In my travels as a musical ‘spider’ of the sonosphere, I came to discover this interesting musical reality thanks to the figure of William Parker. I discovered the music of this jazz giant and listened to his albums in depth, and then moved on to read his books of interviews with artists and performers, key figures in all music. The next step was to interview him, peppering Parker with questions that he patiently answered (you can find the interview here). I was missing a further piece, namely an in-depth look at the history of the record label that introduced me to the William Parker musician and writer, the French RogueArt. Thanks to the friendliness and kindnesss of the creator Michel Dorbon, I was able to unravel all the issues and have Michel tell me about the origins, present and future of this very interesting and very active record company. To you, as always, the reading.
Here you can find the Italian translation
What are the origins of the RogueArt label? How did the idea come about? What were your inspirations? What models, if any, have you referred to?
There are many elements in the question; I’ll try to summarize. It all happened by chance, and I started out as a producer before I started RogueArt. I had a full-time job until 2018 (which is what allowed me to finance my productions, and still does), and this job regularly included overseas assignments. At the end of the ’90s, when a longer-than-usual assignment had allowed me to put a little money aside, I met, let’s say by chance, Marie Consenza, who at the time was managing the Bleu Regard label (not existing anymore), mainly dedicated to the memory of Charles Tyler and she was looking for people who would produce groups not necessarily related to Charles Tyler. I jumped at the chance and produced my first record, Matthew Shipp Trio with Rob Brown and William Parker “Magnetism” (since re-released on RogueArt). Of course, I was familiar with jazz and free jazz, but only as a listener, with no other connection to the scene. So, I started from scratch, with no real preconceptions.
Four productions and five years later, I decided to take things a step further and set up RogueArt as a home for my productions; and all this without leaving my salaried job, which freed me from the constraints of looking for money to finance my productions.
I didn’t really have any preconceived ideas about what a label should be. Of course, I was familiar with the European free jazz and jazz labels of the time – Black Saint, Marge, FMP, Hat Hut, Silkheart, Ayler Records, ECM… But at no time did I consider imitating them or taking them as a model; they are (or were for some of them) all very different from each other, and I appreciated them very much; but what’s the point of redoing what’s already been done? But they inevitably inspired me in one way or another, unconsciously or not. Not to mention the fact that I started the label at a time when record sales had already begun to decline sharply.
Two things I wanted to avoid were the crystal case (the plastic transparent case), which fortunately has now almost disappeared, and the (often) ugly CD cover’s faces that tried to imitate vinyl covers; given the size of the CD, it’s much easier to screw up a cover than to get it right. This explains the design of RogueArt CD covers, all the same, just like the books (at least in France).
As a producer, I am the kind of person that only finance the album with no or minimum interference on the music. My approach is to mostly give musicians an environment in which they feel comfortable creating.
Where was the label based?
The label is based in Paris, where we live. I work from home with my wife, Christine Bareau, who also had a full-time job until the late 2010s. So it’s only in the last five years or so that we’ve been able to devote ourselves exclusively to our productions and to keeping the label alive.
How did you choose the releases?
For my first production, I was keen to work with Matthew Shipp, whom I’d heard in David S. Ware‘s quartet and then as a solo artist, so I produced the Matthew Shipp trio album “Magnetism”, released on Bleu Regard in 1999. When I started the label six years later, Alexandre Pierrepont, a specialist (among other things) in the Chicago scene, introduced me to Roscoe Mitchell and Hamid Drake, who readily agreed to let me produce one of their albums despite my total lack of experience; hard to find a better way to start a label! Hamid Drake & Bindu “Bindu” and Roscoe Mitchell Quintet, “Turn” are the label’s first and third references, the second being Rob Brown Quartet “Radiant Pools” and the fourth Matthew Shipp‘s Declared Enemy “Salute to 100 001 Stars – A tribute to Jean Genet”. After that, I was determined to remain as faithful as possible to the musicians and groups I’d started working with, while at the same time trying to introduce new ones, which of course is becoming increasingly difficult as the label grew. Hence the musicians regularly featured on the label: Matthew Shipp, Roscoe Mitchell, Rob Brown, Hamid Drake first, then Nicole Mitchell, Joëlle Léandre, Joshua Abrams, Larry Ochs, Michel Edelin, Gerald Cleaver, Rob Mazurek, Mat Maneri, Sylvain Kassap, Myra Melford, Joe Morris, Jeff Parker and many others. Not forgetting, of course, William Parker, present as both musician and author.
