Editing Blue Note Records (section)

===The avant-garde===
Although many of the acts on Blue Note were recording jazz for a wide audience, the label also documented some of the emerging avant-garde and [[free jazz]] players. [[Andrew Hill (jazz musician)|Andrew Hill]],<ref name="LarkinGE"/> a highly individual pianist, made many albums for the label, one featuring multi-instrumentalist [[Eric Dolphy]]. Dolphy's ''[[Out to Lunch!]]'' (featuring a celebrated cover by [[Reid Miles]]) is perhaps his best-known album. Saxophonist [[Ornette Coleman]] released two albums recorded with a trio in a Stockholm club, and three studio albums (including ''The Empty Foxhole'', with his then ten-year-old son [[Denardo Coleman]] on drums). Pianist [[Cecil Taylor]] recorded a brace of albums for Blue Note, as did trombonist [[Grachan Moncur III]], and saxophonist [[Sam Rivers (jazz musician)|Sam Rivers]], drummer Tony Williams, vibraphonist [[Bobby Hutcherson]] and organist [[Larry Young (jazz)|Larry Young]] also recorded albums which diverged from the "hard bop" style usually associated with the label.<ref name="LarkinGE"/>

Saxophonist Jackie McLean, a stalwart of the label's hard bop output since the late 1950s, also crossed over into the avant-garde in the early 1960s, whose notable avant-garde albums included ''One Step Beyond'', ''Destination Out'' and on (as a side man) trombonist Grachan Moncur III's "Evolution".

Though these avant-garde records did not sell as well as some other Blue Note releases, Lion thought it was important to document new developments in jazz.
[[File:Art Hodes Doctor Jazz Blue Note.jpg|thumb|Iconic Blue Note label design on an [[Art Hodes]] record]]