Label Watch
June 1999 By Josef Woodard
Label Watch: Winter & Winter
For ten years, the German music enthusiast Stefan Winter headed up the small but respected JMT label—a.k.a. Jazz Music Today—and gave voice to left-of-conventional players such as Tim Berne, Paul Motian, Steve Coleman, and fellow musicians from Brooklyn...
June 1999 By Geraldine Wyckoff
Label Watch: Basin Street
It’s quite a sight to see an owner of a record label strolling with one of those old-fashioned sandwich boards hanging from his shoulders advertising his label’s artists. But for New Orleans-based Basin Street Records owner Mark Samuels, who first experimented...
May 1999 By Josef Woodard
Label Watch: Dancing Cat
Say what you will about George Winston, the new age pianist whose simple style made him a star in the early '80s and has continued to be his cash cow, even as many critics grew to love to hate his best-known, best-selling work. This much is true: Winston...
May 1999 By David Zych
Label Watch: Jazz Focus
The cliché says that where you put your money is where your true passions lie. For Canadian Philip Barker, founder and president of Jazz Focus Records, it’s obvious that it’s the music that matters. “People sometimes ask why I started Jazz Focus,” he said...
April 1999 By David Zych
Label Watch: Naim Records
Recordings on the British Naim label have several unique qualities, not the least of which is the company’s passion for capturing the essence of a performance on each release. According to Naim’s technical guru, Julian Vereker, who handles mastering, it’s...
April 1999 By David Zych
Label Watch: Malandro Records
Malandro Records president Rick Warm has found a cozy niche in Brazilian jazz, the seeds of which began in 1990 while he was in Brazil doing a college internship in international business. During those nine months, Warm pursued Brazilian music in his leisure...
January/February 1999 By Josef Woodard
Label Watch: Tone Center
Jazz purists, begone. Smooth jazz operators, get outta town. Tone Center is not intended for your consumption. The central axiom here has to do with blowing, exerting chops in a manner unfit for the casual listener or those seeking acoustic sonorities. Apart...
December 1998 By Josef Woodard
Label Watch: Passage Records
Artists start their own labels for a multitude of reasons. Usually, it begins with sheer, blind idealism and frustration with the industry powers that be. For Phil Sheeran, a smooth jazz guitarist out of Los Angeles, the seeds were sown over a specific issue...
November 1998 By David Zych
Label Watch: Concord Jazz
Concord Jazz is now celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1998—three years after the label’s founder and prolific producer Carl Jefferson succumbed to cancer. It all began when Jefferson founded the Concord Jazz Festival in 1969, which led to the establishment...
November 1998 By Bill Milkowski
Label Watch: Luaka Bop and John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards
“I have no interest in running a record company. That’s the last thing I want to do,” moans John Lurie, cult movie star, fashion plate, saxophonist and founder of the Lounge Lizards. “I just wanted to get my own stuff out, you know?” Granted, the Lounge...
