| Eremite Records | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Founder | Michael Ehlers |
| Genre | Jazz |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Official website | www |
Eremite Records is an independent American jazz record label founded in 1995 by Michael Ehlers, with early involvement from music writer Byron Coley. [1] [2] Ehlers was a student of Archie Shepp's at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. [3] After college, he began producing concerts in the Amherst area, and Eremite evolved from those events. [2] [3] The label name came from an alternate title to the Thelonious Monk tune "Reflections": "Portrait of an Eremite". [4] The label's logo, designed by Savage Pencil, [5] is an image of a robed Joe McPhee playing soprano saxophone. [4] Eremite organized a concert series in Western Massachusetts that ran through 2008 and produced roughly 100 concerts, including five Fire in the Valley festivals. [6] [7] From 1998–2018, Eremite managed a touring organization that arranged hundreds of concerts across North America for its artists. [7]
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Eremite Records' early activities emphasized music by first and second generation musicians working in the American and international free jazz traditions, including drummers Denis Charles, Sunny Murray, and Juma Sultan, saxophonists Fred Anderson, Peter Brötzmann, Kidd Jordan, Sabir Mateen, and Jemeel Moondoc, trumpeter Raphe Malik, and bassists Alan Silva and William Parker. [7] [8] Starting in 2002, Eremite collaborated with Peter Brötzmann to revive Brötzmann's personal imprint Brö Records. [9] After relocating from Western Massachusetts in 2009, [2] Eremite began collaborating with a younger generation of musicians, including multi-instrumentalist Joshua Abrams and guitarist Jeff Parker. [8] In 2021, Ehlers began working with the Black Editions Group, Los Angeles, on Black Editions Archive, an imprint focused on previously unreleased works by Milford Graves. [10] [11]
Eremite releases have appeared in many best-of-year lists, including The Washington Post , [12] The New York Times , [13] The Chicago Tribune , [14] The Wire , [15] Rolling Stone , [16] DownBeat , [17] Jazz Times , [18] and Aquarium Drunkard. [19]
Concerning his involvement with Eremite, Sunny Murray stated the following: "This music has not established many real connoisseurs, men with quality and taste, so we get a lot of meatheads that are in control of the business... When a guy comes up, we're suspicious... we've... dealt with so many Frankensteins that we want to make sure this guy is not a Frankenstein... Michael's not a Frankenstein—Michael Ehlers, Eremite Records—he'll take a chance. And that's what made this business work, guys that took chances." [20]
