Lenny Kunstadt

Lenny Kunstadt, the man behind Spivey Records

Spivey Records was founded by the great Victoria Spivey, whose recording career spanned 5 decades, from the '20s until her death around 1976. Lenny inherited Spivey records from Victoria. Lenny liked to record people live. He'd go to Dan Lynch, and hang two mics from the ceiling and record in stereo on an old reel-to-reel. Sometimes he'd bring a band, or rather an agglomeration, (a fancy word for "pile"), of musicans into the studio and just let them play. I remember Lenny walking around the studio yelling, "more mistakes." He liked a natural sound. Lenny used to say if you can't get it in one or two takes, you're not going to get it. Lenny died in '96, about five years after Nat .

I just got email from somebody asking me about Lenny, so I thought I'd write a little more.

I didn't realize how old he was because he was always on the go; he had a lot of energy. And he was, as they say, a storehouse of musical knowledge. I think he wrote, or co-authored a book, back in the '50s or '60s, about the jazz scene. I also heard that he played the kazoo on the Johnny Carson show. Many times, when we were just hanging out in front of Dan Lynch on second ave. and fourteenth street, while the Sunday blues jam was goin' on inside, I would accompany Lenny on my acoustic/electric while he played kazoo.

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Photo by Larry Ghiorsi