To get back to actually discussing Blue Note and stop narcissistically flaunting my crazy spending spree, I've noticed something recently that I find interesting. It's the use of "Etc" on a list of personnel on the cover of Blue Note album covers. It first hit me when I was looking over the cover to Night Dreamer by Wayne Shorter:
At the time, I thought it was a curious choice. Not one that I would have made, but perhaps it was just an aesthetic choice? Clearly, there is enough room for one more name on the same line, but who am I to question Reid Miles? And then, as I was adding and subtracting records from carts the last two days, I noticed the cover of Joe Henderson's Page One (which is one of the hardest cuts I made from my cart, but the cheap price it is going for indicates to me it is safe to wait):
Again with the "Etc."! The common thread between the two of them is that, on both covers, McCoy Tyner is the only person not listed. So, he is the "etc." After some researching, I found that on the 1999 liner notes of the CD release of Page One, Bob Blumenthal states that this is due to Tyner having recently signed a recording contract with Impulse! Well, this makes sense. However, when you look over at Night Dreamer, which came out in 1964, less than a year after Page One, you see that McCoy Tyner is again given the "Etc" while Elvin Jones is listed. So, then I looked back into Elvin Jones' discography and see Elvin Jones released his album Illumination! on Impulse! in 1963, so clearly he had a contract with them to release music even outside of the Coltrane quartet that he and Tyner were a part of and, regardless, it is clear their status with Impulse! must have been the same because it says on the back of Night Dreamer that the two of them appear courtesy of Impulse Records. Looking deeper, Elvin had been on a few Blue Note titles as a side man going back as far as the 50s. So, maybe this relationship made it different? But then I confirmed that Tyner had appeared as a side man on Blue Note titles for years already as well. So, there is no clear reason why they are treated differently.
And then I noticed In N' Out by Henderson, again has the "Etc." for Tyner with Elvin listed. This was released in Jan. 1965. I can't find anymore "Etc"s, but it seems he stops being listed after 1961 (Ready for Freddie), and begins being listed again in 1966 (Rough N' Tumble by Stanley Turrentine). In 1967 The Real McCoy comes out as Tyner's Blue Note debut.
Am I insane, or does anyone else find this very interesting?
