When lawyer-turned-producer of jazz recordings and events Matthew Domber succumbed to cancer in 2012, his partner and wife Rachel needed to take pause and go through the difficult and emotional process of determining whether to continue operating the independent record company that had consumed their lives for the previous 23 years.
The Dombers founded Arbors Records in 1989 to record and preserve the classic styles of jazz. The label embraces traditional and contemporary classic jazz and the swing styles of the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, and beyond. But they were quick to point out that regardless of styles, all of their recordings have a common love of melody, improvisation, and swing.
Rachel says that before she met Mat, her preferred style of music was country-western, and that the only names she knew in the jazz world were Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz. Mat’s love affair with jazz had its genesis as a teenager when his father took him to some of New York City’s famed jazz clubs in Greenwich Village to hear the likes of Pee Wee Russell, Muggsy Spanier, and Eddie Condon. He was a fraternity brother of pianist Dick Hyman at Columbia University, where Mat earned his law degree.
Rick Fay 1st Recording
Rachel was an economist working for the Government when Mat made an appointment to see her to discuss low-income housing in Pennsylvania. During their courtship, which led to a 42-year marriage, Mat became an old-time country music fan, and Rachel got a crash course in jazz.
Reedman and Dixieland bandleader Rick Fay is credited with being the inspiration for the beginning of Arbors Records. Rick had been in the music business for over 40 years, mostly as a performer at Disney parks in California and Florida, but had never been recorded. Mat had him put a quintet together, and Rick Fay’s Hot Five – Live at Lone Pine became the first of what currently number over 450 CDs and cassettes issued on the Arbors label.
What began as a labor of love for Mat and Rachel evolved into a significant force on the jazz scene. Mat was quoted saying, “As we grew, we tried to preserve the music of the great players. Jazz has a big tent, able to encompass many styles. I’ve learned that it’s hard to make a profit in jazz, but we don’t compromise our quality standards.”
Sponsored Jazz Events
They staged 10 jazz parties, five jazz cruises and two tributes to bassist Bob Haggart. Arbors was the originator and producer of the acclaimed March of Jazz weekend parties in Clearwater, Florida, and was instrumental in establishing The Statesmen of Jazz, a group of master musicians dedicated to preserving the heritage of jazz through performances, tours and clinics. (The Dombers never took any reimbursements for their administrative, travel, and other expenses.) Jazz writer Ken Franckling wrote that “Arbors was a career revivalist for many significant elder statesmen of jazz as well as a career nurturer for younger players who loved and felt comfortable in the classic jazz style.”
When hearing that the Dombers were the recipients of the 2020 Satchmo Award by the Jazz Society of Sarasota, Florida, George Wein, who guided the famed Newport Jazz Festival for many years, had this to say: “Mat Domber really devoted his life to the preservation of the music he loved. That music would have disappeared completely if it wasn’t for people like Mat. He put his money where his mouth was.” In accepting the award on behalf of her late husband, Rachel said “It gives me the energy and inspiration to keep going on.”
The first two years after Mat’s passing were difficult for Rachel, but she felt that keeping in touch with musicians and promoting those who really deserve to be heard had given her meaning. “I am now the sole owner/unpaid president of Arbor Records and have no employees. My office manager and her husband retired several years ago. I closed the office and now operate out of my condo in Florida. At the time, Brian Wittman (husband of Nicki Parrott, now living in Australia) stepped in as my Vice President handling the day-to-day activities of the business, including advertising and marketing. He also designs the packaging for our recordings. We have three recordings in manufacturing at the present time.”
Musicians Became Friends
“We became personal friends with all our musicians, and we got to know them outside of their musical endeavors. Our lives became intertwined. Mat and I traveled all over Europe with Bob Wilber and his wife Pug. They were what I call ‘globalists’ because of their interests beyond music. We became big collectors of paintings by Bob Haggart and photographs by Milt Hinton. Kenny Davern loved hiking and nature and was quite knowledgeable about opera. Tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips gave us a flattened saxophone, which Mat hung in his office. I guess a car must have run over it.”
“Ruby Braff was tough to deal with, but was a master of the cornet. On one occasion he called to talk to Mat, who wasn’t available at the time. He started yelling and screaming about how Mat didn’t know how to do things, so I just slammed the phone down. A few seconds later, the phone ran, and Ruby said, “‘Oh, we must have been disconnected.’ . . . “
“Another time we brought Ruby down from Boston for a recording session, and he would not stay in the hotel that we had booked for him because there were only plastic cups in the bathroom. So we had to move him to another hotel that assured us that only glassware would be provided in his room. He was nuts, but he was very, very, very sweet. His soft side came out in his music.”
Changing Trends
There are some 400 musicians who constitute a Who’s Who of jazz who owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Dombers for affording them that opportunity to display their talents on recordings and at jazz parties, cruises and tours. A typical response from one of those musicians comes from Adrian Cunningham who said, “I’ve had the joy of recording for Arbors Records a handful of times in the last five or six years. Rachel is a rare gift in this business, a singularity. . . in that her goal is the joy of recording the musicians that she believes in, with the full support for them to fulfill their creative vision without hindrance. To have that level of freedom is something I will always treasure and be grateful for. I hope the music I have given her in return will make her proud and confident that it was all worthwhile.”
The catalog of Arbors-produced recordings in 2008 ran 52 pages. As times and technology have changed over the years, Rachel acknowledges that the music business today is moving away from CDs toward digital downloads, which she describes as “the wave of the future.” Continuing, “But we still sell a lot of CDs because we have people who want to get the physical product, read liner notes, and have the whole package at hand.”
“I’m 86 years old, and I love to still be involved with the label. I keep trying to retire, but things keep coming up. All the CDs are like my little babies. I put a lot of work into every single one. The thought of having lunch with the girls or going to the beach is fine, but I’ve been working since I was 16 and retired from a fulltime job at the age of 55. I love business. What I’m doing is mainly for the musicians, and I really enjoy dealing with those talented artists whom I truly admire.”
CDs featuring Bucky and John Pizzerelli have been Arbors’ top-sellers over the years, closely followed by cornetist Ruby Braff. Jon-Erik Kellso’s The Earregulars Live at the Ear Inn has been the sales leader in 2024, along with Nicki Parrott’s If You Could See Me Now and Feelin’ Groovy; Ken Peplowski’s Unheard Bird and Duologue (the latter with Adrian Cunningham); Diego Figueiredo’s My World; and Rossano Sportiello’s That’s It. There are still some great choices available by such jazz elders as Dick Hyman, Bob Wilber, and Allan Vache, just to name a few.
Find several dozen of the best Arbors classic jazz CDs on sale this summer at arborsrecords.com.
