Impulse! Orange was the New Black

As Red and Black were already taken, they finally opted for orange and black. For all jazz enthusiasts, this colour combination is synonymous with just one name: Impulse! A label, a brand, an identity, a look, an era, and a cast of brilliant musicians. And above all, ONE musician, John Coltrane, who recorded some of his most memorable albums under the label from 1961 until his death in July 1967. He embodied the label so much that it became known as “the house that Trane built”. The eight most productive years in the saxophonist’s career. It was during this time that the genre underwent a formal revolution that took it further towards the most furious forms of free jazz. Impulse! was intrinsic to this libertarian for Coltrane, as well as for other big names of the movement such as Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Marion Brown, Albert Ayler, Charlie Haden, Steve Kuhn and Mal Waldron. At that time, Impulse! was one of the soundtrack for the turmoil that was sixties America, with the civil rights movement and the anti Vietnam War protests. But while Impulse! was perceived as “the new wave in jazz”, it didn’t solely feature young and wild artists eager to tear down codes and conventions. Equally concerned with preserving a form of tradition and celebrating those who moulded it decades earlier, the label also recorded the works of legends who were at the time in their fifties or sixties such as Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. The Impulse! adventure went on until the mid-seventies before being rekindled in the 90s with artists and albums of rather patchy backgrounds…