WISER ANGEL:
A TALK WITH JOEL DORN
by Marshall Bowden

“It ain’t the same as walkin’ in and saying to Leonard Chess or Nesuhi Ertegun or Morris Levy or one of those guys, ‘I got a girl who can sing her ass off, I need five grand.’” Joel Dorn is one of the old-time record guys. There are only a few of them left, guys who can remember when they pitched an artist directly to record label owners and made records on a handshake. “That part of the business is dead. It’s not dead on the niche things. The hip-hop business proved that you could make records in your kitchen if you want, if it’s the right thing and you know how to get it to the people who should hear it.”

Dorn’s had more lives in the music business than most cats, whether of the four-legged or the reefer-puffing variety. A Philly DJ in his callow youth (his words), his language is sprinkled with hip argot like “cat” and “baby,” yet it’s such a part of his personality that it never sounds affected or anachronistic. If you like music, acts with personality, if you just plain love records and everything that goes with them, you just gotta love Joel Dorn. And if you love jazz, real rhythm and blues (“I don’t know what the fuck R&B is right now” he opines during our conversation), gospel, or doo-wop, then you really gotta love Joel Dorn. This is the guy who discovered a pile of reel-to-reel tapes from John Coltrane’s Atlantic years in a water-damaged area of a warehouse, who has made it a personal crusade to ensure that Rahsaan Roland Kirk is not forgotten, who counts Mac “Dr. John” Rebennak and the late Doc Pomus among his runnin’ partners.

The thing is, unlike some guys who’ll tell you they’re just in it for the love of the music while their actions make it painfully obvious that nothing could be farther from the truth, Joel Dorn’s actions and demeanor speak louder than any words. He’s walked away from a label he built into a formidable brand, 32 Records, rather than see it become another drab label run by bean counters. His next project, Label M, folded just when it was developing into something. He takes great pride in the fact that he was once able to send the widow of saxophonist Sonny Stitt a check for $18,000. Sure, he’s a businessman and he isn’t giving it away, but he realizes that there are rewards to his business and to this life that aren’t monetary.

And another thing, Joel Dorn likes to have some fun. “I don’t do things to do them, I really only do what I want to do, which is a tricky way of living.” Following the demise of Label M, Dorn took a solid year off, regrouping. “Know what I did?” he asks. “I walked around with a camera and I took pictures of mannequins. In store windows. Yeah, and I got an agent, I’m trying to get my mannequin book published.” I’m not really sure whether he’s pulling my leg or not, but it’s certainly not impossible to imagine Dorn tromping around New York City taking pictures of mannequins in the windows at Barney’s and Bergdorff’s and funky little shops down in the Village, planning his next move all the while.

So, what really happened at 32 Records and Label M? “I walked away from 32 because I had partners who wanted to go into the Internet business. I don’t give a flying rubber fuck about the Internet business. So when they did that I walked and the label folded within six months. Label M was a little shaky from the beginning. The people who backed me were a little shaky, and then they were taken over by, basically, a colony of baboons. And, you know, they wanted to go into the Internet business. One of those dumb dot-com things. I don’t even understand it, you know. The guy who took over the people that funded Label M started to explain it to me, and while he was talking I just got up and cleared my desk. Y’know, I’ll talk to you later, have a nice time. Call me when the Internet comes to a town near you.”

Now Joel and company are back with Hyena Records, and as he says, “We’re doing this one with a vengeance. This is not make believe, I want this one to really score.” Initially Hyena began by releasing masters that Dorn owned while he planned the new label’s direction. The first four releases were reissues of Dorn’s original Night Records releases, live performances by Eddie Harris, Cannonball Adderley, Les McCann, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Likening these recordings to “soundtracks to documentaries that didn’t exist,” Dorn created a whole new kind of recorded document, one that allowed the listener to return to the period when jazz clubs were filled with the electricity of performers who were not only great musicians, but could entertain as well. The next two Hyena releases were the very first Roomful of Blues album and a re-vamped version of Aaron Neville’s Orchid In The Storm EP.

“I think it’s some of the best singing Aaron Neville ever did” Joel tells me. “I had an idea to do an album called Wiser Angels. And what I was gonna do is I was gonna cut sides with Aaron, some sides with Dusty Springfield, and some sides with Frankie Valli. The premise of the album was these are all people who had gigantic hits in the fifties and sixties, maybe disappeared from the public view for a moment or so, but when they resurfaced, were even stronger or had matured in a very impressive way from where they had started. So I cut one side with Dusty and then she didn’t want to continue with the project. Frankie and I never go in the studio, and I cut the five sides with Aaron, and instead of an LP I had an EP. I just think that I happened to catch him at a time when he was…his purest. I don’t know of a better way to say it. And the reason we tuned into the fifties stuff was that both of us loved that music. And he’s the best. I mean, there’s nobody living who can do the fifties stuff like him.”

Orchid In The Storm is truly a minor classic, featuring Aaron’s heartbreakingly gorgeous renditions of “Pledging My Love,” “For Your Precious Love,” “The Ten Commandments of Love,” “Earth Angel,” and a Medley with brother Art on “This Is My Story” and “We Belong Together.” The original tracks also feature Art Neville on keyboards, and the tenor sax work of David “Fathead” Newman as well as the arrangements of Wardell Quezergue. “Orchid is very special to me” writes Dorn in his liner notes, “I didn’t wanna add anything inappropriate, anything that didn’t fit the vibe.” The additional tracks are “Mona Lisa” from the Nevilles album Fiyo on the Bayou, which Dorn also produced, “Save the Last Dance For Me” from a Doc Pomus tribute album, “Warm Your Heart,” a Drifters number produced by Linda Ronstadt and George Massenberg, and the “Mickey Mouse March” from Hal Willner’s Disney tribute album. They fill out the original EP material splendidly without detracting from its perfection.

>>Continued