There’s
very little that the eyes and ears of Bob Koester have not seen or
heard.
You might picture him as the wise old owl that sits high atop a tree,
surveying everything surrounding him in all directions.
And that picture would be pretty accurate.
Koester’s fingerprints are all over everything related to blues and jazz
music and his presence in the genre goes back over six decades.
Simply put, without Bob Koester’s involvement in making, marketing,
promoting and selling recorded music, there’s no telling how the fields
of blues and jazz specifically, would have suffered.
But suffered they certainly would have.
Since morphing his hobby of digging on the sounds of big-band jazz and
collecting music into a full-time occupation back in the early 1950s,
the Blues Hall of Famer, who was born in 1932 in Wichita, Kansas, has
been a key component in the efforts to keep blues and jazz music from
fading into the background and becoming something strictly for
historians to reminisce about.
In addition to giving birth to Delmark Records, a label that is on the
precipice of its 60th anniversary, Koester also breathed life into what
has become the world’s largest jazz and blues record store – called the
Jazz Record Mart – located at 27 East Illinois, in the thriving
metropolis of Chicago, epicenter of the American blues scene.
It takes plenty of gumption to own and operate a blues record label
these days, but with gas hovering around four bucks a gallon, it’s every
bit as hard, if not harder, to keep a successful retail operation – one
that caters to the entertainment side of things – up and running.
“Business in the store has been a little off from last year and we’re
not quite ready to figure out why, except for the recession and people
finally figuring out, maybe, that it’s not going to be over too soon,”
Koester said.
Not just a recent phenomenon, the painful downward slide of recorded
music sales started back a few years ago.
“It was pretty bad. Downloading has had a serious effect on the record
business. Our sales were down 40-odd percent and almost everybody else
went out of business (over the past decade),” Koester said. “But we had
a real, serious comeback when (mega-retailer) Tower (Records) closed.
That was the worst thing that happened to the general market and the
best thing that happened to Jazz Record Mart.”
While other industries can point the finger at the rising cost of
everything production-related as the reason for soft sales, for the
music biz, it’s basically been all about computers and their widespread
dominance of our lives.
“We
were hurting, even before the recession, so it’s downloading. It’s
estimated that something like two percent of all downloads are paid
for,” said Koester. “One of the hopes is, there’s been some laws passed
in France that have made it – I wouldn’t say impossible – but extremely
difficult, to do illegal downloads over there. I’m not sure about the
details, but there was a similar bill in Congress and I see where the
Republicans were on the side of the record companies and music
publishers and the Democrats were on the side of the musicians,
songwriters and vocalists. But it came up and Google said it was a
violation of Freedom of Speech, so they’ve got to re-write it. I don’t
think anything’s going to happen until after the election, which I hope
will give us a more united Congress.”
That change in the way people purchase their music has not only crippled
the outlets that sell the music, it’s also had a devastating impact on
the companies that make the music, big or small, as well.
“There’s nobody to talk to at these major labels anymore. Everybody’s
either in the ivory tower or they’ve got some shit job in the
warehouse,” Koester said. “They’re (major labels) firing all kinds of
hip people.”
Back when just about every town had a record store among its grocery
stores, barber shops, restaurants and gas stations, it was easy for a
music lover to keep up with the latest sounds on a weekly basis.
Part of that was due to the ease in which those record shops could be
stocked.
“In those days, there were distributors in about 20 or 24 different
cities throughout the country,” said Koester. “There were distributors
in Chicago, New York, Boston, Denver and St. Louis … but today there are
three distributors in the United States. There’s City Hall in the Bay
Area, Select-O-Hits in Memphis and a place called Traditions Alive in
Cleveland. There are other accounts that we (Delmark) sell to, but
they’re not really doing that much actual business.”
Delmark and its staff is certainly not ‘anti-computer’ and a big portion
of the label’s offerings can be found on sites that specialize in the
MP3 format, sites such as iTunes or Amazon.com.
But that doesn’t mean the label is in a hurry to make downloads
available through its own Web site (
www.delmark.com).
