Just when you think you know everything there is to know, something smacks you upside the head to remind you that you don’t really know that much after all.
After decades of searching, reading and listening, I was confident I had a working knowledge of every significant American jazz record label, dating back to Louis Armstrong’s sides for Okeh and RCA. It’s been something of an obsession. But in spite of the Internet’s illusion that absolutely everything in the history of recorded music has been unearthed and digitally restored, the tireless souls at Mosaic Records introduced me to the surprisingly neglected Bee Hive label.
“The Complete Bee Hive Sessions” consists of 12 CDs of music that I, and perhaps you, had no knowledge of whatsoever. Between 1977 and 1984, married couple Jim and Susan Neumann, who had made their living in the world of lighting fixtures, decided to put together a jazz label to document musicians whose styles they liked. This was essentially how the iconic Blue Note label began, but in spite of the Neumanns’ top-tier roster of musicians and stellar performances committed to tape and vinyl, Bee Hive didn’t have the staying power of other, better-remembered independents.
Most of the artists signed to Bee Hive were proven journeymen: vocalist Johnny Hartman, saxophonists Clifford Jordan and Nick Brignola, brass players Dizzy Reece and Curtis Fuller and expressive pianists such as Roland Hanna, Ronnie Matthews and Junior Mance.
Everyone was given creative freedom in the studio. And while most of the music stuck to standards, blues and hard bop structures, there was an undeniable freshness and sense of purpose to nearly everything produced at the label. Fuller’s “Fire And Filigree,” Reece’s “Manhattan Project” and Jordan’s “Hyde Park After Dark” rank with the most satisfying straight-ahead jazz recordings of the era — even though very few would have known about them then.
In the sets’ (typically superb for Mosaic) liner notes, Susan Neumann said that the majority of these recordings didn’t break even financially upon their release, but, nonetheless, she wished that they could have gone on forever. Forever is a long time, but perhaps the reintroduction of this music, in all of its sincerity and enthusiasm, will be granted some well-deserved acknowledgement. ()
High-energy organist Joey DeFrancesco wraps up his weekend at Dazzle on Oct. 18. Al Di Meola makes a rare Colorado appearance at the Soiled Dove Underground on Oct. 19. The Matt Fuller Group performs “Songs From The Road Less Traveled” at Nocturne Jazz Oct. 20. Former Denverite and saxophonist Javon Jackson brings trumpeter Eddie Henderson to the Mount Vernon Country Club Oct. 22. Dimitri Matheny brings his flugelhorn and band to Baur’s Restaurant and Listening Lounge the same evening. Fun-seeking experimentalists Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey are scheduled for The 1up Colfax on Oct. 23-24. The Eric Alexander & Harold Mabern Quartet, featuring the soul-stirring Mabern, plays Dazzle Oct. 29-30.
Bret Saunders can be heard from 6 to 11 a.m. weekday mornings at KBCO 97.3 FM and . bretsaunders@kbco.com
