Michael Cuscuna: 20/09/1948 – 20/4/2024

The name of Michael Cuscuna should be very familiar to album collectors, especially those who read the small-print credits. When I first interviewed him in 1985, he estimated he’d been involved with some 600 releases already, a figure that was rapidly dwarfed. His reputation was such that, the following year, Courtney Pine requested Michael as producer of his debut album.

Born and raised in Connecticut, he caught the jazz bug early, and by his mid-teens was hearing top-drawer bands in New York City. Having first been fascinated by the drums, Michael then studied saxophone, and even played a gig with a ‘businessman’s-bounce’ dance-band, before concentrating on listening to records. In his early twenties he landed jobs playing progressive rock on a couple of radio stations - one of which led to his first album production Buddy And The Juniors (featuring Buddy Guy with Junior Wells and pianist Junior Mance, for the Blue Thumb label). But, when the station introduced a centralised playlist, he resigned and looked for work in the record industry.                   

A period with Atlantic, where he produced the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Dave Brubeck, led to productions for Arista/Freedom of both Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill. But the key affiliation was being hired by Blue Note’s Charlie Lourie in the mid-1970s to pursue his stratagem of finding previously unissued sessions, which became particularly popular in Japan. In the early 1980s Lourie and Cuscuna, by then both out of work, badgered EMI executives with daily phone calls about leasing some Blue Note material in short print-runs for sale by mail-order to collectors who wanted properly documented, well packaged reissues.

Thus was born the Mosaic label, which during 40 years has produced 180 sets and is perhaps Cuscuna’s most notable legacy (Lourie died prematurely in 2001). The distinctive black boxes and their enclosed booklets reflect the passionate attention to detail of a self-proclaimed “typical Virgo”. Notable early reissues featured Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Sidney Bechet, Stan Kenton, Ellington, Basie - you name them - and they followed up with Lee Morgan, Jackie McLean, MJQ and many more. All these limited editions go out of print, of course, and then fetch high prices secondhand.

Michael was well placed to be of use when Blue Note itself was relaunched in 1985 under Bruce Lundvall who, initially without even a contract, gave him project after project. As well as producing their initial NYC Town Hall concert, Cuscuna helped to run the following year’s Mount Fuji jazz festival. He also supervised numerous new studio sessions by such as Dianne Reeves, McCoy Tyner, John Scofield and (for EMI’s Capitol label) Lou Rawls, while continuing his interest in archive material (including unissued Coltrane and Ayler for Impulse! Records). When Roulette became part of EMI he found previously unheard Bud Powell, and he masterminded the definitive sets of Miles Davis on Columbia, a joint venture with Mosaic who released the vinyl versions.

It’s not universally the case that producers are beloved by the jazz musicians whom they record, but many big names were also personal friends of Cuscuna. No doubt his famously dry wit played a part in this. He once asked me what I thought of a newly published jazz biography and, when I began a hesitant reply with “Well…”, he immediately said “Yes, quite”. For collectors of video, it’s worth noting he has a one-line bit-part in the movie Round Midnight – as the session producer about to record Dexter Gordon, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock et al.

He will be remembered, both by colleagues and those who saw his name in the small print, as a dedicated and determined documenter of the jazz journey.