FEBRUARY SHOULD HAVE marked the start of a fantastic year for Jazzology, the nation’s oldest extant independent jazz label. The 56-year-old company had just published its first catalog in four years, a 160-page monster so heavy it couldn’t be used as a prospecting tool. (It’s included in customers’ orders.) Jazzbeat, the company’s quarterly magazine, was well into its 15th year of publication. And the preliminaries to the New Orleans Mardi Gras and Jazzfest celebrations had heightened interest in the traditional jazz recordings that are the firm’s bread and butter.
In late August, all the momentum the company had built came to a halt.
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