Michael Cuscuna

Michael Cuscuna (born September 20, 1948 in Stamford , Connecticut ) is an American jazz producer, best known for his re-releases on Blue Note Records and Mosaic Records .

Cuscuna grew up in New York and played drums, saxophone and flute, but from the beginning had a career as a music journalist and in the record industry. In the late 1960s he had a jazz program for WXPN Radio and wrote for jazz magazines such as Down Beat . In the early 1970s he began working as a producer for Atlantic Records, where he a. a. the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Dave Brubeck produced. After that he worked for example at Motown and released records of the Impulse label at ABC before he organized extensive reissues from the archives of Blue Note Records from 1975 to 1981 and also wrenched musicians like Tina Brooks from oblivion. In 1982 he and his Blue-Note colleague Charlie Lourie founded Mosaic Records, which set themselves the goal of reissuing complete, limited-edition sessions as record boxes. He also continued his work on the reissue programs at Blue Note and Impulse (which are part of GRP, now Verve Music Group).

As a producer, he led the Down Beat polls several times. In 1999 he received a Grammy for the liner notes des reissues of recordings by the Miles Davis Quintet from 1965 to 1968. In 2012 he received the Bruce Lundvall Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Books

with Michel Ruppli "Blue Note Label - a discography", Greenwood Press, revised edition 2001, 936 pages, ISBN 0313318263
with Michel Lourie, Oscar Schnider "Blue Note: Jazz Photography of Francis Wolf", Universe Publishing 2000, ISBN 0789304937 , German 1995

Web links

Scott Yanow's biography

Remarks

↑ In his own words in a 1997 interview for PBS, it was learning to play drum solos on the basis of Gene Krupa or Joe Morello recordings that led him to jazz. Cuscuna was one of the consultants for the Ken Burns documentary series on jazz at PBS.

personal data
SURNAME	Cuscuna, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American jazz producer
DATE OF BIRTH	September 20, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stamford

[1] In his own words in a 1997 interview for PBS, it was learning to play drum solos on the basis of Gene Krupa or Joe Morello recordings that led him to jazz. Cuscuna was one of the consultants for the Ken Burns documentary series on jazz at PBS.