Criss Cross Records - The Best Jazz Label You've Never Heard Of

In the wake of World War II, America's political, economic and cultural influence loomed large over Europe.  Jazz music, which U.S. GIs had helped spread throughout the continent, was enormously popular.  After years of unimaginable suffering, death, and destruction, young people in particular were drawn to the spontaneity and freedom of jazz.

Gerry Teekins in 2005

One of the many European youths who became enamored with jazz was a 12-year-old Dutch boy by the name of Gerry Teekens.  In an interview published in 2005, Teekens recalled how in the late 1940s in The Netherlands "Jazz was very popular, even the girls in the street knew (big band leader Stan) Kenton and (saxophone player Lee) Konitz. We had jazz bands for all the school festivities, so I started getting interested in the music and started buying 78s by the Dutch Swing College Band, Bob Crosby, Harry James, Meade Lux Lewis, and then LPs by Erroll Garner, J.A.T.P., (Oscar) Peterson, Blakey, Miles, Trane, Ornette, and all those records on Savoy, Prestige, Blue Note, Impulse, and Riverside."

By the time he finished high school and college in the late 50s, Teekens had become a jazz drummer and spent much of the 1960s gigging around Europe.  However, he finally got married, settled down, and accepted a teaching position, giving up his music career.  But he never lost his love for jazz and remained connected to the jazz scene in his native Holland.  In the late 1970s, Teekens began doing some promotion work, booking jazz bands to play at his school and using his contacts to help organize concerts and tours for American musicians coming to the Netherlands and Europe.  He says: "I brought in guys like Jimmy Raney and his son Doug Raney, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz, Lou Levy, Teddy Edwards, and Allan Eager.  I also organized concerts with Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin, Tete Montoliu with Albert Heath, Barney Wilen, and Peter Ind (Lee Tristano's bassist) plus his group."

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Teekens organized tours for guitar great Jimmy Raney in 1976 and 1977, and the two developed a good relationship.  In early 1981, Teekens put together a five-week concert tour in the Netherlands.  Accompanying Raney were his son, Doug, (a fine guitarist in his own right), Dutch drummer Eric Ineke, and Danish bassist Jesper Lundgaard.  The band had great chemistry, and the tour was a big success, playing to sold-out audiences around the country.  

Hoping to capture the excellent vibe from the concert tour, Teekens and Raney decided to take the group into a studio to record an album before Raney headed back to the U.S.  The resulting album, Raney '81 (right), became the first ever release for Teekens' new label, Criss Cross Jazz.  Teekens says he chose the name Criss Cross because it described how jazz and jazz musicians traveled back and forth between the US and Europe - crisscrossing the Atlantic.  (And maybe a shout-out to the Thelonious Monk album of the same name?)  Over a period of nearly 40 years, until his death in 2019, Teekens would produce and release more than 400 albums on Criss Cross. 

In the early years of the label, Teekens focused on recording jazz musicians who were touring in Holland or Europe.  For example, in August of 1982, with the North Sea Jazz Festival taking place in the Dutch capital of The Hague, Teekens recruited tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh and the Hank Jones Trio to record a session together. 

Since Marsh's group and Jones's trio were appearing every night at different venues during the festival, Teekens had to find a studio near the city where he could record during the day and still get the musicians to their gigs in the evening.  As luck would have it, he had recently met an optometrist and part-time drummer named Max Bolleman, who had a small home recording studio just outside of the city who was looking for clients.  [Hang on.  An optometrist with a Dutch name who records jazz music in his home studio.  Sounds vaguely familiar, no? Rudy? Rudy Van something?]  

In his recently-published autobiography, called Sounds (photo below), Bolleman recalls that Teekens called him on Thursday and asked if he could do a recording session on Saturday at noon.  Bolleman says he agreed, but forgot to ask who would be coming.  He called back and was floored (and not a little nervous) to learn that one of his first real recording dates would be with an all-star group made up of Warne Marsh, Hank Jones, Mel Lewis, and George Mraz.  Despite the fact that Marsh had never played with any of the other musicians before, Bolleman says they laid down 10 tracks in about five hours before Teekens bundled everyone out the door.  The resulting album, Star Highs (the second release on Criss Cross Jazz, below), was picked by Downbeat magazine as one of the top jazz albums of the year. 

