« For me, to produce, it is to conceive an idea, and to be able to lead it to its term. What supposes that you have to make everything, or almost. » Alan Douglas had the feeling of the street. « It is from there that all the good ideas come. » If he wasn’t under the spotlight, this native of Boston was nevertheless one of the key figures of his time. The era of the end of the golden age of jazz and the irresistible ascension of the pop culture. Alan Douglas was best known for his lengthy association with Jimi Hendrix. Certainly, the guitarist was his friend, and the one who marked him for all his life, but Alan Douglas’s career cannot be resumed to these two years of complicity! Producer of numerous records which will become classics, he also published number of collections of protest singers, worked for Hollywood or avant-garde movies. That’s why we pay him tribute with a selection of 10 LP’s, which tell each a part of the incredible destiny of this hit man, died June 7th, 2014 at 81 years. 10 LP’s, but only one, singular, original vision of the music.
Alan Douglas enters the legend by creating a summit meeting. “Money Jungle” put together in 1962 an exceptional trio. «I had got on with Duke in Paris. We spoke about the fact to see us again, later. One day, I was in my office, in New York, when one employee warned me that mister Ellington was there. And directly, he told me: “Well, let us speak about the record that you would like to produce with me, for the pleasure…” I answered him that as regards for the big band, there were enough existing records. On the other hand, I liked very much the way he plays the piano, and I wanted to hear him in small band. I proposed him Charles Mingus and Max Roach, by arguing of the fact that they were in a way these heirs, carriers of the same values. My idea seduced him…»
«The jazz, it is the soundtrack of my life. I know that it is a commonplace : but it’s true, the jazz isn’t a reducible music in a definitive definition, in a small box. It is an attitude, an emotion, a way of feeling, living, the world. » In 1962, Alan Douglas is so going to produce 18 LP’s, among which some will become very popular. « That represents well all the aesthetics of the jazz at that time. Even if I was not able to have Ornette and Miles. The bop which arrived at its term, the free exploded the forms, the rock was at the top, the fusion was not any more going to delay. This sixties were rich, trust in me!»
After United Artists, Alan Douglas launched Record FM. « We began with Eric Dolphy. I asked him what he wanted to record? “Just to play, nobody lets me make what I want. With musicians who I love.” Dolphy never complained. But, for sure, he knew exactly what he wanted to hear. Some words, but it was very clear. Finally, some notes more than few words, because he always had a walk with his flute, and took out it to show you what he wanted as a music. And all the musicians wanted to show themselves deserving him. So, my job was rather simple: sit down and listen these magnificent sessions. Doubtless among the best which I keep in memory. We stayed in studio one week, from 3 pm untill 3 am. As a result: two LP which I consider as his best. » Recorded with Gotha of the new thing, “Conversations” and “Iron Man” are considered as monuments of new jazz.
« Richie Havens was one of the personalities of the clubs in New York Village in the beginning of the 60’s. We could hear him with the guitar almost everywhere. But there was an ironical problem : nobody could understand that a Black sings folk song, and not the real blues. » Alan Douglas gets the songwritter well before the glory of Woodstock. « The true personality of Richie Havens is there. Not try to have hits. Just inhale the mood of time, the asphalt of New York. I baptized the sessions “Electric Havens”, not for the electric dimension of the music, but in reference to the electricity which he created on his audience, in the power which he irradiated. It was enormous. »
« A good friend gave me 25 000 dollars to create my own record label. He just asked me to call it: Alan Douglas Records. A little bit too much! Thus I suggested him just Douglas. » The Bostonian is going to produce LP always on the same principle : new meetings which he suggests. Like on this record, of post-bop, quite modal, which associates under the name of the american drummer the keyboard player Chick Corea and the saxophonist John Gilmore!
It is at the corner of the 137th street and Lennox Avenue that Alan Douglas discovered Last Poets. Two records testify of it. The first was a masterpiece, « an happening of three hours in studio, as what I had heard in the street ». This episode will be burnt in the mythology of the rap which was not born yet. « Jalal had understood the history of the spoken poetry. Of course, you can go back to the african griots. That it is the essence of this art. But the shape took roots in certain prisons of the South of the United States. It is what we call the jail toast. The source of the rap. And that doesn’t learn as the guitar or the piano. No lesson. It is a natural capacity to know how to use the rhymes. In prisons, those who used this technique told their stories. Crimes, murders, dope, prostitutes… » The street, again and again.
With John McLaughlin, Alan Douglas is going to produce two LP, two great pieces to put in his credit. “Devotion”, a record influenced by the presence of Buddy Miles, « not the best drummer of the world, but the guy who was able to give a color r&b », and “My Goals Beyond”, with a cross-country team (Badal Roy, Airto Moreira, Dave Liebman) which translates the conversion of the British in the indian philosophy. A classic, still one, like for this incredible vision of the standard “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”.
The painter Mati Klarwein is going to illustrate several LP produced by Alan Douglas among which a collection of texts of the hero of the black power, Malcom X, entitled “By Any Means Necessary”, one 7 inch posthumous of Jimi Hendrix and The Last Poets’s LP, but also this album of Jerry Garcia, ex Grateful Dead. « Mati was a part of the band! » In this crew, there were two women, Stella, the wife of Alan Douglas, and Colette, whose shop of clothes, in the district of Soho, in New York, was then the place to be. There was also Jimi Hendrix, and Miles Davis, who tried to work with the guitarist. Unfortunately, for questions of dollars, and also ego trip, this session will never take place!
Alan Douglas signs in 1973 the fantastic “Hustlers Convention”, where Jalal of Last Poets appears under the name of Lightnin’ Rod. This LP looks like a sort of Babel of the great black music. A manifesto with Kool And The Gang and latin brothers of Barrio, with also two saxophonists well known: Julius Hemphill, icon of the new thing, and King Curtis, star of the good old time rhythm’n’blues. An album unsuccessfully, except for the esthetes. With Jalal, Alan Douglas will also record an historic take with Hendrix, called “Doriella Dufontaine”. « Everything left an improvisation between Jalal and Buddy Miles, on drums. And Jimi got up and said: let me play that. We reloaded everything: Jalal took a microphone, Jimi opposite in another room, and Buddy ready to go far away… Non-stop thirteen minutes. An improv. Magnificent ! Done… In the box ! »
Alan Douglas is going to sign between 14 and on May 23rd 1976 an epic series. “Wildflowers” in the RivBea studio, the loft held by the saxophonist Sam Rivers. A long chorus which takes the shape of several LP of anthology. All the jazz (or almost) was there. Henry Threadgill, Randy Weston, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton … Imagine the atmosphere, hot. Quite libertarian. Fire free. « For the rather dark period for the jazz, out of order of any idea, it was a bright period. »
Listen Alan Douglas talking to Smokey about Duke Ellington, Last Poets, Jimi Hendrix and co :
