Joe Fields

Joe Fields, a seasoned presence in the recording business, partnered with Don Schlitten in 1972 to oversee Cobblestone, the jazz subsidiary of Buddah, and the pair soon launched the Muse label. Muse and its companion imprint Onyx operated jointly under the two men until their 1978 split, at which point Fields took sole direction of Muse while Schlitten established Xanadu. Fields continued to helm Muse until the 1996 sale to Joel Dorn, who has since released catalog reissues on the 32 Jazz imprint, shaping the label into one of the era’s foremost hard bop operations. Houston Person, Pat Martino, and Mark Murphy, as well as Richie Cole, Eddie Jefferson, and Sonny Stitt, all appeared on the classic imprint. For a stretch Fields also controlled the Savoy catalog, reissuing numerous historic sessions, and collaborated with the Landmark and Trix labels. Following the Muse sale, Fields and his son Barney Fields created the HighNote label, which has gone on to document further high-quality sessions in the same hard bop vein.