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After a few years, Teekens got tired of trying to line up visiting musicians for recording sessions and began to make biannual trips to the US where it was much easier to book players for gigs.  For several years, he hired the other Dutch optometrist recording engineer, Rudy Van Gelder, to record his sessions at his New Jersey studio.  Working on a tight schedule, Teekens was able to churn out an album a day for six or eight days straight and generate enough material to provide a year's worth of releases for Criss Cross.  In the late 1980s, in order to save money, Teekens (who operated Criss Cross on a shoestring budget) began booking studio time in New York City and bringing along his buddy Bolleman to engineer the sessions. 

Saxophonist Sam Newsome recorded his first date with Teekens in 1989.  He recalls how "Teekens used to stroll into town during the Christmas holiday with a sack full of record contracts in tow.  He’d stay at a two-star hotel in Union Square, book a studio for two weeks and commence to make a record per day, along with his partner in crime, recording engineer and drummer Max Bolleman."  According to Newsome, Teekens paid the leaders on his dates $1,000, with $500 apiece for the sidemen.  (Which, Newsome adds, wasn't a bad rate for a day's work.)

While Teekens featured many top tier jazz players on his label, including the likes of Chet Baker, Clifford Jordon, Milt Jackson, and Johnny Coles, he also is credited with giving many young players their first break.  David Adler, in a 2003 article about Teekens in All About Jazz, notes that "Most of Criss Cross' artists are American and relatively young, and Teekens' approach to recruiting them couldn't be simpler: 'If I hear someone I like," he says, "I record them, regardless of whether they'll sell.' His track record is remarkable: Kenny Garrett, Steve Wilson, Benny Green, Bill Charlap, Chris Potter, Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Orrin Evans, and Seamus Blake are among those who made either their debuts or their earliest recordings for Criss Cross."

Perhaps because he grew up listening to the classic bebop of the 50s, Teekens liked straight-ahead jazz, nothing experimental or avant garde.  Beyond that, his only rule was that the music had to "swing."  As a result, most Criss Cross releases (especially the early ones) have a kind of house sound -- fluid, no-nonsense bebop with lots of standards.  If you like one title, chances are you'll like them all.  

Criss Cross Records

When I first began to collect Criss Cross LPs, I was struck not only by the fine playing by a lot of cats I had never heard of, but also by the fabulous sound quality.  Sam Newsome says that all of the early albums were recorded live direct to two-track, which accounts for the natural, spontaneous feel of the sessions.  Of course, having Rudy Van Gelder or Max Bolleman at the controls certainly didn't hurt either.  Unfortunately, only the first 39 titles in the Criss Cross catalog (the releases from 1981-1989) were issued on vinyl.  After 1989, Criss Cross releases are CD only.  The LPs, by the way, were all pressed in Holland or Germany, and the quality is outstanding.  Every disk I have is flat and quiet. [12/2022 update: Since I wrote this blog post, Criss Cross has teamed up with Elemental Music to release two more LPs: Brad Mehldau's 2000 album Consenting Adults (2021), and Melvin Rhyne's 1994 release Boss Organ (2022).]

Over the last year or so, I've been on a mission to collect all 39 Criss Cross LPs.  To date, I have 30.  I was lucky enough to score more than half of them from a dealer who had a stash of mint "new old stock."  Most of the LPs are available and not too expensive, though some of the ones I'm still missing are proving hard to find in good condition.  If all else fails (and once we're allowed to travel again), it would make a great excuse to plan a trip to Holland to see if I can track down the remaining titles.  In the meantime, if you run across any Criss Cross titles, don't hesitate to give them a try even if you've never heard of the musicians.  Teekens had excellent taste.

Max Bolleman (who recently retired), went on to become one of the most in-demand recording engineers in Europe and worked on lots of great albums -- in addition to the many sides he did with Teekens for Criss Cross Jazz.  His book (left) is filled with great stories of his years in the studio recording the famous and not so famous.  It includes a priceless tale about the time Rudy Van Gelder threw him out of his Englewood Cliffs, NJ studio because he thought Bolleman was trying to steal information about his recording techniques and mic placements (he was).

Finally, I'm happy to note that Criss Cross Jazz is alive and well and is now being run by Teekens' son, Gerry Jr.  Next year (2021) will mark their 40th anniversary as a label.  You can check out their excellent website and the more than 400 releases in the Criss Cross catalog here.

Enjoy the music!