Francis Wolff (April 5, 1907 – March 8, 1971) was a record company executive, photographer and record producer. Wolff's skills, as an executive and a photographer, were important contributions to the success of the

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical c ...

record label.

Career

Jakob Franz "Franny" Wolff was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, where he became a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

enthusiast, despite the government ban placed on this type of music after 1933. After a career as a commercial photographer in Germany, Wolff emigrated to the United States. A Jew, he left Berlin for New York in the late 1930s. In 1939 in New York his childhood friend Alfred Lion had co-founded Blue Note Records (with sleeping partner Max Margulis, who soon dropped out of any involvement in the company), and Wolff joined Lion in running the company. During Lion's war service, Wolff worked for

Milt Gabler Milton Gabler (May 20, 1911 – July 20, 2001) was an American record producer, responsible for many innovations in the recording industry of the 20th century. These included being the first person to deal in record reissues, the first to sel ...

at the Commodore Music Store, and together they maintained the company's catalogue until Lion was discharged. Until Lion retired in 1967, Wolff concentrated on the financial affairs of the business and only supervised occasional recording sessions produced during his visits to Europe to see surviving members of his family. For the last four years of his life, when Blue Note was no longer an independent label, Wolff shared production responsibilities with pianist and arranger Duke Pearson. He died of a heart attack following surgery in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, aged 64. Wolff took photographs during the recordings sessions, usually shot during session rehearsals, throughout the period of Lion's involvement in Blue Note Records. They were used on publicity material and LP album sleeves, and have continued to be used in CD reissue booklets. The two collections of photographs listed below contain entirely separate selections of the many thousands Wolff shot over a thirty-year period. Reid Miles and Alfred Lion choose to leave the label in 1967 while Francis Wolff remains until his death which occurs on March 8, 1971 by a heart attack. Francis Wolff is considered one of the leading jazz photographers. His work has long remained unknown to the public; the publication in 1995 of a book entitled The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff, a compilation of his principal photographs for the label, helped to make his work more widely known.

Documentary films

* Julian Benedikt: ''Blue Note – A Story of Modern Jazz''.

Documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

1996. * Eric Friedler (film director): ''It Must Schwing! The Blue Note Story''.

, Produzent: Wim Wenders,

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...

.
Official website of the film, access date 26. September 2018.
' * Sophie Huber: ''Blue Note Records - Beyond the notes''.

, Switzerland,

Bibliography

* Michael Cuscuna, Charlie Lourie & Oscar Schnider (1995), ''The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff'', Rizzoli, * Michael Cuscuna, Charlie Lourie & Oscar Schnider (2000), ''Blue Note: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff'', Universe (Rizzoli),

References and notes

External links

Francis Wolff at Mosaic Records

Blue Note Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff

Family Tree on GENI
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Francis 1907 births 1971 deaths 20th-century American photographers Record producers from New York (state) Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Photographers from Berlin Jazz photographers Jazz record producers Businesspeople from New York City 20th-century American businesspeople