After his memorable Top 5 (that was real rare stuff!), our friend Julien from Digger’s Digest is back to chat with us about his label (Digger’s Digest) and his numerous compilation projects with french labels Born Bad and Heavenly Sweetness! Fresh and not always politically correct, we did not expect less from our fellow digger!

When did you start digging records?
It started with Purple Rain on 7 inch by Prince when I was 8, then I discovered Yo MTV rap and asked my father to offer me the ‘3 Feet High and Rising’ De La Soul cassette when I was 11. I then stole Rap and Grunge CD’s at my local supermarket at 14 and spent a short period in jail ! At 17 I sold my indie pop rock CD’s and Hip-hop K7 collections to buy hip-hop 12 inches and seriously started looking for samples and rarities in every style around, that was in my 20’s.

What LP’s did you buy at first? Do you still listen to them?
I have sold most of my personal records but I constantly tend to buy them back! I would say A Tribe Called Quest ‘Midnight Marauders’ I bought when I was 16. I have discovered many others records thanks to hip-hop music ! Also The Donald Byrd album ‘New Perspective’ on Blue Note, i kept borrowing from my older brother who had good musical taste in the past!

Do you have a particular style or favorite period?
Not really, I’m mainly collecting jazz and music from the West Indies from every period but like many other kids i started discovering black music (soul/funk) through hip-hop samples. I think it gave me a wider taste but I loved many styles so I couldn’t stay stuck in the 70’s. I love post punk, electronic avant garde music, weirdo concept albums, soundtracks, deviant 7 inches! I also try to listen to what’s new, and since there is so much music released today, it would be a shame to be only focused on the past!

Are you still diggin’, buying vinyl, visiting record shops?
Yes but not in the same way as 10 years ago, when I was digging everyday! Now it’s a bit different, the digging game has constantly changed over the last 10 years, prices have exploded but I still try to go everywhere to buy records, for my on-line shop and for my personal collection.

What was your first release on Digger’s Diggest? Why did you decide to start a label?
My first release (in co-production with Frenchattack) was ‘Rupture : Israel Suite’, the ultra rare vocal funky pop jazz album by jazz drummer Sylvain Krief (known as Airto Fogo). This record was first discovered by Gwen Jamois (Iueke) but Gwen kept it secret! Record detective Thomas Pasquet finally found out the name of this killer record that has gained cult status! As far as I remember when I finished school I always wanted to start a label, but after a short brief experience in a major company I decided to do something else! But I’ve always had the idea in mind. Now 20 years later I think that when you are a passionate collector/dealer, reissuing records is the logical next step. See how many private collectors/record stores start a label.

What could be your editorial/aesthetic line?
It is definitely around jazz but has to be a record with a singular aesthetic, jazz tinged with a particular sound like modern Gwo Ka and Fusion for Edmony Krater, Vocal Funky Jazz for ‘Israel Suite’ or African / Arabic / Mediterranean influences on Cossi Anatz, our next release. I release records i particularly love, that have something different. It’s not only the music, the story of the men behind the records is also very important to me. I could not reissue a record if the musician behind is a complete asshole! It’s all about human relationships.

What could be the label’s leitmotif?
I try to release music that I love, that is still unknown to the general public, and deserves a bigger audience or simply an audience!

What is the Digger’s Diggest LP you are prouder?
I don’t know … maybe the Edmony Krater album, as I discovered the record by myself in my local flea market, 11 years ago, I particularly like it, and when I met Edmony we really got along, we had the same vision of music! Also because Edmony is now touring again with a band playing live his ‘Tijan Pou Vélo’ for a younger generation. He is still really active, composing and recording new music for 2017!
I’m also happy with Israel Suite ‘Rupture’ release as it became the anthem for every Gilles Peterson DJ set in 2015: «Amis à bientôt, ici la vie est bonnnnnnneeee … shalom!»

Did you have any reference labels?
Of course I’m a fan of numerous labels like all the big american labels ! I love the identity they gave to music business in the 50’s/60’s/70’s. I would say Atlantic, Motown, Stax, Strata East and El Saturn. In France I love the catalogues and identity of Barclay / Riviera / Odeon / Ducretet Thomson or Emi/Pathé ! Also Debs, Aux Ondes, 3A Production and Hit Parade for the French caribbean music !

