Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff had two main things in common. Both were Jews who’d fled Germany, and both loved jazz, though their initial fervor was for traditional New Orleans sounds and ...

The name Blue Note Records calls to mind a once-regnant sound in jazz: the hard-bop of the 1950s and ’60s, with its springy four-beat swing rhythm, its spare-but-lush horn harmonies, its flinty, ...