I think it is important that there is a trustful relationship between the musican(s) and the producer. It is something I try to establish; hopefully, I succeed.
Why was it mostly cds releases? Which format do you think best expresses your philosophy of Music? Which format is most in demand?
That’s a very good question, and one that’s all too rarely addressed. I remain convinced that recorded music must be transmitted via a physical medium; and from this point of view, the CD is very probably the best adapted format for many reasons: sound quality, price, ecological balance… all the necessary information can be included (complete instrumentation, compositions, date and place of recording…) as well as liner notes and one or more photos. As for the vinyl revival, it’s probably as much a fantasy of journalists looking for articles on music as a reality, even if there is indeed a fashion effect that can work in certain sectors. We’ve released a few vinyls, some of which have also been released on CD; for the latter, the CD format sells better than the vinyl format. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of vinyls released today are digitally recorded, mixed and mastered, making them the equal of CDs in terms of sound. And let’s not forget speculative vinyl purchases, which account for a significant proportion…
I still believe in CDs, and I don’t think I’m going against the trend.
What do you think about co-productions between record labels? Do you think it is a viable option for your label?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about, not least to be able to release bands that would have been expensive to produce. The problem is that we’re all small structures that manage to survive in very precarious economic conditions. Setting up such a collaboration would be too complicated. I tried once to talk to a label comparable to RogueArt, but, unsurprisingly, it didn’t go very far, despite the good will of both parties. In fact, I’m not aware of any. It’s probably a pity, but I have no idea what it would take to make joint productions possible. Cooperation between labels and live jazz structures (festivals, clubs, concert halls…) is much more frequent, and we have them on a fairly regular basis.
What’s more, apart from collaborating on a production, there are other forms of collaboration between labels, such as for distribution. There’s no competition between us.
How do you feel about social to promote awareness and listening to your label’s music? Are you active on social?
I try to post regularly on these media networks. It’s obviously difficult to measure the impact, but I have the impression that it’s very low, if not zero. It seems to me that, in the end, it’s more in the interest of these data-gathering behemoths that we have an account there and post regularly, much more than it is in our own interest. Given their algorithms, the information circles around a milieu of connoisseurs. Let’s just say that, at the very least, it allows information to circulate within the community.
I think there are two forms of censorship. One, the better-known one, simply consists of banning what a political, economic or other power doesn’t control. It’s not necessarily easy to counter, but it’s easy to identify and, to denounce when it is possible. There is another, much more insidious form of censorship, which consists of authorizing everything, not banning anything, but drowning what you wish to annihilate under a considerable continuous flow of messages, images and information of little interest, in order to control, notably commercially, what might emerge from that, and leave buried under this flow what would remain uncontrollable. This other form of censorship is much more difficult to identify, to name and therefore to fight; and it’s clear that social networks are an important cog in the wheel of this form of censorship, which consists in making invisible what economic power can’t control.
There’s undoubtedly a contradiction on my part in denouncing social networks and using them at the same time. Maybe it’s just a question of using the tools at our disposal while being aware of their dangers.
How do you see the national and international improvisational music scene?
From a musician’s point of view, I find it rather active. I have the impression that the jazz and improvised music scene is still rich, with some very good young musicians. On the other hand, the conditions in which these musicians, young or not so young, can play are deteriorating day by day. There are fewer and fewer active venues, and those that remain are finding it harder and harder to offer them decent conditions. And recorded music producers and labels are no better off.
If there is a problem, it has more to do with the conditions in which musicians can work and we can listen to them than with the lack of good musicians.
Let’s come to the publishing house: how is the idea of starting to combine music with books?
In fact, right from the start, I had in mind that the label might offer jazz in a form other than CD or vinyl, without any precise idea of what form this might take, or even if it would ever materialize; so, it’s not just because RogueArt sounds better that I chose “Art” after “Rogue”, rather than “Jazz” or “Music”.
In fact, it didn’t take long for there to be a DVD film, “Off The Road”, a road movie by Laurence Petit-Jouvet, who followed Peter Kowald on his tour across the United States in 2000. Followed by two books resulting from friendships I’ve forged with New York poet Steve Dalachinsky, with Matthew Shipp and with French photographer Jacques Bisceglia: Matthew Shipp – Steve Dalachinsly “Logos and Language: A Post-Jazz Metaphorical language”, consisting of a long interview/discussion between Steve and Matthew, poems by Steve inspired by Matthew’s concerts and poems by Matthew; followed by the imposing volume, ‘Reaching Into the Unknown’, where Jacques Bisceglia‘s photos and Steve Dalachinsky‘s poems respond to each other, crossing 35 years of jazz and improvised music from the inside with a particularly sharp eye and pencil.