You work mainly with two other labels. Why this choice?
It is more a matter of encounters than a choice, I met JB & Franck around 11 years ago at the same time while looking for records. I was surprised they knew about my website !
We talked about the projects we had. JB borrowed some records from me for some of his projects. The collaboration between Born Bad Rec and DD really started with the discovery of the famous ‘Mariage Collectif’ unreleased album, which I had no idea how to release it. JB came and told me he really wanted to do it and offered me a super fair deal !

And how do you divide your collaborations between Born Bad Records and Heavenly Sweetness?
I would say with Franck (HS) it is more about Deep Jazz, Caribbean Jazz, Rare grooves and now Boogie, Zouk and Electronic. My expertise with Born Bad is more around late 60’s / 70’s french sounds (Marriage Collectif and Mobilisation Générale).

You released Digital Zandoli on K7. Just for fun or is there a real business for this kind of support?
Both! I did it because I didn’t want it to be a simple mix lost in the soundcloud and mix cloudcharts! I wanted my friends that still have a tape player in their cars to listen to it ! It is also a tribute to the hip-hop mixtape culture I was into in the mid 90’s (Tony Touch / Cut Killer / Stretch Armstrong / DJ Revolution…). It was also a real promo tool for the official project we released on Heavenly Sweetness. Not a real business because we made only 50 copies of the first mix and 75 copies of the 2nd. Sold out quickly!

There’s a second volume on K7. Will you do it on LP soon?
On both mixtapes, Volume 1 and 2, the track-listings are completely different from the LP & CD released on Heavenly Sweetness. There are almost 30 tracks on each tape from very obscure records. I put the 1st side of each tape on soundcloud for free streaming. If you want the tracklist and the B side you need to buy the cassette! Plus it is a real mixtape with edited parts, scratches, sequenced tracks. By releasing this mixtape it was more a way to prepare the audience to Zouk and Caribbean Electronic Music, a genre they might not know!

You issue original LPs, but also compilations. Are these two different approaches? Do you feel you are touching the same audience?
For my projects I’m only doing 500 copies which are distributed in selected stores across Europe. So of course the audience is smaller ! For the compilations, the labels I’m working with release them on LP/CD and digital/streaming so of course it now touches a worldwide audience ! Also for the compilations we try to tell a story to the listener. It is very important that a compilation is not just a sum of good tracks pressed on a record but, for example, a showcase of how a musical style is created…

You attach big importance to liner notes, information. Is this what makes the difference between the many compilations on the market today?
A compilation without liners notes is pretty useless! For the same reasons as before. Anyway when you ask for the rights for some tracks, you can always find some information.

When we know the cost of advances on royalties, is it increasingly difficult to make compilations?
Ask my producers! But yes you have to spend a nice amount of money to get some licences. Sometimes it is very easy because the artist is really happy that his project gets a new life. But yes it is more expensive to release compilations with severals labels and artists than doing a simple fac simile reissue or label compilation.

You are about to reissue a record by trumpet player Michel Marre : Cossi Anatz. Why such a choice? And can you think of any similar projects for the future?
Yes! My friend mister Flash showed me this record 15 years ago and I always loved the music, the cover and the whole concept of Jazz mixed with Occitan southern culture, afro and arabic sounds, and I felt that it would be logic to release this record after Edmony Krater as it is a kind of jazz that people don’t really listen to because they simply don’t have access to it. Cossi Anatz drummer René Nan played with Marius Cultier in the early 70’s, Michel Marre played in the Tusques’ Intercommunal Free Dance Orchestra. So it was logic to me that this record would fit in the catalog I’m trying to build. The OG copies are now ultra expensive (300 € and more) so it is a good thing to make it available again. And yes, I have the Georges Edouard Nouel ‘Chodo’ LP that we have just signed.

Most of Digger’s Digest releases are jazz or french west-indies LP’s. Any particular reasons?
Yes I really want to defend our legacy! The leitmotiv would be more music from anywhere but produced in France. I mean the question of France or not is not relevant to me since the music we have reissued has influences from everywhere Middle East, North Africa, Africa, West Indies, the US. I have an easier access to obscure french records than any others countries. And to say the truth I think we are pretty lucky in France considering the vast production… Jazz, it is simply because this is the basis of everything I’m listening to today!

Nowadays, there are many LP labels who follow this model, I mean more quality even if it’s more expensive… but at same time, there is also another «new» LP market, with major companies coming back and other labels, who prefer to sell cheaper. Is it the (re)creation of two camps for the LP?
Majors companies were late in this reissue fever, they have now understood they could exploit their vast catalog trying desperately to relaunch vinyl as a mass market thing but I think it’s an economic bubble. You see the same big selling pop rock records in the past reissued at huge quantities. Result is the pressing delivery schedule are very long for most of the small labels. Also on the small labels everything is reissued, there are the good ones and the unrelevant ones in my opinion. Once a record is hyped by the right person, you can be sure it will be reissued within a few months.

