About Me
251 Records is a jazz label trying not to be a jazz label all the time.Let me explain.When you say the word "jazz" to people who aren't aficionados, they mostly become distracted, like novices of any sort (I've noticed this when encountering friends who are wine mavens -- I start to fall asleep at the mention of aromas and bouquets, or more likely nod and smile and wave politely). Jazz has, in many cases, become museum music. Further, it's been defined to within an inch of its life. This has threatened to kill it, but jazz is stronger than that. It wants to stretch its boundaries -- that's what it's really all about.Jazz, to me, is about the spirit of the music, not the style. It's not just piano, bass, and drums playing yet another arrangement of Stella By Starlight, or some chick singer overdoing Autumn Leaves. It's a way of approaching the music, a way that includes play and fun. It has life and vigor and pep and verve. It's based on blues and folk music, but it goes so far past those genres; it has inspired pop and r&b music, but in different ways and with different results. I find jazz all over the place -- the music of our first artist Ellen Winters (http://myspace.com/ellenwinters), the pop sensibilities of Pat Metheny, the relaxed jamming of MMW, even the amalgam of stylistic possibilites of Sting or John Mayer. Point being, jazz isn't just this one thing that some people would like to call it. It's a lot more.We're in the process of finishing up Ellen's second album, and the process has been fascinating. Based on an idea of offering new entries into the canon of jazz standards, we selected liberally from the songbooks of writers old and new, including James Taylor, Indigo Girls, Joni Mitchell, Peter Eldridge, Brian Eichenberger, and Peder Karlsson. The first three names are well-known, even giants in their fields. The last three are known only to those who know more about the inner circle of vocal jazz (specifically, New York Voices, the Four Freshmen, and the Real Group). All six are writers of tremendous talent and vision, and we are proud and honored to be able to record their music. Most of the songs wouldn't necessarily be called jazz standards, yet they have the melodic and harmonic structures necessary to be platforms of improvisation.We hope to expand our offerings over the next couple of years, to the point that we represent the diversity of which we dream. Check out this space in the meantime -- I'll be focusing on artists I think are doing that to which we aspire, bringing out the spirit of jazz in their own music.
