Ahmet Ertegun, 1923-2006
Wow, it’s hard to quantify the influence that Ahmet Ertegun has had over the music industry, and there are many tribute pieces you can read that detail his extraordinary life, so I won’t repeat that. But we should remember that, as much as we ascribe cultural significance to the works of Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, and so many of the great artists that recorded on Atlantic and its subsidiaries in its early days as a jazz and R&B roots label, it was Ahmet Ertegun (along with his brother Neshui, Jerry Wexler, and Tom Dowd) who believed in these artists and thought the world should hear their genuis.
I’ve always found it interesting how so many of the guiding forces in black music have been immigrants. In addition to the Erteguns, you also have the Chess Brothers (Chess Records) and Alfred Lion (Blue Note), among others. My take is that, as outsiders in this country, they picked up on the pain of being left outside of the American mainstream that is inherent in jazz and blues.
R.I.P., Ahmet Ertegun. There won’t be another like you.
No mention of his soccer connection?
K
I’ve been kind of busy today, but there’s a lot that I didn’t discuss (like having Atlantic branch out into rock in the 70s after Warner bought it). That’s why I linked to all those articles.
But what really hasn’t gotten a lot of mention is that Ertegun, and others like him, took incredible risks to popularize jazz, solely out of a connection they made to the music, not because they felt there could be a lot of money involved (John Hammond lived largely off his trust fund as a Vanderbilt and didn’t make a lot in the record industry). And much of this was done before the Civil Rights movement, when it wasn’t as easy to get black music played on the radio. We take a lot of things for granted these days because men like him were willing to put themselves out on the line.
Edited to say that, coincidentally, I just found this interview with him on Slate.
Asked what he hoped his legacy would be, he replied: “I’d be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.”