"Fighting for Control of the Jazz Supply Chain: Max Roach, Charlie Mingus and Debut Records"

In 1952 drummer Max Roach and Bassist Charles Mingus, launched Debut Records, one of the first independent jazz labels owned and operated by professional jazz musicians. Both Roach and Mingus have been canonized in the history of jazz, largely for their musical and creative contributions to the creation of modern jazz. While their joint venture into music industry entrepreneurship has been acknowledged by jazz historians, Debut Records has often been treated as a passing reference in narratives that have focused on their musical artistry, or their outspokenness on civil rights issues in the mid-1960s. This paper seeks to foreground the significance of the Debut records venture in the lives of Roach and Mingus, not as musicians but as creative manufacturers. Framed by Theodore Adorno’s and Anson Rabinbach’s concept of the “Culture Industry,” this essay explores the founding and operation of Debut records as a strategy for Roach and Mingus to gain greater control over the culture industry supply chain that delivered their music to listening consumers, and gain a greater share of the profits from of the sale of their music to those consumers. This essay will also highlight the challenges and barriers to success they faced as entrepreneurs, which ultimately led to the recording label’s demise in 1957.