally assumed responsibility for the cost of Bud’s hospitalization for tuberculosis and hoped to recoup part of it. I should have approved his request. Francis eventually licensed tapes from his collection of recordings by Bud to an Italian company. Over thirty years later, in a book he wrote describing his profoundly personal relationship with Bud, he characterized me as a scheming, unscrupulous, money-grubbing liar and recalled events that had never occurred. He blamed me for booking Bud into Carnegie Hall for the Charlie Parker Memorial Concert produced by Mercury Records. I had not been contacted by the producers and had known nothing about it prior to the evening of the performance. In 1997 Francis committed suicide. His book appeared the following year.
Shortly after the visit to Nica, I read in Billboard that Blue Note Records would release Ornette Coleman at Town Hall. I called the owners of Blue Note, and one of them came to see me, a dignified and genteel individual. They had paid Ornette to issue it, and he had then gone to Stockholm. There he recorded At the Golden Circle, including “Sadness,” from the Town Hall concert. I proposed that Blue Note release the portion of the concert that Ornette had not licensed to me, and they accepted. We signed a mutual release, and ESP eventually issued Town Hall 1962. The remainder of the concert has never surfaced, and its whereabouts are unknown.
THE RISE AND FALL AND PERSISTENT RESURRECTION OF A CURIOUS RECORD COMPANY
3 The Initial Years
When did you first imagine starting a record label?
In 1963 I volunteered to do legal work for Moe Asch at Folkways Records. I was fascinated by his dedication to documenting the folk music of America and of other cultures. I saw him as an unofficial extension of the Smithsonian. Pete Seeger was often in the office, providing support. I was struck by the fact that one could operate a record label with very modest means. The custom pressing plants made it possible to press five hundred LPs, place each one in a standard black jacket, paste a printed sheet of paper over it, and have a finished product. Moe Asch had launched his label in 1945 and devoted his life to this undertaking. When he died in 1983, his catalog contained over two thousand titles, all of which are available today from his successor, Smithsonian Folkways.
What was the purpose in producing your very first record, Ni Kantu en Esperanto, in 1963?
In 1960 I became interested in the international language and was briefly employed as a publicist for the Esperanto League of North America. The record was just an exercise, and I had no thoughts of doing anything beyond that. Ni Kantu demonstrated the sound of the language through poetry, a comedy monologue, and songs. It was marketed to members of the worldwide movement.
Late in 1963 somebody told you to go hear Albert Ayler play up in Harlem. What was that all about? Who was that person?
Granville Lee visited me. He had attended high school in Cleveland with another student who was enormously talented. They had formed a band and all through school they were performing professionally. He insisted that I hear his friend, who was going to play at the Baby Grand Cafe in Harlem on the following Sunday afternoon, between Christmas and New Year’s. He said, “I won’t be in town, but you can go; please, you must go hear him.” He had said enough to intrigue me.
It was snowing when I trudged uptown from 90th Street to 125th Street. The Baby Grand was a popular piano bar. A few people were sitting there, wearing their coats, because the heat had not been turned on. The bartender busied himself polishing glasses. Elmo Hope was at the piano, with his trio, on an elevated stage. I sat and listened to them. Several minutes later, a small man in a gray leather suit, holding a large saxophone, brushed by me and jumped up on the stage. He had a black beard, with a little patch of white in it. He was not introduced and, ignoring the trio, he began to blow his horn. The other musicians stopped and looked at him. No words were exchanged. Elmo Hope quietly closed his piano, the bass player parked his bass, the drummer put his sticks down, and they all sat back to listen. He was playing solo, and he kept right on playing for twenty to thirty minutes, just a burst of music. It seemed like a second; it was no time at all! Then he stopped and jumped down from the platform, covered with sweat. I approached him and said, “Your music is beautiful. I’m starting a record label, and I’d like you to be my first artist.” A small voice in the back of my head said, “Oh, you are, are you?” He reflected, and then he said, “I’d like that. But I have to do a session in March at Atlantic. After that, I’ll be free and I will contact you.” I was skeptical that I would ever hear from him again.
In June, however, the phone rang: “This is Albert Ayler. I’m ready to record.” Moe Asch, the owner of Folkways, used a small and inexpensive studio near Times Square, so I directed Albert to the Variety Arts Studio. He arrived with his trio: Gary Peacock and his then-wife Annette and Sunny Murray. Gary was slender and austere, while Sunny was a big gregarious bear. There was no discussion. The engineer was lanky, blond, and low-key, one of the owners. They filed into the recording studio, and the session began. The engineer left the door of the control room open, while Annette and I sat outside listening. As the music played, I was enthralled, exhilarated, jubilant. I exchanged glances with Annette and said, “What an auspicious beginning for a record label!” She nodded her head in agreement. Then I found out that it had been recorded monaurally. I was horrified! We had assumed it would be in stereo. In forty-plus years, no one has ever cared. The engineer had done a superb job of miking. The Penguin Guide to Jazz says Spiritual Unity