“Well, I don’t know the technical side of it, but I gather it’s not
something we’re interested in doing,” Koester said. “We’re on iTunes and
through some other people. And there’s one company – we can’t go direct
with them, we go through another company – and of course they take a
bite out of it. So if somebody pays 99 cents for a track, we get 15 or
20 cents, something like that. Of course, the music publisher gets
money. I’ve checked out the numbers and once your product is available
on download, your sales go down 95 percent.”
Back
in the hey-day of vinyl, or even 8-tracks, the notion of getting music
over a glorified television sitting on top of a desk probably seemed
like something straight out of a Buck Rogers sci-fi flick. Those were
the days when the sound that poured out of your stereo speakers was
warm, inviting and anything but digitally processed. But those days are
long gone.
“Well, those days are not totally gone. Fidelity is back. We’ve noticed
an increase in LP business, for instance. We’re about to put out Otis
Rush’s first Delmark recording on LP – we’re expecting the pressings any
day. And we’ll be expanding the catalog at the rate of several albums a
year,” Koester said. “Plus, some of our artists want to have LPs and we
work out deals were they buy a certain quantity, so it’s feasible for us
to issue them. Very often, they’ll buy more than we’ll sell the first
year. In terms of the blues catalogs, the classics, and a few of the
jazz records – we put out the two Sun Ra’s and Roscoe Mitchell from our
back catalog – they do OK, but they don’t sell like the blues. The champ
seller, of course, is Hoodoo Man Blues. But the percentage of sales on
LPS has gone up, while total sales of CDs have gone down slightly. But
getting back to downloads, people still want the liner notes. They’ll
illegally download their CDs, but they’ll still buy LPs. Young people
will come in the store looking for LPs. They sell very well in the avant
garde and modern jazz categories, but they’ve got to be the classics.”
Some of the major labels have been hesitant to jump back into the
production of vinyl after a hiatus that began in earnest back in the
80s, and according to Koester, they’re missing the boat.
“We stock something like 50 or 60 Sun Ra titles available on LP, which
is way more of his albums than were in print during his lifetime. But
stuff like the Miles Davis Prestige classics and some of the Columbia’s,
there’s just so few of them available. The major labels are really
missing the market. I mean, it’s a small market, but they’d better get
used to a smaller industry. Most of the LPs you’ll see on Columbia or
Blue Note were not pressed by the company that owns the masters. There’s
an outfit called Scorpio in Pennsylvania and they do probably half the
LP titles we sell in the store and possibly more than half the volume.
MCA or Universal these days, is goofing by not pressing Muddy Waters and
Howlin’ Wolf and so forth.”
So far, Delmark’s delving into the world of vinyl focuses primarily on
the label’s back catalog, while newer works like Toronzo Cannon’s
Leaving Mood is not currently available on LP format.
“Our new products tend not to be available on LP. If an artist wants to
buy a bunch of them, then maybe,” Koester said. “An artist is a very
important outlet for our records, especially vinyl.”
Koester was born and raised in the very un-bluesy environs of Wichita,
Kansas. But he didn’t let his surroundings dictate or hold back his
tastes in music. As a young man he still found a way to be smitten with
the sounds of jazz.
“The KFH (radio station) Ark Valley Boys were one of the early
influences because they had a real good stride or ragtime piano player.
And of course, that was western swing, which was derived from jazz,” he
said. “Back when I was a kid, big bands were still around. I couldn’t go
hear them, although I did catch Count Basie, with Jimmy Rushing singing,
at the Miller Theatre in Wichita when I was quite young. And that really
turned me on to jazz and blues, although I didn’t understand blues. But
I still don’t see blues as a separate body. To me, it’s part of the jazz
scene. Although some jazz fans don’t like that, because they see blues
as too primitive.”
Koester’s first essential brush with the world of recorded music
occurred when his family moved into the house of his deceased
grandfather.
