AUM Fidelity | |
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Founded | 1997 |
Founder | Steven Joerg |
Genre | Jazz, avant-garde jazz, free jazz, indie rock |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Location | Brooklyn, New York |
Official website | www |
AUM Fidelity is an independent record label in New York City primarily devoted to avant-garde jazz artists such as William Parker, Matthew Shipp, and David S. Ware. It has also released recordings by improvisational rock band Shrimp Boat and exclusively distributes the CaseQuarter [1] and Riti labels. [2] It was founded in 1997 by former Homestead Records label manager Steven Joerg. [3]
Founder Steven Joerg is a native of Chicago [4] and has stated that in high school he was heavily influenced by the do-it-yourself (DIY) approach of punk rock, especially labels such as SST Records. [3] Moving to New York City after graduating college, [4] Joerg worked for Bar/None Records. He became a manager of the indie rock label Homestead Records in 1992, where he signed and promoted albums by Babe the Blue Ox, Tara Key, Sleepyhead, Soul-Junk, and others. After releasing a well-received album by free jazz drummer William Hooker, Joerg convinced a reluctant Homestead to sign notable jazz musician David S. Ware and his Quartet. Their first release on the label, Cryptology, received a lead review in Rolling Stone . [3]
Joerg left Homestead in December 1996 and founded AUM Fidelity in Brooklyn in January 1997. His intent was to concentrate on modern jazz. [5] He liquidated his savings, sold half his record collection, and took out a loan. The label derived its name partially from the Charles Mingus album Mingus Ah Um , but mostly from Om, the mantra representing the "soundless sound of the universe, the original tone and source of all creation". Not low fidelity or high fidelity, but AUM Fidelity." [6] The label launched in September 1997 with the release of David S. Ware's Wisdom of Uncertainty, and William Parker's Sunrise in the Tone World. [3] [7]
AUM has released over 90 albums which have been acclaimed around the world. [4] In addition to Ware and Parker, artists who have recorded for the label include Joe Morris, Whit Dickey, Other Dimensions in Music, Test, Farmers by Nature, Matthew Shipp, Mat Maneri, Hamid Drake, Rob Brown, Daniel Carter, Roy Campbell, Cooper-Moore, Chad Taylor, Roy Nathanson, Kidd Jordan, Eri Yamamoto, Gerald Cleaver, Craig Taborn, Bill Dixon, Jim Hobbs/The Fully Celebrated, Darius Jones, Little Women, Mike Pride, and others. [8] AUM Fidelity began distributing Joe Morris' Riti label in 2002. In 2003 it co-launched the CaseQuarter label, [1] which is devoted to gospel music of the American south.
AUM Fidelity has supported the New York City downtown jazz scene. [4] [3] Joerg has volunteered at the Vision Festival since 1996 and produced Vision One, a two-disc benefit compilation of material recorded at the festival. [5] AUM Fidelity was asked by musician and artist John Zorn to curate his avant-garde locale The Stone for June 16–30, 2011, which featured performances by many of the label's artists, including its then most recent signing, alto saxophonist/composer Darius Jones. [3] In January 2009, the label was instrumental in finding a kidney donor for David S. Ware. [4] Following his recovery and prior to his passing, Ware released five new albums with the label, including a recording of his final concert appearance, Live at Jazzfestival Saalfelden 2011. Setsuko S. Ware, David Ware's widow, and Joerg produced the Memorial Service for David S. Ware, which took place on January 7, 2013. [9] [10]
AUM Fidelity celebrated its 15th anniversary in June 2011 with two weeks of curated performances at the Stone, and culminated with a series of concerts in June 2012 at Suoni Per Il Popolo (Montreal) and Vision Festival (New York City). [4] [11] William Parker's 8-CD box set, Wood Flute Songs , was produced the following year and released in late 2013, garnering a 5-star review in Down Beat and chosen as the No.1 Archive Release of the Year by The Wire . [12] AUM continues to produce new recordings, and in 2015 launched the David S. Ware Archive Series (DSW-ARC) with a fully remixed & wholly expanded edition of Ware's first (1977) recordings as a bandleader, Birth of a Being .
Centering Records (William Parker & AUM Fidelity cooperative productions)
CaseQuarter (co–launched & distributed by AUM Fidelity; dedicated to sacred music of the American South)
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist. Beginning in the 1980s, Parker played with Cecil Taylor for over a decade, and he has led the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra since 1981. The Village Voice named him "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time" and DownBeat has called him "one of the most adventurous and prolific bandleaders in jazz".
Matthew Shipp is an American avant-garde jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader.
Guillermo E. Brown is a multi-disciplinary performer whose works include Soul at the Hands of the Machine, The Beat Kids' Open Rhythm System and Sound Magazine, Black Dreams 1.0,...Is Arturo Klauft, Handeheld, Shuffle Mode, WOOF TICKET EP, PwEP2, forthcoming full-length album Dream&Destroy and performance piece Bee Boy. His one-man theater piece, Robeson in Space, premiered at Luna Stage (2005).
Mat Maneri is an American composer, violin, and viola player. He is the son of the saxophonist Joe Maneri and Sonja Maneri.
Joseph Francis Michael Morris is an American jazz guitarist, bassist, composer, and educator.
Other Dimensions in Music is an American free jazz group founded in the 1980s.
Roy Sinclair Campbell Jr. was an American trumpeter frequently linked to free jazz, although he also performed rhythm and blues and funk during his career.
Thirsty Ear Recordings is an American independent record label. It was founded in the late 1970s as a marketing company for the then-unnamed alternative music field, and expanded to issue its own records in 1990.
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist.
David Spencer Ware was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.
Gerald Cleaver is a jazz drummer from Detroit, Michigan.
Assif Tsahar is an Israeli tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist. He has lived in New York City since 1990.
Cooper-Moore is an American jazz pianist, composer and instrument builder/designer based in New York City.
Ivo Perelman is a Brazilian free jazz saxophonist born in São Paulo.
Cryptology is an album by jazz saxophonist David S. Ware, recorded in 1994 and released by Homestead Records.
Wisdom of Uncertainty is the eleventh album by American jazz saxophonist David S. Ware which was recorded in 1996 and became the first release on the AUM Fidelity label.
Wood Flute Songs is an eight-CD box set by bassist and composer William Parker which was recorded in California in 2006, Houston in 2007, Geneva and Montreal in 2011and New York in 2009 and 2012, and released on the AUM Fidelity label.
Altitude is an album by American jazz guitarist Joe Morris which was recorded live in 2011 and released on the AUM Fidelity label. It documents the first time performance by Morris, bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver as a trio during a two-week of dates curated at John Zorn's club The Stone by label owner Steven Joerg. For the second set, excerpted in the final two cuts of the album, Parker played sintir, the Moroccan bass lute, instead of upright bass. All the tracks are collective and completely improvised.
Out of This World's Distortions is the second album by Farmers by Nature, a collective trio consisting of Gerald Cleaver on drums, William Parker on bass and Craig Taborn on piano. It was recorded in 2010 and released on the AUM Fidelity label. The first track is a tribute to saxophonist Fred Anderson, who died the evening before the recording.
Vessel in Orbit is an album by American jazz drummer Whit Dickey, Mat Maneri, and Matthew Shipp recorded in 2016 and released on the Aum Fidelity label. The recording presents a new trio with violist Mat Maneri and pianist Matthew Shipp, who were both part of the quartet, along with saxophonist Rob Brown, for 2001 Dickey's album Life Cycle.