Joel Dorn named his 32 Records label in honor of the jersey number of his favorite athletes, and constructed Label M's name from the initials of his favorite Jews, so I knew there had to be a story behind calling his new shop Hyena Records. "Hyena is based on a premise that my parents were wildlife photographers," he told me,"and when they were in Africa for a shoot for National Geographic in 1947, when I was five years old, they found a little abandoned hyena puppy, and they brought him home and he was my pet until he passed away two years ago. His name was Buddy....and you know people actually believe that?" The story, of course, is, in simple terms, bullshit, but that was the only bull Dorn was spreading as we talked about the past, present and future of one of the most important producers of popular music recordings of the last four decades.

Plain spoken, with the rhythms of a street-wise kid from Philly still present in his voice, Dorn describes himself as "...one guy, in the desert, howling at the moon." His howls, though, have more honesty and insight than the measured opinions of damn near anyone you could name.

Cosmik Debris is honored to present our third Cosmik Conversation with Joel Dorn.

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Cosmik: Well, Joel, the last time we talked you were just starting a new record label.

Joel: I'm always just starting a new record label...

Cosmik: Yeah. The time before that you were starting a new record label...

Joel: I was starting a new record label then.

Cosmik: And now you've got a new record label!

Joel: Now I've got a brand new record label.

Cosmik: So there was a little break after Label M. What happened there?

Joel: Label M. The company that funded us was taken over by another company that didn't want to have anything to do with the record business. So I did what I always do when I know it ain't gonna be any good. I just put my hat on and headed south. It made no sense, these new guys came in and they wanted to do something with the internet and they started to do all that bab-a-dab bullshit that guys do when they want to tell you where the world's headed. So I just said "I'll talk to you later." About a year ago, I bought the label back and eventually I'll put stuff out, either under Label M or on Hyena. We put out the Buddy Rich, the Blood Ulmer and the Ray Bryant. Eventually, as the other things sell off in the marketplace so there won't be any confusion about returns, I'll put out the Getz and other stuff.

Cosmik: But you were able to buy back the recordings.

Joel: They were idiots. They didn't know what they had, so when I had the opportunity I bought back the eleven proprietary albums, the ones we owned. There were a lot of licensed things that I put out, and those licenses expired. Anytime I get in a position to have a label, I always put out old Atlantic stuff again, because it's been so scattered. Now I'm putting it together for Rhino, this is the first time we're going to release the classic Atlantic catalog in whole pieces.

Cosmik: I saw that you were doing some compilations for Rhino.

Joel: I did a couple compilations for Rhino. I wasn't really happy, because they put me in because of the success I'd had with compilations, and then the second I got in there, there's some chick that works there telling me what to do, so I walked away from that. I feel like Shane, I keep walking away from stuff. I'm too old to tapdance to a bad drummer. The only reason I do this is because it gives me a chance to make the records I want.

Cosmik: It would just seem that at this point in your career, when people hire Joel Dorn they'd have a clue as to what they're getting.

Joel: Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I can't control that end of it. Listen, if there's anything I lust after, it's making the record I want to make the way I want to make it. It's kinda what you shoot for, when you do what you do, when you live by your wits, live by your style. What you really want to do is what you want to do, not in a hold your breath and stamp your feet way. You get to a certain point where you kind of know what you're doing. So one of the reasons I rarely work for major companies is because a lot of times you're working for a committee. You've gotta turn stuff in for approval. My goal in life is to fail on my own terms.

Cosmik: There was also a time when people went into the record business because they liked music.

Joel: Yeah, now the same guys that run record companies could've run shoe companies. A lot of times, if I get into a conversation like this, if the wrong quotes are taken out of the sequence, I'll sound like a bitter old guy, and the fact of the matter is, I'm as far from embittered as possible. It's just that you've really got to know where to play.