In the end, including books in RogueArt‘s output was a relatively straightforward process.
How do you choose titles to publish?
RogueArt must remain more of a jazz label than a publishing house; therefore, as far as books are concerned, the number of publications is and will remain very much in the minority compared to CDs. We only publish books by or about musicians very close to the label. So it’s a case of responding to opportunities on a case-by-case basis.
In particular how did the idea of publishing volumes of musician William Parker’s interviews with musicians and artists come about?
The first volume in William Parker‘s “Conversations” series was published in 2011, 6 years after RogueArt began. During the time he had free on tour, William Parker quickly got into the habit of interviewing his fellow musicians, without really knowing what he could do with them. He already had a large number of interviews/conversations in stock, and wondered whether he should publish them; it was quite obvious that they shouldn’t remain buried indefinitely, and that they should be made available to the public. How we came to work together on this project, I don’t remember. Did William come to me knowing that I’d already published two books? Was it me who approached him with the knowledge of these interviews? In any case, if I don’t remember the circumstances, it’s because it all happened very smoothly. When I embarked on this work with William, I had no idea how much work it would be! Anyway, we’ve done it, and I’m really pleased that these four volumes of interviews/discussions between William Parker and his peers are available, and that these books are on RogueArt. It’s nothing like a journalist’s interview; In William Parker’s Conversations series, the questions and answers are all relevant, whether about music, more personal matters or any other subject. An enormous piece of work, and, to my knowledge, without equal. As John Zorn says in the back cover of the first of the series, “The oral history at its best”
What is the future of record labels/publishing house, from your perspective?
It’s not easy to answer this question, given the precarious situation of record companies and independent labels. It’s obvious that digital companies want to take control of recorded music (and not just music!), and that they have the support of the public authorities in most cases. And yet, we still exist, even if it’s often at the price of many efforts and sacrifices, but the result is worth it. The death of the CD has been heralded for over 20 years, yet it’s still here!
And I’d like to point out that streaming companies, which we’re told will eliminate physical media, don’t produce anything; they simply distribute what is produced elsewhere. So, they have nothing to do with production companies, of which we are a part. Streaming today is essentially about putting online catalogs that are already profitable elsewhere, and not so much about new productions. I’m always a little surprised, then, that the question of the future of record companies and producers is always being raised, while the future of streaming is taken for granted and that it will forever replace the physical medium. As far as I’m concerned, I’d wager more on the future of the physical medium, which corresponds to a real need, than on that of streaming, which could be no more than a fad and thus disappear once the manna of sure values produced by others has been exhausted. Anyway, this question is worth raising. It’s very difficult today to know what form recorded music will take in the future; it’s likely that several forms will coexist and, depending on the type of music, one or other will predominate. But I don’t see the death of the physical medium in the short or medium term.
Possible future projects such as a documentary and/or a book telling the history of the label/publishing house?
I do have a documentary project, but it’s at a very preliminary stage. So, as today, it’s not yet certain that it will eventually become a reality, so I’d rather not talk about it. It won’t be about the RogueArt story.
Interview closing: upcoming releases/books in the pipeline?
We’ve just released the album by Rob Mazurek‘s quartet (Rob Mazurek, Angelica Sanchez, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor) “Color Systems”. An album by Paul Dunmall‘s quartet (Paul Dunmall, Liam Noble, John Edwards, Mark Sanders), “Here Today Gone Tomorrow”, will be released at the end of the year. Next year, Joe McPhee & Strings (Joe McPhee, Mat Maneri, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Michael Bisio) “We Know why the Caged Bird Sings” recorded during the pandemic, a magnificent solo by Ramon Lopez “40 Springs in Paris”, recorded to celebrate his fortieth anniversary in France, Nicole Mitchell, Mette Rasmussen and Sofia Jernberg in trio and many other (very beautiful) things that I prefer to let you discover when the time comes…
As far as books are concerned, we are currently finalizing a short collection of Rob Mazurek‘s poems, which will also include reproductions of a series of his paintings.
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