Label guide

Flying Dutchman Records

The producer who recorded A Love Supreme left the majors behind and built a label where Leon Thomas yodeled, Gil Scott-Heron issued a warning, and Lonnie Liston Smith found the expansions.

The short version

Bob Thiele grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, hosted a jazz radio show at fourteen and founded his first label, Signature Records, at seventeen. From 1961 to 1969 he ran Impulse!, where he gave John Coltrane room to record as much as he wanted - A Love Supreme came out of that trust - and produced Ellington, Mingus, Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane. Somewhere in there he also co-wrote "What a Wonderful World" with George David Weiss and produced Louis Armstrong's record of it. In 1969 he left and started Flying Dutchman.

The label ran first through Atlantic's distribution, then a short deal with Mega Records, then RCA, which took it over in 1976. Thiele kept producing the way he had at Impulse: let the artist lead. Records appeared into 1984, when he moved on to his next label, Doctor Jazz.

Astral Traveling (1973) album cover: Flying Dutchman Records; shown here for commentary on the label, copyrights remain with the label.

Who to hear

Gil Scott-Heron. Three albums: Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970), the debut with the first recording of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," then Pieces of a Man (1971) and Free Will (1972).
Leon Thomas. Spirits Known and Unknown (1969) and The Leon Thomas Album (1970), the yodeling singer's own statements after his work with Pharoah Sanders.
Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes. Five albums, from Astral Traveling (1973) to Expansions (1975) - the spiritual heart of the catalog.
Ornette Coleman. Friends and Neighbors: Live at Prince Street (1970), recorded in his artists' loft.
Oliver Nelson, Gato Barbieri, Tom Scott. The arranger and two saxophonists kept the shelves full between the landmarks.

Expansions (1975) album cover: Flying Dutchman Records; shown here for commentary on the label, copyrights remain with the label.

Where to start

Start with Expansions - the title track is seven minutes of light - then Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. We wrote about the Expansions record in the Deep Listen on the record that grew out of karma.

Why it matters

Flying Dutchman is the bridge between the Impulse! years and the independent spiritual-jazz underground: a producer who had already changed jazz once, using his own label to give singers, poets and seekers the same freedom he gave Coltrane.

Sources

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