I watch Turner Classic Movies a lot, and you'll see there are directors who were active in the 40s and 50s, the 60s and 70s, certain time periods, and you think "Jeez, this guys a great director. How come he never made any more pictures?" Generally it's because the structure of the movie business changed, so that as great as a Frank Capra or a Billy Wilder was, they didn't want Frank Capra style movies, Billy Wilder style movies. The same thing kinda holds for the record business. There are guys I know, that I started out with, that are fabulous producers, but they weren't able to adapt to the new times, so they didn't keep doing what they do in new eras of executives or new eras of public taste. For myself, with the exception of a really rough time in the 80s, I've been making records since the early sixties. It's not easy to stay in the game, and sometimes you have to do things that you have to do in order to be able to do what you want to do, know what I mean? So I was never a guy who could make a disco record or an alternative rock record. I make a certain kind of record, or a few kinds of records. So in some instances working for major record companies was a way for me to do that.

In other instances, the times dictate what I do. With the advent of CD's, I had a chance to reissue some of my favorite music.

Cosmik: One of the first things you did with the new label was to bring back the Night Records stuff, your first label, like the Cannonball Adderly album.

Joel: And that was one of those two spectacular sextets he had. I was talking to Billy Taylor last night, he has some things I want to put together, but with Billy Taylor, you have no idea he did these things, with Ben Webster and video things he did and just fabulous stuff. So we were talking, and once old guys get together and talk, we're talking about a lot of stuff. I do a lot of interviews, you know. If you live long enough people want to know what you think. One of the things we were talking about, there was an article in the Village Voice last spring, one of the critics grudgingly tipped his hat to organs and their music, as if it were, you know, nothing special but a little better than he actually thought. And we were talking about the great organ/tenor groups, and I told him that oftentimes, when I'm talking to a young Shaun Dale they'll ask me "What was it like when you started going to the clubs, and who were your favorite groups?" And when I start to talk about my favorite groups, two that I always bring up are Jack McDuff's quartet with George Benson, Joe Dukes and Red Holloway, and Sonny Stitt's trio with Don Patterson and Billy James. I feel something like a hesitation when they say "Really?," but those were spectacular groups. Those two groups were as tight as any group I ever heard that the critical community thought was better. McDuff's group, that quartet? Go into a club on a Friday night and there was a line around the block.

And they were so tight, and so musical, but for some reason, the organ/tenor music was one that was looked upon as not really jazz, or a jazz step-child or something like that. When the hip-hop kids and the groove kids came along, they went back to that music for sampling and inspiration, and that gave that music a whole new life that it never had except with real people when it was happening.

Cosmik: That music was fun.

Joel: A lot of jazz was fun. You went to see Cannonball, you went to see Horace, or Blakey, you were really entertained.

Cosmik: There's a lot of stuff now that I can really respect, the guys have great chops and all, but the fun is missing.

Joel: Great chops is like guy who can hit a golf ball 500 yards and can't make a two foot putt.

Cosmik: Yeah, you go "Hey, that's amazing!" but it's no fun to listen to. You aren't going to go out with a date for a couple cocktails and an enjoyable evening, even if it's 'intellectually stimulating.'

Joel: But you know what? Intellectually stimulating is great for a minute, and then people want to feel something. At least I do. I'd give anything to go to a club right now where I could hear, you know, Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott. That was great music. You'd get high or take a couple of drinks and go in there and all of a sudden you're feeling good. It's Friday night, the week's over and you're having a good time. I went to see Miles, Trane, Mingus, Monk, all those people, but on a good night when Ramsey Lewis or Mongo Santamaria was in town, those bands used to really kick ass. Les McCann, when he had his great trios or when he and Eddie were out there, that music wasn't any lasting so-called 'serious' music. But boy, do I miss that. Jazz isn't something you master the way you give people various degree belts in karate. It's gotta do with coming up through a certain life, moving a certain way, being in a certain situation. And just because you like jazz doesn't mean you can't like R&B or blues or country. It all seems to be so divided, and there seem to be rules for music now. The whole thing when I was a kid was you got the new thing, not who's doing the old thing correctly. There was no such thing as correct. One of the great things about seeing a guy take a solo was finding a guy who would fuck up, and then recover it. The whole crowd would be with him. Now it seems to be a learned music, a taught music. In the same breath I'd say God bless all these kids that are keeping the idiom alive, or keeping the tradition alive to the extent of their abilities.

