Another Biggie Passes On

Yesterday marked the passing of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. Ertegun turned his love of jazz and R&B in the 40s into one of the country's premier labels that went on to be the home to such major 70s proggers as Yes and Genesis (in addition to a little known rock band called Led Zeppelin). Bill Bruford, lamenting the state of the modern music biz, once observed that Ertegun was just a music lover who had such a collection he had to start his own record company. Passion and business acumen like that, combined in one person, is sadly lacking in the biz today. Ertegun also played a role in U.S. soccer (alongside the recently departed Lamar Hunt) history as a founder of the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League.

It's also worth mentioning that in a world when we seem increasingly bent on segregating each other and figuring out who the "other" is, Ertegun and his colleagues were an example of the American patchwork in action:

Mr. Ertegun’s music partnerships, he sometimes pointed out, were often culturally triangular. He was Turkish and a Muslim by birth. Many of his fellow executives, like the producer Jerry Wexler, were Jewish. The artists they produced, particularly when the label began, were black. Together, they helped move rhythm and blues to the center of American popular music.

RIP