Digger’s Digest reissue LP’s are limited editions, is it due to the market size or a real policy to keep them rare?
I would say for both reasons. For ‘Israel Suite’, my 1st release, i would never have thought it would be so looked after. I.S was the 1st release I produced so I wanted to limit the risks by pressing only 500. Also this record was only known by an handful of collectors and only heard as limited audience since we have compiled it on ‘Freedom Jazz France’. I also think it’s useless to release in one run 1000 copies of a record that is look after by just 10 people.

There are more and more reissues of old LP’s, and more and more record labels (major or indie) now release their new artists on LP, or EP. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
I think we’ve already reached this point! For example see what a so-called official label like PMG is doing on the market, cheap mastering, pressing and covers, no infos, a batch of 20 records in one shot on the market. They might make some money now but I bet it won’t last. I don’t even want to talk about the bootleggers… Meanwhile it always exists. Buyers and collectors are overwhelmed by new reissue labels, and also fed up with cheap quality. My goal when I do a reissue is to go further, try to tell the story of the record, with its context, maybe more photographic material, bring testimony from the past. I don’t reissue a record because it’s worth a 3 digit numbers.

What are your other next releases?
Reissues of Cossi Anatz / José Manclière / Georges Edouard Nouel on Digger’s Digest.
‘Disk La Rayé’ a West Indies Boogaloo Compilation with Born Bad
‘Digital Zandoli Part 2’, with Nico Skliris, and ‘Kouté Jazz Part 2’ with Heavenly Sweetness.
I’m also launching a brand new project/label outside of DD with a friend but this will be a big surprise soon hopefully!

What is the LP you dream of issuing/reissuing?
I don’t know I think It would be more producing than issuing, maybe a crazy hybrid record that gathers all the sound influences I like ! Jazz, Afro, West Indies, Brazil, Latin, Electronic Synthetic music and a bit of Soul and Funk ! If you have any suggestion, please send me your demo!

www.diggersdigest.com

Since the late 60’s, the native from Connecticut has played an important role in jazz history. After hosting a radio jazz show and writing for ‘Down Beat’ and other music magazines, he started working for record companies : Atlantic, Motown, ABC, Freedom and finally… Blue Note. Since 1984, Michael Cuscuna has been a special consultant, producer and the reissue director of the mythical label… During the same period, he also managed Mosaic Records, the indie company well known for its reissue boxsets of jazz legends.

 
 

Before directing Blue Note, you worked for various labels such as ESP, Muse, or ABC … Is Blue Note the label you dreamed of working for?
There were two labels that I dreamed about working for – Atlantic and Blue Note. I was a staff producer for Atlantic in 1972-74. I was friendly with a lot of jazz musicians and many of them told me about great Blue Note sessions that they played on that had never been released. I started to keep a notebook with all of their memories and tried to contact Blue Note to get into the vaults to see what might be worth releasing. But George Butler was running Blue Note and his interest was not in jazz. The label had changed and was nothing like the old Blue Note. Finally in 1976 I met Charles Lourie who had just joined Blue Note and he was a great jazz fan. He got me into the vaults and I have been working with this material ever since.

What lays behind the identity of Blue Note? What makes the difference, gives it a different edge compared to other Jazz labels? The Pop dimension?
What gave Blue Note the creative edge and made it better and different than most labels is that Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff were interested in keeping jazz pure, BUT ALSO in helping to create a situation in which to make great jazz, they befriended artists, they had planning meetings and rehearsals and tried to encourage musicians to compose and make new music that they would be proud of. The difference was in the care and hard work they put into everything.