Cosmik: I hear a lot of so-called important releases that I play once or twice and file away on the shelves, while the stuff I listen to over and over seems to be either re-issues or stuff put out by some guy who's saved his lunch money to put out the music he's playing in a local club, and a lot of that's really great stuff, usually better than any of the 'important' music, because they're just blowing. They're lucky to sell twenty copies a week off the back of the stage, but they're making terrific jazz.

Joel: Sometimes you start feeling like Don Quixote, you know. I keep putting out the music I dig, and some of it sells, and some of it doesn't. But I'm not going to not put out a Ray Bryant solo album because I can't sell ten copies of it. Sometimes I'll get a letter in the mail or something that says, "Gee, thank God you put out that Ray Bryant record," and I'll say to myself "Yeah." Because somewhere along the way somebody who wouldn't have heard Ray Bryant may hear him, and it might make a difference in somebody's life. The reason I'm mentioning Ray Bryant, I got one of those bounce-back cards the other day from that album, "Somewhere In France." That record is as good a solo piano record as I've ever heard in my life. I don't know if we sold a thousand copies of that record, but I got a bounce-back card from a woman in California who said "I never heard of Ray Bryant in my life. I heard this record on the radio, and I bought it and I play it constantly. Thank you."

Cosmik: Of course, that's one of the great things about releasing some of this unheard live music. Live jazz is just better jazz in so many cases.

Joel: Well, because, like, the fifth member of the quartet is the audience, when the musicians and the audience are together. We put a record out on Label M, it had good sound, but not great sound, but it was the best recording of a group and an audience I ever heard. It was Freddie Hubbard and Jimmy Heath. If you want to hear what guys like me talk about, about going to the club and having the experience? I never heard a recording that captured the relationship between the audience and the musicians, and how each of them set off the other, the way I did with that record.

Cosmik: That was one of the Left Bank records.

Joel: Yeah, one of the Left Bank records. We put out a Freddie Hubbard that was really nice, but the Freddie Hubbard/Jimmy Heath record, you can just feel what it is. I talk to a lot of kids and they'll ask me "What do you mean it was different then?" and for a while I'd say "Let me send you a copy of this record and you tell me if you get a sense of the audience and the musicians as one thing. It's like squeezing a balloon. The audience gives this and the musicians give that and it's a back and forth thing." That's what it really is, that catching on fire thing where the little sparks pass between the audience and the bandstand, on a constant basis. That seems to have been here and gone. There's a lot of applause at the right spots, but you don't see the invisible wall drop down, you know?

Cosmik: These are also artists who really gave a damn about what the audience was experiencing out there. It wasn't "Here's our spectacle, observe it."

Joel: It's not so much spectacle. The thing that's not enjoyable to me is "Here's what you're supposed to do," as opposed to "Let's go get 'em."

Cosmik: Well, I'm thinking about pop shows today, where they've got a show, you see it, but it really doesn't seem to matter if the audience is there or not.

Joel: Let me tell you something, with the pop shows. I'm sick and tired of the smoke. I'm tired of the lights that don't quit. I'm tired of the fake firework or pyrodynamic shit. Where's Clyde McPhatter when you need him? Where's Ray Charles in 1958? Where's the thing when you come on the stage and you do what you do and it's so overwhelming that you don't need lasers or any of that crap. There was a guitar player I was hanging out with, Rene Toledo, he's from Florida by way of Cuba. He was out with Gloria Estefan for awhile and he was playing the Garden and said "Come by and catch the show and we'll go out to dinner afterwards." So my son Adam and I went by, and we hung out in the back of the Garden watching it and it was like halftime at a college football game. There were fireworks, there were lights, there were 22 people onstage doing basically nothing. It was like two hours of looking through a microscope and seeing amoebas bump into each other, but nothing really happened. I remember going to a theatre and seeing the Drifters, or seeing Jackie Wilson, and it was the person's talent that was the overwhelming thing.

