Label Watch
06/10/10 By Lee Mergner
Smalls Jazz Club in NYC to Release Live Series
Lee Mergner talks with Smalls jazz club owner Spike Wilner about new label he’s launching featuring live performances from the club.
01/29/10 By Lee Mergner
Much of Kenny Rankin Catalog to be Reissued
Sly Dog label to release late singer-guitarist’s music through Mack Avenue Records
01/22/10 By Lyn Horton
ESP-Disk Back in Business
Seminal jazz label that recorded Albert Ayler and other mainstays of the avant garde resurfaces with new and old material
March 2001
Label Watch: Mosaic Records
Mosaic Records, the jazz world’s premier reissue label, recently celebrated its 100th release. We decided to catch up with Mosaic’s Michael Cuscuna, who has run the label for almost 20 years with partner Charlie Lourie. (At press time, we learned that Lourie...
December 2000
Label Watch: Delmark Records
Delmark Records (www.delmark.com) Label Owner: Bob Koester First Release: Windy City Six 10-inch LP, 1953 Year Started: 1953 History: Delmark began in St. Louis as the sole dream of Bob Koester, whose love of traditional & Dixieland jazz prompted him to...
July/August 2000 By Harvey Pekar
Label Watch: Bill Evans’ E3 Records
Arguably the greatest and most influential jazz pianist of the past 50 years, Bill Evans began recording on commercial labels at the relatively advanced age of 27. By then his style was already original, although it would evolve. How Evans developed prior...
July/August 2000 By Bill Milkowski
Label Watch: Rooster Blues
Jim O’Neal was a long way from his hometown in Mississippi when he experienced his blues epiphany back in 1968. While studying journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.—just up the road a piece from the Windy City—he was initiated into the...
June 2000 By Greg Robinson
Label Watch: New Artists Records
For pianist Connie Crothers, being president of a record company is simply one element of her life in music. Since its founding, Manhattan-based New Artists Records (www.newartistsrecords.com) has grown from a sole proprietorship with one recording in its...
June 2000 By Nancy Ann Lee
Label Watch: Go Jazz
Before and since starting his Go Jazz label 10 years ago, Ben Sidran has worked as singer, pianist, songwriter, producer, music authority and, for much of the 1980s, as TV/radio host. This year, Go Jazz is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an attractive...
April 2000 By Derk Richardson
Label Watch: Asian Improv Records
When pianist Jon Jang and saxophonist Francis Wong founded their own record label in 1987, San Francisco-based Asian Improv Records, they were taking the plunge into the entrepreneurial world with the same basic motivation as most independent musicians—to...
