This year marks the 50th anniversary of Delmark Records, the oldest independent American label still owned and operated by its original owner. To celebrate, the venerable Chicago jazz and blues outfit will release a four-CD/bonus DVD box set, stage a Delmark all-stars concert Friday and play an increased role at the 20th Annual Chicago Blues Festival, which kicks off May 29.
Now 71, Delmark proprietor Bob Koester sports a white beard, flashes a toothless grin, and walks with a cane. But he hasn’t slowed down. He works six days a week, staying personally engaged with his label and unrivaled store, Jazz Record Mart. On the subjects of jazz, blues and the music industry, Koester’s mind remains sharp and resourceful. (During our interview, an employee came to him with a customer’s challenging question about an archaic tune. Koester instantly named it. Then, like an encyclopedia, he provided the song’s historical context, citing the original and current record label and the musicians who play on it.)
Back in 1953, Koester made his first recording with the relatively unknown St. Louis sextet Windy Six. The ensemble’s traditional Roaring ’20s jazz style is one of Koester’s passions. It’s no secret that an intense dedication to pure jazz and blues is still Delmark’s forte. Koester also recycles nearly every penny back into his business, a practice some might consider imprudent. But no one starts a blues or jazz label to get rich. While other labels have sold out their values or just plain sold out to conglomerates, Koester has epitomized what it means to sacrifice personal gain for the greater love of music.
He’s not about to change. “When I started, I had no dream of owning a store this big, or having a catalog of 350 records. The main reward is that I get to keep doing it.”
Documenting city’s heritage
Koester has always recognized the value and importance of acquiring unissued and out-of-print recordings from similarly minded specialty labels. In 1958, the possibility of obtaining Paramount masters lured Koester away from St. Louis to Chicago. Few have better documented the city’s rich blues and jazz heritage. Its gripping legacy is filled with hometown greats, including Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Magic Sam, Sunnyland Slim, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Thompson and Ken Vandermark. Delmark has recorded every one of them, as well as others whose colorful names (Mad Dog Lester Davenport, Kahil El’Zabar) match their music.
Koester may have recorded Junior Wells’ 1965 classic Hoodoo Man Blues — “the first time in history that a working blues band went into the studio to record an LP” — but his first love is jazz. Delmark was also the earliest to record artists from the now-legendary Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). After Delmark issued Roscoe Mitchell’s “Sound” in 1966, the AACM became internationally recognized for its boundary-breaking contributions to modern music. Koester considers its original batch of albums “the most important stuff we’ve ever recorded.”
Divided into two CDs for jazz and two for blues, the “Delmark — 50 Years of Jazz & Blues” box set reflects the label’s prolific history and commitment to unpretentious tunes played for the love of music, not the love of money. (The two-CD sets, scheduled to be released in May, will also be available individually.) Rather than forcing the company’s own sonic imprint, the best Delmark recordings have a relaxed raggedness and gritty authenticity that convey the feeling of the period they were made. The range and diversity of musical styles represented — swing, bop, improvisational and free jazz; boogie-woogie, country, modern electric and, of course, Chicago blues — reaffirm the label’s approach toward the jazz and blues traditions as an evolution in which improvement upon the originals is not guaranteed. The common connection isn’t a certain style but ageless quality. Koester’s ear for picking up on artists’ defining attributes is heard on this set, which contains some of Delmark’s most vibrant sides.
Highlights include Windy City Six’s foot-stomping “Royal Garden Blues,” which makes its CD debut. It nestles against Roy Campbell’s modal post-bop, Sun Ra’s outer space avant-garde and Vandermark’s warm tenor sax. Roosevelt Sykes’ rolling barrelhouse piano, Big Joe Williams’ nine-string country-blues guitar and J.B. Hutto’s outrageous slide hooks cross-pollinate in comparable fashion on the blues collection. Listened to as a whole, the set is a four-hour chronicle of the dirt roads, back alleys, train depots, rural flats, dingy juke joints and fire-breathing cities that birthed genuine American jazz and blues music.
While it has gone through various incarnations, Koester’s Jazz Record Mart — which touts itself as “The World’s Largest Jazz & Blues Shop” — has played a vital role in Delmark’s history. Without it, the label wouldn’t still exist. The 8,500-square-foot megastore at 444 N. Wabash Ave. boasts 25,000 CDs, 10,000 new LPs, an equal amount of used vinyl and a small performance stage. Walls are plastered with posters of jazz and blues musicians, familiar and unfamiliar, who expressively stare through clouds of smoke and beckon patrons to discover what their music has to offer. It’s an irresistible music haven, a tempting place to explore with a credit card.
For employees, the store is a launching pad for careers. Bruce Iglauer, who owns Chicago’s Alligator Records, is Delmark’s most visible former staffer. Other recipients of Koester’s tutelage include Okka Disk’s Bruno Johnson, Rooster Records and Living Blues magazine founder Jim O’Neal and Earwig’s Michael Frank. Koester counts 10 labels as Delmark offspring.