I saw a show at the Apollo one time, with Ray Charles, Jimmie Scott and the Coasters, and it was the most overwhelming show I ever saw in my life. Jimmie Scott just killed them with ballads. The Coasters were at the height of their powers. The songs were like a cartoon come to life, a vignette, one after another. Then Ray Charles came out and he was Ray Charles, you know what I mean? And you couldn't breathe at the end of this show, but there were no effects. I saw Mahalia Jackson three or four times when I was a kid. She came out, there was an organ player on one side of the stage, a piano player on the other, that was it. I thought that the foundation of the building was going to break when she got going. Now, you know, I'll put on MTV and watch, like, Britney Spears, and nothing fucking happens. I would give anything for some kid to come along and just kill you with his or her talent. It's like watching a movie from behind the screen. It just looks backwards to me. It's not that I enjoy complaining, because I really don't. But what happened? How did it go away? Who passed that law.

Cosmik: I had the opportunity to see the Coasters and Ray Charles, though not on the same stage, so I can relate. But these were musicians who made an effort to directly engage the audience. The performance was a shared experience.

Joel: Yeah, you were being entertained. And their lives depended on it. I saw the Stones, I don't give a fuck about anything, because I don't think they know the difference. They know what you're 'supposed' to do. They know how to make records that will sell through the machine to the people that are supposed to buy it. They do the costume changes, have the little machines, grab their crotches and do whatever is supposed to be show business now. But I saw the Stones, their HBO special? I was never a big Stones freak, but I liked their early records a lot, the stuff on London, the first Atlantic records. They were really well made records. So I saw the Stones and, like, nothin'. Fuckin' nothin'. Keith Richards is a real guy, I've spent a little bit of time with him and he's into the music, but nothing happened. They played 20 songs, and nothing happened.

Cosmik: Of course, economics plays in there, too. Now they play stadiums. I saw the Stones in theatres, eons ago, and it was a very different experience.

Joel: I saw something the Stones did that really left a bad taste in my mouth. I did an album with the Neville Brothers in 1980, Fiyou On The Bayou, a good record. They were great. So they opened for the Stones at the Rainbow in Chicago, a big 20,000 seater. So they open for the Stones and they're only allowed to use half of the sound system, so they were playing and you can hear it, but it wasn't the bombastic sound. When the Stones came out, they used the whole sound system so they automatically sounded twice as good as anybody. I thought that was, like, corny, you know? When you'd go to a show when I was a kid, there was a sound system. Everybody used it. It went over or it didn't go over. I used to hang in lots of black clubs or black theaters when I was a kid, and that was an unforgiving audience. Everybody in that place was a working man or a working woman, so the two or three dollars they paid for that ticket were two or three dollars they worked an hour for, or two hours for, back then. You better come across with something or the audience would tell you what they think.

One of the things I think is wrong is when anybody from 'a' generation only can see what was, and not what is. I remember when jazz started turning around for me in an unpleasant way in the mid-seventies, but I wouldn't want to put a black mark on everything that wasn't of the era that I like. I'm always surprised by certain things. I was watching television yesterday and I saw Outkast. I liked that. I like Beck. My son Adam, when he does Mocean Worker, I think that's terrific. I think there's stuff out there, it's just that art always reflects the times, and I'm more boned at the times than I am at the people who are the poets and painters. You can't be mad because Babe Ruth isn't around anymore, because the conditions that produced a Babe Ruth are no longer here.

But in the end, I hope that instead of sounding bitter, I hope I sound like a guy who's interested in what he's doing instead of what's wrong. I can't control what's happening now, but to a certain degree I can control what I want to do, so each time I start a label, I do another version of what I enjoy.