Do you think the history of Blue Note can be split in several periods? If so what are they and why?
The different periods of Blue Note are basically defined by the style of music they recorded at the time. The first period is 1939-46 when they recorded boogie woogie, New Orleans jazz and small group swing. The second period is 1947-54 when they discovered modern jazz and made great first sessions by Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, James Moody, Kenny Drew, Wynton Kelly, Lou Donaldson and Horace Silver. 1954-67 is the period when Blue Note discovered its identity through sound (Rudy Van Gelder), design (Reid Miles), photography (Francis Wolff), production (Alfred Lion) and the style of the music (Horace Silver, Art Blakey with the birth of the Jazz Messengers). In this third period, the music grew and changed but it was basically the same creative team and the growing group of great musicians who recorded with the label, moving from soul jazz to hard bop to modal to avant-garde. Alfred Lion left in 1967 and Francis Wolff and Duke Pearson tried to keep the identity of Blue Note going until Frank’s death in 1971. The fourth period is the 70’s when George Butler ran the label. Some older artists like Horace Silver, Bobby Hutcherson and Elvin Jones stayed for a while, but the label’s sound was mainly controlled by the Mizell Brothers and Larry Rosen & Dave Grusin who were turning out successful, commercial albums by Donald Byrd, Earl Klugh and others. The next phase would be from 1985 when Bruce Lundvall restarted Blue Note to 2010 when he retired. In that era, we recorded a variety of music so it is hard to define what we have done. This is a different time.

To try and study the history of Blue Note, its evolution and singular aesthetic may sometimes sound like trying to understand the history of jazz. Why do you think this is?
Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff were jazz fans and they followed the music as it grew and changed. It is natural that people as smart and talented as them would mirror the evolution of the music in what they did. Sometimes they were followers like when they discovered bebop two years after other labels were recording it and sometimes they were the creators of change like when they signed Jimmy Smith before the organ was a jazz instrument and before the popularity of soul jazz.

Why do you think Blue Note succeeded in bringing together so many different artists, from Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor to Lou Donaldson and Lonnie Smith, without losing its originality and unity?
That is the key behind Blue Note. You could go from Ike Quebec to Jackie McLean to Lonnie Smith to Ornette Coleman and what is common about each artist is that they were making their best records for Blue Note. The sound, the packaging, the planning – it all makes each record special in the sense of Blue Note quality. We tried to do that in the 80’s. 80’s and 00’s. But of course we had different engineers, producers, studios and designers so we did not have the consistency that Alfred and Frank had.

What was the essence behind the fascinating Blue Note artwork? What kind of directions were given to the graphics designer to achieve such a harmonious and unique series of design?
This is very interesting. The early Blue Note designers like Paul Bacon and John Hermansader were modern designers and jazz fans. But by the time of the 12” (30 cm) LP, they settled on Reid Miles as their designer. Reid only liked classical music so he never listened to any of the hundreds of Blue Note albums that he designed covers for. And yet, he captured each album perfectly. The reason is that Alfred, who was a very enthusiastic and talkative man, would describe to Reid the spirit and intent of each album and Reid created the ideal design for each one. He also had that rare gift that every album cover looked different from the rest, but together they all looked like Blue Note covers.

There are some musicians that were all about Blue Note in their style but never got a release on the label like Mal Waldron or Charles Tolliver. What criteria did you mainly use to select your artists?
Well, Mal Waldron never recorded for Blue Note in any session, but I understand your question. Charles Tolliver and Woody Shaw were promised contracts with Blue Note but when Alfred sold the label to Liberty Records and didn’t like the way they were doing business, he told Charles and Woody that he didn’t want to sign new artists because he wanted to leave the label himself. Others like James Spaulding are a mystery. I asked James once why he never made a Blue Note album as a leader. He said, « They never asked me. » Well, James is a shy guy and probably he never asked them either! There is no logic to all of this.

Blue Note is by far the most collected and famous jazz label. Are you familiar with all the pressing details (the ear, the R, the deep groove, the flat edge etc …) that make it such a fascinating record series to collect and what is your opinion about it? And how did so many pressing variances occur?
I don’t know all the ins and outs of the collector details for Blue Note. Fred Cohen who runs the Jazz Record Center in New York City published a whole book about it. I am amazed at how collectable original Blue Note pressings and all the attention paid to little details like the label address on the pressings etc. By the way, the ear in the wax that collectors talk about is actually a P for Plastylite, the pressing plant that pressed all the Blue Notes in the 50’s and 60’s.

