"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The echo of Charles Dickens' famous novel A Tale of Two Cities is suitable to describe the climate of jazz when Creed Taylor launched CTI. It was 1970 and acoustic jazz was in crisis. Following the invasion of rock, it had survived by becoming electric, but the question was if jazz didn't get lost in translation? To Taylor the mission was simple. He wanted to bring jazz into the new decade with a distinctive sound and a fresh look, but he also wanted to keep the spirit of jazz and preserve the music of the legends he had already heard. The challenge was not to find good musicians, in that sense it was the best of times. The conundrum was to make jazz sell without selling out.

Taylor succeeded in solving the riddle and created an iconic label whose sound and look has entered the pantheon of great labels like Blue Note, ECM and Impulse! Taylor managed to combine acoustic jazz with the new electric sound. He brought in elements of Brazilian music and classical sounds, but he kept the cool essence of jazz. To support the elegant sound of the music, Taylor enlisted photographer Pete Turner whose distinctive photographs graced many of the album covers.

By now CTI is past, but thankfully its legacy is preserved in the best possible way by the British reissue-label BGO. It is long ago BGO started reissuing CTI albums, but recently they have stepped up and the following six releases provide their most dedicated embrace of the label so far.

Jim Hall
Concierto/Big Blues/Studio Trieste
BGO
2018

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