Cosmik: And you're still there.

Joel: I'm trying, baby.

Cosmik: So let's talk about the new label.

Joel: Well, here's what we've done so far. We put out those four Night Records that I did, which were the first times I ever worked with non-professional material, board tapes and private tapes and stuff like that. It was the first time that I had a sense that there was source material out there that I could use to make albums that would give people another view of artists that they hadn't had previously. The stuff with Cannonball and Les and Eddie and Rahsaan, it's there to compliment the existing bodies of work that each of these artists has. So when I found that stuff, and I started to see that there was lots of material out there that was worthy of release, but not from the same sources that most albums come from, I started to see that there was an opportunity to round out the pictures of artists with this material. So I put that stuff out again. Then I had two albums I'd made earlier, an Aaron Neville record called Orchid In The Storm that was kind of a mutual love song from Aaron and I to our childhood in the 50s.

Cosmik: And you sweetened that up with some bonus stuff.

Joel: I put some stuff in, because when I made that it was a five song EP. That's as good as I can do, that original EP. If you're gonna say what is it that I do? That's what I do. Every once in a while an artist and I hook up and both of us throw strikes at the same time. That record is an example of that. But I was told you can't put an EP out. You have to have at least nine cuts and 38 minutes or some number. So I grabbed other stuff I'd done with Aaron and put that out, and I think it compliments those first five cuts well. But those first five cuts alone, they stand by themselves for my ears.

Cosmik: I've got a copy of the Doc Pomus tribute one of the cuts came from, and it's nice to have things like that that are scattered on compilations in one place.

Joel: I was happy to put everything in one place, but Orchid In The Storm, in it's original form, that's Aaron to me at the absolute height of his powers. And he was coming from a place, you had to be in the room. There was an overwhelming feeling coming from him. I've never heard him sound like that before that record or after. It's not a matter of better or worse, it's just sometimes you have a moment, and that was some moment in his life.

Cosmik: Well, it was real heart material for him.

Joel: Wow. He was not joking, Jack. He was coming from the middle of his center. And then the Roomful Of Blues album, that was the first album that Pomus and I made together, and I still think that in its innocence it's the best record that Roomful ever made, although they've made a lot of great records. So I put those six records together. I also wanted to get some of the Label M stuff back in the game, because we had Vernon Reid do a second Blood Ulmer record for us, and I wanted the first one out again, so we bought the Label M title back. Now we have that out and we have the new Blood Ulmer record, which I think is fantastic. I think that he and Vernon working together is a perfect combination.

Cosmik: And yet those are not the albums I would have imagined Ulmer ever making.

Joel: I never would have in ten million years. We'd never have put those out if it weren't for Kevin (Callabro, publicist, producer and all-round go to guy for 32 Records, Label M and now Hyena). He put that whole thing together. He said he wanted to do Blood Ulmer and I didn't know, because I was thinking about the out stuff. I didn't even know he sang. But he said Vernon Reid wanted to make a record, and there's an example of a young guy, Kevin, who's got his ear tuned. He can pick good shit out. So I said alright, and when I saw the success of that first one, not just in terms of sales, but a great concept with a lot of things coming together properly, I said let's make another one and we did the new Blood, the Electric Lady sessions.

Cosmik: You got Ulmer in the Sun studio the first time, then Electric Lady. I can't help but wonder what you'd get if the old Chess studio was still working.

Joel: Oh, man, are you kidding? When you listen to him, the first thing a lot of people say is that he sounds like Howlin' Wolf, you know? He's got that old, real blues sound.

Then John Kruth, who wrote the Rahsaan bio, and is a musician in his own right? I'd kind of run out of Rahsaan material that I really dug, and he turned me onto the San Diego sessions, which we put out as Compliments Of The Mysterious Phantom. That's as close as you're gonna get to Rahsaan on record sounding like Rahsaan in a club.

Cosmik: It's a big fun record.