During the 90’s, Blue Note Japan reissued a number of previously unreleased sessions on LP including material by Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Dexter Gordon, Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter… Most of these recordings are awesome. Why weren’t they released at the time? Do you plan to release new issues of those recordings for the rest of the world?
Actually, in 1976 I started going into the Blue Note vaults for unissued material. I was amazed at the quality of a lot of it. Some artists like Lee Morgan and Grant Green recorded so frequently (probably because they wanted to earn more money) that the label could never put out everything, but much of what they did not release was every bit as good as what they did release. Both Lee and Grant were very successful so Alfred and Frank probably leaned towards their more commercial sessions to release at the time. Others are a great mystery like Wayne Shorter’s ‘Et Cetera’ or Bobby Hutcherson’s ‘Oblique’. Brilliant sessions. I asked Alfred once about all the unissued material and he didn’t really remember leaving so much good material in the vault. So I started putting these sessions out in the late ‘70s in the US. But the record business was in bad shape at the time and the label lost interest in issuing them. So I talked to King Records in Japan who were distributing Blue Note at the time. They put a lot of them out. Then when Toshiba EMI took over Blue Note we put more out and then started converting everything to CD. I have gotten just about everything out that deserves to be released at least in Japan if not everywhere. In the past few years, Japan has begun to reissue of lot of these and classic Blue Notes on hi-res CDs.

Our favorite recordings on the label belong to what we call the « Dark Jazz » genre, like Duke Pearson’s ‘The Phantom’, Andrew Hill’s ‘Lift With Every Voice’, Bobby Hutcherson’s ‘Oblique’ or Jack Wilson’s ‘Easterly Winds’! These are still largely underrated. Any idea why?
Well, most of the albums that you name are from the late 60’s and early 70’s. This was a bad time for jazz in USA. Underground FM Rock like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead were attracting the young white audience and the avant-garde was driving away the middle-aged black audience and jazz was left with very little support. These albums were created and issued during that time and were overlooked. I think that is why history has forgotten them.

Pete La Roca’s ‘Basra’ is one of our favorite LPs on the label. Why did Pete release only one LP for Blue Note?
I don’t know. A lot of guys only made one or two albums for a label during that time. And guys like Pete (in demand drummers and bassists) got a lot more work by playing with different groups than trying to lead their own group. Of course, Pete did make another album for Blue Note 30 years later !!!

75 years is quite an achievement! How do you explain the longevity of the label?
I think the longevity of the label is owed to the great music of the classic Blue Note period (1954-67) that Alfred and Frank recorded and that remains vital and alive today and the fact that Bruce Lundvall, myself and Don Was who followed since the 80’s have never tried to duplicate what they did, but we respect it and try to live up to their legacies in our own way.

The Blue Note identity (the artwork, the quality of recordings, …) is part of the label’s mythology. Do you have any type of strategy to keep the myth alive?
Well, we’ve always kept that legacy alive by issuing the classic Blue Note albums in the best possible sound with original packaging and liner notes to keep the spirit of the original Blue Note alive. That identity does not exist for new Blue Note recordings since 1985 because we have so many different producers, engineers, photographers and designers. We have always tried to keep the quality high, but it doesn’t have an identity like the original Blue Note did.

What could eventually endanger the Blue Note brand?
What would endanger Blue Note would be if the kind of person who only cared about music as a commercial commodity instead of an art were to take over the label. Then bizarre projects like Rod Stewart sings Gershwin or Barry Manilow duets with dead people would destroy the integrity of the label and lose the trust of the fan.

Do you think a label like Blue Note could see the light today? If so, which other label could potentially look like Blue Note today?
Yes, I do. But it would have to be an independent label, not part of large corporation. I think in the 70’s ECM in its own musical style created an independent label with a very strong identity. I think Criss Cross in the 80’s till today is doing very much what Blue Note of the 50’s and 60’s did. And newer labels like Palmetto and ACT are recording pure jazz and forging their own identities.

Are you interested in the current jazz scene?
Yes, I don’t have the time to follow it as much as I would like but there are an amazing amount of talent artists on every instrument. I think the fact that people like Herbie Hancock and Terence Blanchard give their time to jazz education has really helped too.

Current Blue Note artists like Gregory Porter or Robert Glasper are very promising. Do you think they will be part of the Blue Note legend one day?
Yes I do. We have been very lucky over the past 30 years to record people like Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, John Scofield, Greg Osby, Tim Hagans, Joe Lovano, Jason Moran, Ambrose Akinmusire, Robert Glasper and Gregory Porter. They are all original and they are here to stay.

Are you enthusiastic about the return of vinyl records? How do you see the future in that respect?
I don’t think the return of vinyl affects the style or quality of music, but it does make us more conscious of upholding great sound quality when producing a record.

