Atlantic Records, which celebrates its 61st birthday this year, has broadened its scope over the decades to include many more styles of music than jazz and rhythm and blues.
They were, nevertheless, the foundation on which it was built. The label played an important role in the careers of Mose Allison, Ray Charles, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet and quite a few more. And many of their records were produced or co-produced by Jerry Wexler, who died on August 15 at the age of 91.
Wexler was a partner in Atlantic from 1953 until the label was sold to Warner Brothers in 1969 and along with founder Ahmet Ertegun and his brother Nesuhi, engineer Tom Dowd and producer Arif Mardin, was an architect of the label's sound and style.
Nesuhi Ertegun died in 1989, Dowd in 2002, and Mardin and Ahmet Ertegun in 2006. Wexler was the last man standing, so this really is the end of an era. Apart from his achievements as a producer, Wexler gave the world the term 'rhythm and blues', while working as a music journalist for Billboard magazine, as a replacement for the politically incorrect 'race records' which then identified one of their charts.
Coincidentally, he died within days of Isaac Hayes, having been largely responsible for building the relationship between Stax Records in Memphis and Atlantic that saw so many of the songs Hayes wrote with David Porter into worldwide hits for the Stax roster of artists. They, of course, laid the foundations for Hot Buttered Soul, Shaft and Hayes' spectacular solo career. Wexler made a huge contribution to several great decades of popular music, and was the sort of creatively minded producer who was also a fan of the artists he worked with. His kind has all but disappeared from the industry. RIP. Like the late lamented Hayes, George Duke is a man who knows a thing or two about funk, as he reminds us on his latest called, excruciatingly, Dukey Treats.
The tunes, we are given to understand, are 'aural nutrients for the mind, body and soul that, when administered correctly, can lead to mental, physical and spiritual healing - and cause a tinglin' in yo hip bone'.