Joel: Trust me. But you know what happened? I'd run out of shit to say about Rahsaan, so I came up with those lunatic notes, and do you know there were guys who reviewed that record and said "Thank God Dorn's not producing Rahsaan anymore."? VictorfuckingSheldrake.

Cosmik: Victor Sheldrake introduced the Dr. John interview on the DVD part of the new one, and that's a very familiar voice...

Joel: Yes, it is. For a while I was thinking of having Victor Sheldrake kill off Joel Dorn. I might just disappear and have Victor Sheldrake produce the records now, or create a feud like Jack Benny and Fred Allen. I don't know, but people actually said how much better Sheldrake's work was than Dorn's.

So we got the Rahsaan out there. Now, I made the deal with Mac ('Dr. John' Rebbenack) and with the Mingus estate. Mac's got 500 tapes of live performances going back thirty years! Do you know what a find that is?

Cosmik: And I just heard that one for the first time last week. It's a real treasure, a terrific record.

Joel: That's Mac. Listen, anytime Mac was doing a solo gig, Doc (Pomus) and I were there every night. It was overwhelming. He's the only person in the world that can play the piano that way. That piano's like an orchestra.

Cosmik: And with the interview on the DVD....

Joel: That's like a history lesson.

Cosmik: And the new Thelonious Monk, with a live DVD.

Joel: Yeah, so you get a chance to hear Monk, and you get to see him. And once you've seen Monk, you can really hear him. One of the things we're trying to do with the label, is we're trying to become the free DVD label. In other words, you pay $15.98 for the CD, you get a free DVD, and they compliment each other. Hopefully it will give a larger, bigger picture of who these artists are.

Cosmik: You know John Snyder?

Joel: I know who he is. I've spoken to him a few times.

Cosmik: He's revived his old Artist House label, and he's putting in DVDs, and another producer, Bob Biggs, has brought back Slash with the same approach.

Joel: You gotta do something, man, because you've got to give the people more than they had before if they're gonna buy your record. I didn't know anyone else that was doing it, but I'm glad someone's doing it.

Cosmik: What's interesting to me is that you're all indie guys who've been through the mill with the majors and everything, trying to do your own thing. It's interesting that that's where you find people really trying to provide a value-added package.

Joel: Listen, I remember when buying a record was exciting because the music was exciting, the cover picture was exciting, the notes were exciting, everything was exciting. You have to make it so somebody relates to that package. I mean, Mac, you have no idea what I have on Mac. So with Mac and Monk, and now I'm back in the studio with and I'm actually making a record, this Frank Vignola/Joe Ascione record. And then I start with a Bobby Darin package. I've got 150 things with Bobby Darin that nobody's ever heard. And I have thirteen of the TV shows. I'm gonna make a Bobby Darin package that's gonna snap your fuckin' head back.

Cosmik: 32 was basically the Muse records reissue label, and Label M, the heart of that was the Left Bank stuff, but this one really seems like a much broader mix.

Joel: I think so. Anytime you go from Blood Ulmer to Bobby Darin, to Aaron Neville to Roomful Of Blues, to Frank and Joe, we want to have a label that's great artists' great work, regardless of what the genre or category is. And wherever I can, I'm putting pictures in with the words. You're gonna get a DVD.

Cosmik: And there other partnerships. There's Dr. John and T.S. Monk, and then there's the Indigedisc stuff, which you've got back...

Joel: I forgot about that! You've got King Sunny and all these African artists I never heard of, but it's great music. Look, I took a year off a couple of years ago, because I wanted to come back and do something different, and this is different than what I've done before. I don't know if that means it's going to be successful, if it's going to be good, I don't know anything. But I know I'm excited, and if I've got that starting point, if I'm excited, it means I've got a chance of exciting you. Great artists doing great work, regardless of who they are or where they come from, what they do or what category. And as many times as we can, you're gonna see the artist as well as hear them. That's what Hyena's about.

(C) 2003 - Shaun Dale