When asked about his experience, Iglauer is quick to point out that he isn’t the store’s only famous alum — blues musician Charlie Musselwhite and producer Chuck Nessa also worked for Delmark — though he does consider himself Koester’s spiritual son.
“Bob is an interesting, mercurial guy. He fired me a few times, but I refused to leave. He had high standards for his employees, and occasionally he would take things out on them by breaking 78s over their heads –he would be careful to use the shellac kind that didn’t hurt! He might tell you otherwise, but I had no intention of starting a label when I left. If he had recorded Hound Dog Taylor, I might still be working for him.
“I was terribly lucky in that Jazz Record Mart was the magic door into world of Chicago blues at a time when it was being ignored by the major papers. Because of Bob’s position, every jazz and blues musician in town came by. It was more than a store. It was an opportunity to meet and interact, to find out about gigs that you couldn’t learn about anywhere else — performances that were never known about outside of their neighborhoods. And I got to see Bob in the studio. He had such tremendous respect for the artists he recorded. In many ways, those albums were produced by the musicians who made them; Bob was more of a documentarian. I’m sure others would say the same, but there would be no Alligator had Delmark not been there first. It had groundbreaking, worldwide influence — the best Delmark records are among the best jazz and blues albums ever made.”
As someone who has devoted his life to fostering and sustaining a who’s who of blues and jazz music over generations, Koester could be easing into retirement. But he’s too stubborn. Besides, there are “more albums to record and others to repress.” These desires are dwarfed by his concerns about the industry’s present instability, which he addresses with a veteran’s perspective.
Piracy a problem
“I’m afraid the future holds fewer records and recording deals,” Koester says. “We need to come up with a way to prevent piracy or everything will suffer. Prices are going up because of CD burning — you have to make more money on fewer sales. We’ve seen what happened with radio, and there’s no reason to think that kind of consolidation and monopolization won’t happen in records — the five major labels could eventually shrink to two.”
Koester also sees competition from the film industry as having an unfair advantage. “Movies are bought at a flat rate and don’t pay artist royalties on DVDs.”
The sluggish economy and war have also taken their toll. Though improving, sales at Jazz Record Mart are off 20 percent from last year. Worse, Delmark is off 50 percent from just two years ago. “Before the crunch, we were doing 18 to 24 albums a year. We did eight in 2002. If not for the fun and love of the music, it’s enough to discourage you from doing it at all.”
Asked what advice he’d give someone starting a jazz or blues label, Koester becomes gravely direct. “Don’t. It’s not a good time. It’s not just economics. It used to be that you press a record forever and finally make your money back. That’s no longer the case.”
Still optimistic
Despite his anxieties, Koester is preparing for the future by shepherding his son to grab Delmark’s reins. In the meantime, the label’s Riverside Recording Studio has helped offset losses.
“The blues in Chicago may have moved across the river to the North Side, and most will remark that it’s a tourist scene. But so was Dixieland and bebop in New Orleans. The problem is that in light of the nightclub tragedies, the stricter capacity enforcement may hurt many places — club owners should hike their number of fire exits. The other issue is that we’ve got an Irish mayor who doesn’t like liquor and wants everything located downtown. It’s impossible for sole proprietors to get a license. As time goes on, there are fewer and fewer venues, especially in the neighborhoods. That said, there may be no more Golden Age of blues on the South or West Sides, but blues and jazz in Chicago are alive and well.”
Music lovers can experience it for themselves Friday at Delmark Records’ 50th Anniversary Celebration at Buddy Guy’s Legends. Blues performers who will share the stage include guitarist/vocalist Jimmy Dawkins, bassist Willie Kent, harmonica wailer Little Arthur Duncan, 2003 W.C. Handy Award winner Shirley Johnson and West Side-style guitar slinger Johnny B. Moore. Those who cannot make that event can catch some of the same musicians at Blues Fest later in the month. A Delmark artist will open each evening’s main performances at the Petrillo Music Shell. As always, it’s free.
DELMARK ESSENTIALS
At Jazz Record Mart, Bob Koester has assembled a “Killers Rack” stocked with albums he considers essential to any collection. Here are five Delmark titles that offer a great place to start, and five others worth investigating.
Five famous killers . . .
Magic Sam, “West Side Soul”
Roscoe Mitchell, “Sound”
Bud Powell, “Bouncing With Bud”
Sun Ra, “Sun Song”
Junior Wells, “Hoodoo Man Blues”
. . . and five lesser-known treasures
Anthony Braxton, “For Alto”
Coleman Hawkins, “Rainbow Mist”
Otis Rush, “So Many Roads”
Ken Vandermark’s Sound In Action Trio, “Design In Time”
Various, “Chicago Ain’t Nothin’ But A Blues Band”
