The Blue Note Project
Blue
Note
Project
Note
Project
One listener’s journey through every release from the greatest jazz record label in history.
John Coltrane at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ — 1963
1939 — Lion & Wolff found Blue Note
1947 — Thelonious Monk records
1956 — Clifford Brown, Max Roach
1959 — Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
1963 — Reid Miles redesigns the label
1967 — Lee Morgan, The Sidewinder
1985 — Blue Note relaunches
2010s — Norah Jones, Robert Glasper
Today — The story continues
1939 — Lion & Wolff found Blue Note
1947 — Thelonious Monk records
1956 — Clifford Brown, Max Roach
1959 — Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
1963 — Reid Miles redesigns the label
1967 — Lee Morgan, The Sidewinder
1985 — Blue Note relaunches
2010s — Norah Jones, Robert Glasper
Today — The story continues
1939
Where it begins
Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff start a label dedicated to authentic jazz in New York City. The project starts here.
1,500+
Records to explore
Every studio session, every era — hard bop, post-bop, soul jazz, fusion, and beyond. Listened to and documented.
Now
The revival
What started as a COVID-era passion project is back, with deeper dives, richer writing, and a proper home.
A project born from
obsession and
a turntable.
It started in 2020 — the kind of singular focus that only a pandemic can bring. One record label. One listener. A commitment to go all the way from the very first session Alfred Lion recorded in a Manhattan studio in 1939, to whatever Blue Note released last week.
The Blue Note Project is a documented journey through one of the most important catalogs in American music. Not a comprehensive encyclopedia — something more personal than that. A listener’s notes. What the music sounds like, what it meant, who played it, and why it still matters.