We owe you the re-discovery of the Monk quartet with Coltrane. Do you have many more unreleased tapes? Where do you find them?
Well, they come from different places. That one came from Larry Appelbaum at the Library of Congress. Author Lewis Porter found an ad for that concert in a New York newspaper and kept asking Larry to look for it in the Voice Of America radio tapes. A couple of years later, Larry found it by accident !!!! They called me and we made a deal. This was a major find. I doubt we will ever see anything that significant again. I believe most of the next discoveries will come from INA, the BBC, RAI and other European radio and television companies that taped the great American artists in the 60’s.

What would be the Blue Note release of your dreams?
I don’t know how to answer that. Since 1976, I’ve gotten all the great unissued music released. Since 1985, I’ve gotten all of the classic catalog issued on CD in good sound with bonus tracks. I’ve also been able to produce a lot of wonderful artists like Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Don Pullen-George Adams, Joe Lovano, Terence Blanchard and more. I think my dreams have come true.

When did you start digging records?
I don’t really consider myself as a “digger” but I have been buying records ever since the mid 80’s.

Do you have a particular style or favourite period ? And why?
I don’t have a particular style. I listen to different types of music, mainly from the 1950’s to the 1970’s … My father used to listen to classical, pop or rock every sunday morning. So I grew up listening to The Rolling Stones, The Clash, Madness, Hendrix, Floyd, Bob Marley, Gainsbourg, Hubert-Felix Thiefaine, JS Bach, Mozart…I also listened to punk, new-wave, “industrial” music from Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany and later to funk and soul. I discovered jazz about twenty years ago and i liked it. Today, I listen to this particular genre the most.

After your first reissue, “Peace Treaty” by the saxophonist Nathan Davis in 2006, what prompted you to creating the label?
In 2006, after meeting with Nathan Davis, I decided to release one of his first recordings, from 1965. As I’m also very interested in photography, I decided to look for the original sleeve photographer, Jean-Pierre Leloir,  to try and obtain a photo print and agree on a deal with him. I also decided to search for the owner of the master tapes to find an agreement with him. Five years after the Nathan Davis reissue, I decide to create Sam Records to continue doing the same type if work with other titles. I’m not really familiar with the music industry but it was clear for me I had to try and make the best reissues possible: find the master tapes, the original photography, the original LP to have all the required information and of course a proper licence. I like vinyl, the cover, the artefact and of course the different approach to listening to music that it represents compared to CD or MP3.
 

Why Sam Records?
It is really simple: Sam is the name of my son and I also found it easy to remember and pronounce.

What is the editorial/esthetic line? How do you decide on the choice of reissues?
I choose titles according to two criteria: the love I have for those particular musicians and the level of rarity of the records. Today, I only reissue jazz records but there are other style that also interest me especially some pop or rock titles.

“Less Is More” could be your leitmotif. Why did you chose to restart from original tapes and original pictures?
Less Is More is of course my leitmotif. I chose to restart from originals tapes and pictures for a matter of quality. It’s not the easiest way, especially when the photographer has already passed away and photos are lost. It’s a detective job : to be as close as possible to the original records; from the sound to the artwork. I prefer quality over quantity.
 

Do you believe that the high difficulty of this search could be a strength for your label?
Yes, I guess quality is one of the strengths of my label. But with a little bit more contacts in the music business the world over, it could become less difficult to pursue the Sam Records story.

Have you receive many negative answers on some of the LPs you were trying to reissue?
Not yet. But I’m still waiting for some answers from music companies… Sometimes it takes a long time!

There is more and more reissues of old LPs. Do you think that the LP reissue market could ever reach saturation point?
If a record is good, it can be reissued. The problem is that too many poor reissues at the same time may kill the good ones. And I’m not sure about the quality I see in stores for most of them. It costs money to make really nice reissues. There is more and more reissues of old LPs, especially in jazz, because most jazz records from the 1950’s and 1960’s have fallen into public domain and some european companies don’t pay anything. They remove the original logo and use a CD for the music: it’s just a 150g or 180g CD !

What are your next releases?
Two Donald Byrd records recorded in Paris in 1958 for Brunswick label and a Chet Baker EP from 1956 from the  Barclay catalogue. They will be available in October.

What is the LP you dream of reissuing?
There are many, but Sam is a small company, so I prefer to remain silent on the subject.

MY 3 REISSUES EVER

Sahib Shihab “Sentiments” (1971, reissue in 2014 by seriE.WOC)

Curtis Amy “Katanga” (1963, reissue by Heavenly Sweetness in 2010)

Batsumi “Batsumi” (1974, reissue by Matsuli Music in 2011)