Ralph Peterson 35th Annual Student Music Awards - Downbeat

inDie liFe
Valuable Art
By Bobby Reed
Luke Kaven is a one-man record company, which means that multitasking is a way of life for
him. “There are cases where I wore every hat, from being the recording engineer to the photographer
to writing the liner notes and designing the packaging,” said Kaven, president of
Smalls Records. “There are other projects in which a few close associates offer up their services
at a good rate for the sake of getting great music out there.”
Kaven founded Smalls Records in 2000
and released the label’s first CD four years
later. Today, its catalog includes 52 titles from
artists such as drummer Dan Aran, bassist
Omer Avital, saxophonist Alex Hoffman,
bassist Neal Caine and the late pianist Frank
Hewitt, whom Kaven credits as being one of
his key inspirations for starting the label.
In the 1990s, Kaven spent many late nights
at the New York jazz venue Smalls. Amazed
by the music he heard, and sensing how fertile
the scene was, Kaven felt it was important to
document the work of Hewitt and other artists
who performed regularly at the West Village
venue. Through negotiation with the owner of
the club, Kaven was given permission to use
the name Smalls for the label Smalls Records.
(The label Smalls Records predates the formation
of a different label, SmallsLIVE, which is
run by the current ownership of the venue.)
One of the most popular titles in the Smalls
Records catalog is guitarist Gilad Hekselman’s
Split Life, which was recorded over the course
of two nights in 2006 at the New York club Fat
Cat. Smalls Records has released studio dates
as well, including Harold O’Neal’s solo piano
album Marvelous Fantasy.
Running a label with limited resources is a
challenge, and Kaven has considered the possibility
of changing to become a 501(c)(3) organization.
Despite the obstacles of running
an indie label in a troubled economy, Kaven
remains deeply committed to nurturing jazz.
“Most labels that undertake original productions
have either shrunken or folded,” he
said. “The only profitable model that I know of
these days is licensing, which involves taking
recordings that artists have already made and
produced on their own, and licensing them for
a positive cash outcome. In a case like that, the
label takes very little risk, does real work, and
assures itself that it gets paid. There’s a benefit
to that kind of a label, but it creates an environment
in which the most promising artists—
who are not necessarily the ones with money
to fund their own productions, or the ones who
are technically or otherwise adept enough to
undertake that as a project—are going unrecorded
and unheard. That is stifling the development
of the music. What I want to do is to
54 DoWNBEAt JUNE 2012
Luke Kaven at fat Cat in New York
raise the level of social awareness, particularly
among buyers, and encourage them to take
on these independent labels as arts projects that
need their support in order to survive.”
Kaven, a graduate of Hampshire College
who studied music theory with Dr. Roland
Wiggins, added that Smalls Records has
released titles using both approaches: original
productions and recordings that were
licensed to the label.
For the recording session for Marvelous
Fantasy, Kaven obtained use of a rare instrument,
which he described as “a Civil War–era
Steinway in perfect regulation.” O’Neal was
thrilled to play the instrument, and he enjoyed
working with Kaven, who produced the album.
“It’s not what Luke necessarily did with the
label; it’s what he didn’t do,” O’Neal said. “He
didn’t get in the way of the artistic approaches,
as far as what takes or what songs would go on
the album. I had the freedom to do what I wanted
to do. With that kind of label, that’s one thing
I greatly appreciate—an opportunity where
they say, ‘We’re going to provide a vehicle for
you to create, but it’s your say, your choice.’”
Kaven, who is an accomplished profession-
al photographer, has shot numerous covers for
Smalls Records, but he had something special
in mind for Marvelous Fantasy. He enlisted the
renowned photographer Larry Fink—whose
books include Social Graces and Somewhere
There’s Music—to shoot the album cover and
images for the CD booklet.
Bassist Ari Roland, who has appeared on
many Smalls Records albums as a sideman
and as a leader, is adamant about setting
up recording sessions with all the musicians
in a single room, with no booths or dividers
between them—a request that Haven gladly
accommodated.
“There has not been a single thing that I
wanted to do where Luke said, ‘No, I can’t do
that’ or ‘I don’t want to do it that way,’” Roland
recalled. “It comes from having the same vision
about music. Luke has ideas about jazz that are
much more hardcore than most people in the
recording industry. He believes that if the music
is really good, it will attract an audience. It may
not attract as huge an audience as some other
kind of jazz, but if it’s really great, it will always
attract some audience—and historically, it will
become more and more valuable.” DB
FRAnk AlkYER