Back to the future for Jump Back Jake

Jump Back Jake

Earlier this year, the U.K.'s Big Beat Records released Thank You Friends: The Ardent Records Story, a two-CD compilation that's been one of 2008's most widely hailed reissues.

The disc documents the music spawned by the famed Memphis studio, Ardent, and its offshoot label, highlighting the company's glory days in the late-'60s and early-'70s.

Jake Rabinbach (center, in sunglasses) is the frontman for Jump Back Jake, which will perform at a CD-release event tonight at the Hi-Tone Café.

Now, Ardent is looking to recapture some of that magic. After a long hiatus, the company is getting back into the pop music business with a new imprint called Ardent Music, and its inaugural release, Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle, the debut album by local rock-soul combo Jump Back Jake. The band will celebrate the release of the disc with a show at the Hi-Tone Café tonight.

The history of Ardent is a long and labyrinthine one that began in 1959. It was then that a teenaged John Fry began recording and putting out 45s from a makeshift studio/office in his family's East Memphis home.

Throughout the 1960s Ardent continued to release numerous singles. But, by the end of the decade, as the studio's business expanded, it

began operating more as a production company, making records that it leased or distributed through larger labels.

Then, in 1972, Ardent Records re-emerged under the aegis of Stax Records, and operated for several years, releasing numerous titles including the first two Big Star records.

After the collapse of Stax in 1975, Ardent was out of the record business for almost two decades. In the early '90s, as part of an arrangement with EMI, Ardent was revived and released LPs by Spot, Two Minutes Hate and Jolene, as well as a trio of solo titles from erstwhile Big Star leader Alex Chilton. Though the Ardent pop label soon faded amid distribution problems, the company has continued to operate a highly successful contemporary Christian music label, putting out some 40 plus albums in the past decade or so.

Finally, in late 2008 -- almost 50 years after the first Ardent single was issued -- the company decided to get back into the secular record business with the Ardent Music label.

"This may be the best timing or the worst timing economically for doing something like this," says Ardent founder and head Fry. "But, really, our motivation was seeing so many artists -- locally and elsewhere -- that had good material and were doing great things creatively, but because the business had changed so much they didn't have the same opportunities. With the contraction of the large labels, the old idea of 'Let's record four demos and get a record deal, and somebody will give us $400,000 and we'll all be happy' is over."

At the same time as the old major-label model has been dying, Fry notes there have been a number of small, independent success stories. He cites Brooklyn band Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! as a prime example. "They scanned some 125,000 copies of their album in the U.S. with almost no radio play, and little touring," says Fry. "And that's really the influence of the music blogs, Internet radio, playlist sites -- Pandora, iLike -- and social networking sites."

Fry says the idea of a new kind of label appealed to him. "Our feeling is if the music is good -- which it's got to be, first and foremost -- there are ways to reach people and spread the music by word-of-mouth and computer-based outlets that didn't exist even a decade ago," says Fry. "And, so basically we said let's give this a shot and see if it works."

Around the same time, several Ardent staffers, including producer Pete Matthews, had recommended Jump Back Jake as a potential flagship act for the fledgling label. With Matthews (Evanescence, B-52s) producing, the group spent early '08, recording Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle.

For Jump Back Jake frontman Jake Rabinbach, a New Jersey native who relocated to Memphis three years ago, the alliance with Ardent is a dream come true. "All the stuff that Ardent has had a hand in has been very inspiring from a musical perspective," says Rabinbach. "From the Staple Singers to Big Star to the Replacements."

"Also, if you look at the organizations that were involved in putting out all the records I loved in the '60s and '70s -- places like Atlantic or Stax -- those companies are either totally different, run by different people or long gone," he adds. "Ardent is one of the only places left where you have the same core of people there and running things. That's a really great tradition to be a part of."

Initially, the Jump Back Jake album will be available digitally, through online retailers like Amazon and CD Baby, as well as select indie stores. "Then, as response develops to that, then you go ahead and see if you want to try and promote to conventional media, and to general distribution at big brick-and-mortar retail stores," says Fry. "Because, today, there's almost no point trying to force product into that system right off the bat."

For Jump Back Jake, that slow, measured approach will work just fine. "It's one of the things that appealed to me and why I trusted going into this," says Rabinbach. "There's an understanding that we're going to try and figure out a new model together."

Jump Back Jake with Jack O. & The Tearjerkers

10 tonight at the Hi-Tone Café, 1913 Poplar Ave. Cover: $5. Call 278-8663.

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