“We moved into this nice, big house on Douglas Avenue and he (Koester’s
grandfather) had an Original Dixieland Jazz Band 78 in with all his
classical records. And he also had a turntable – a phonograph – so I
went out and started buying records,” Koester said. “And I also heard
the Eddie Condon jazz show, which had a 13-week run on the blue network
and at least for part of that, it was broadcast in Wichita.”
Then
in the mid 40s, a film called New Orleans, a film that Koester, an avid
16-millimeter print collector, now has several copies of in his
collection, opened in Wichita.
“It showed at The Palace Theatre, I think, the one across from the
Wichita Theatre on Douglas, and one of the shorts they showed was Jammin’
the Blues with Lester Young,” he said. “It was an Academy Award winner
done by Norman Granz with Gjon Mili doing the photography. And that
really turned me on. I was a jazz fan from then on. I was going to be a
movie cameraman at one time. But instead of a film maker that collects
records, I became a record maker who collects films.”
Koester’s film collection currently stands at over 800 features –
including the always popular Laurel & Hardy comedies – along with
several thousand cartoons.
When it became time for Koester to attend college, he ended up in
Missouri, at St. Louis University, because his parents insisted he go to
a Jesuit college.
“If I’d have went to (college in) New Orleans or Chicago, I would have
been seduced by the music, so I went to St. Louis. But the first group
(Windy City Six) I ever recorded played a block off of campus, two
blocks from my dorm,” he said. “And I joined the St. Louis Jazz Club and
was selling records out of my dorm room through The Record Changer
magazine and at the jazz club meetings.”
Just a little over a year after landing in St. Louis, Koester and fellow
jazz club member Ron Fister opened their first retail outlet, a store
fittingly called K & F Sales, in a small place they rented for $40 a
month.
K & F quickly outgrew its original location and soon the shop was
re-christened as the Blue Note Record Shop after taking over an
out-of-business restaurant’s spot.
However, the partnership between Koester and Fister was also about to
dissolve.
“He wanted to sell all kinds of pop shit and I didn’t, so we broke up
the partnership. I paid him off. That was in 1952, I believe,” said
Koester. “At first, I thought it was just going to be selling out of the
dorm and at the meetings. I thought it would just be a sideline. Then we
opened the store and it just went from there.”
After his split with Fister, Koester relocated the store to a spot on
Delmar and Oliver Streets in St. Louis. Thus, Delmar Records – later
changed to Delmark - was born and what had started out as an interest
and hobby became all-consuming for young Koester.
“Eventually I got so involved with it that I flunked my third year and
they (St. Louis University) asked me not to come back,” he said.
At first, Koester really didn’t know what to do when it really dawned on
him that his collegiate days were over.
“I was very indecisive. I got called up in the draft, but flunked the
physical because of an irregular heartbeat. And so I decided that I’d
stay with it (selling records). But I didn’t have a hell of a lot of
capital,” he said. “I remember my inventory would be about 100 LPs, but
of course I’d buy and sell 78s, too, collector’s items. The blues 78s,
I’d keep one of each. I had a collection of about three or four thousand
blues 78s and several thousand jazz 78s. And I was selling off the jazz
78s for capital, because the stuff was coming out on LPs, but I kept the
blues stuff. But if I got a new blues 78, it’d go in the pile for a
dollar or two bits apiece. Nobody wanted them. That’s why blues records
are so valuable today, because so many of them got thrown away.”
One of the major pitfalls of owning and operating your own record store
is having the ability to let go of a cool piece of music that might fit
in well in your own personal collection, when on the other hand, the
sale of that item could bring in a bit of much-needed cash.
So how did Koester separate his collector side from his business side?
“Well, I usually kept it. If it was something I didn’t already have, I’d
keep it,” he said. “When stuff would come out on LP, I’d sell the
original.”
But buying and selling records produced by other record companies was to
be only a small part of Koester’s budding enterprise.
Oli
Brown - Here I Am
Chemako
– Chemako
Stacy
Jones Band - Live and Untapped
The
Blasters - Fun On Saturday Night
Tommy
McCoy – Late In The Lonely Night
Rosetta
West – Underground Volume 1