From 1978: How did the chairman of Atlantic Records become one of the world’s most influential rock-and-roll moguls? NewYorkerArchive
. To the left is the office of Noreen Woods, Ahmet’s assistant and a vice-president of Atlantic, who is a woman of deep intelligence, deep patience, and deep cynicism. Straight ahead is Ahmet’s office. Large and more relentless still. A space-age desk. Against the background of the office various things are seen sharply, in outline. A Humanitarian Award, for instance. Ahmet is offered several humanitarian awards a year but accepts only one a year. And Ahmet himself.
On the tape, Ahmet recited a new verse. At some moments, Ahmet’s recitation approached the level of song. “ ‘Well, they all get juiced, you can bet your soul; they all do the rock with a steady roll. Well, they mess around,’ ” Ahmet’s voice sang. At the first level, there was the day-to-day business of Atlantic Records. This was conducted by David Glew and Jerry Greenberg and then brought to the attention of Ahmet Ertegun. David Glew had with him an IBM printout that showed the sale of Atlantic records market by market during the previous week. The printout bore the head “Weekly Sales Net.” Under that head were three subheads: “BPI,” “City,” and “Figure.
Ahmet looked up at Ross. “The fellows just told me that last week was the biggest in history,” Ahmet said. Ahmet listened impassively, his face in repose. His eyes were half closed. He looked, in repose, very handsome and very inaccessible. What I imagined Ahmet to be doing was this: I imagined him to be tracing, very quickly, the provenance of the pieces of style that Batdorf and Rodney had used in contriving their performing personality.
The engineer, who had, of course, set the room up and was responsible for its deadness, bumbled his words. “Well, it’s not aIn the control booth, Batdorf and Rodney listened to “All I Need.” At the end, Ahmet was silent. Batdorf brought up “Johnny Got His Gun” again. “It’s about this guy who ends up a basket case,” Batdorf said..”
“The only thing about her that works anymore is the hair,” McGrath said when this performer had left. “And Cher does it better.” David Crosby and Graham Nash came into the control booth. They had about them the air of craftsmen. The simple ease they showed in pursuit of their craft made unalarming the signs they carried with them that they were in fact at the end of their youth. They were dressed like hippies, but like hippie carpenters. David Crosby wore a small woodsman’s knife at his belt.
At that moment, Ahmet came in. Geffen was still on the telephone. “He must be talking to an artist,” Ahmet said. “He’s got his soulful look on. He is trying to purge at this moment all traces of his eager greed.” Ahmet left. Ahmet was annoyed by this request, but he treated it with a jaunty humor. “We’ll give you ten thousand dollars,” Ahmet told Geffen, “and you can go to Santa Monica Boulevard and watch a couple of movies, or whatever you do all day.”“Why?” Ahmet asked. “No one else gets it.
“These kids are not going to play bars in the South,” Ahmet said. “I mean, that is not going to happen.” The big black car took some more curves, awkwardly. “They are playing songs by Clarence Carter,” Ahmet said. “Clarence Carter is a very great man. You know what? Clarence Carter doesn’t sell many records.”
“I am not interested in staying all night,” Ahmet said. “I am interested in hearing material so strong that . . . it’s stronger than anything else around.” Ahmet said, “There is a certain sort of excess that is interesting, don’t you think? And America is, of course, the most excessive place. I came here as a child of twelve, but even before I came here I cared about jazz and gangsters and Chaplin. Nesuhi taught me all that. He also taught me that David Windsor was the best-dressed man in the world. Nesuhi at sixteen was a superstar. I am not an, you know? Everyone I knew was fascinated by America.
“Mario Santo Domingo, my South American friend, used to come up and we would have a trio in the bus and go around to parties,” Ahmet said. “We would teach the trio very obscure songs. ‘And Her Mother Came Too’ and ‘Just a Personal Friend’ were two songs we sang in the bus. We kidnapped half of the Count Basie band from Birdland and took them to the Village. One night, we went to El Morocco and parked the bus in front.
Ahmet and Mica gave a dinner party at their house and took their guests on to Max’s Kansas City to see Delbert & Glen, who had been signed to Clean Records. Andy Warhol was at the Erteguns’ house, and an Italian diplomat, and a fashionable young girl with frizzled hair. In Ahmet’s car on the way down to see Delbert & Glen, the girl with the frizzled hair complained about a man at dinner she found boring.
“Uncle Ahmet knows the big secret,” said the fashionable girl with frizzled hair. “Uncle Ahmet knows that everyone wants a little fun, a little flash. I mean, basically Uncle Ahmet is fabulous. If you’re in a room and Uncle Ahmet walks in, you’re having a better time. Ahmet loves rich Wasps, and so forth, but basically he’s more fabulous than all the Wasps.
Ellington looked ravaged in a way that was only slightly softened by his courtesy. He looked like a man who was depleting his capital—not so much by spending it as by giving it away. Ahmet and Duke Ellington kissed one, two, three, four times. Ahmet introduced his guests to Duke Ellington. “Such a beautiful party,” Duke Ellington said. “I was wondering who was supplying that wonderfulMost of Ahmet’s guests left after the first set. Ahmet said he wanted to stay to hear the second.
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