Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue notes of jazz and the blues. Originally dedicated to recording traditional jazz and small group swing, the label began to switch its attention to modern jazz around 1947. From there, Blue Note grew to become one of the most prolific, influential and respected jazz labels of the mid-20th century, noted for its role in facilitating the development of hard bop, post-bop and avant-garde jazz, as well as for its iconic modernist art direction.
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of multinational conglomerate Sony. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels: Epic Records, and former longtime rivals, RCA Records and Arista Records as the latter two were originally owned by BMG before its 2008 relaunch after Sony's acquisition alongside other BMG labels.
Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered.
Verve Records is an active American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Jon Batiste, and Diana Krall among others as well as a diverse mix of other recordings that fall outside of jazz including albums from disparate artists like the Velvet Underground, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and many more. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records.
Impulse! Records is an American jazz record label established by Creed Taylor in 1960. John Coltrane was among Impulse!'s earliest signings. Thanks to consistent sales and positive critiques of his recordings, the label came to be known as "the house that Trane built".
Mosaic Records is an American jazz record company and label established in 1982 by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie. It produces limited-edition box sets.
Milestone Records is an American jazz record company and label founded in 1966 by Orrin Keepnews and Dick Katz in New York City. The company was bought by Fantasy Records in 1972. Since then, it has produced LP reissues as well as new recordings. Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner are among the musicians who recorded for the label.
Riverside Records was an American jazz record company and label. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, Jr, under his firm Bill Grauer Productions in 1953, the label played an important role in the jazz record industry for a decade. Riverside headquarters were located in New York City, at 553 West 51st Street.
Prestige Records is a jazz record company and label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock in New York City which issued recordings in the mainstream, bop, and cool jazz idioms. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them on subsidiary labels. The company's began releasing jazz records in 78 and 45 RPM formats in 1950. The Prestige label includes the 13000 and 25000 cat# series. Prestige International was a sub-label of Prestige, active from 1960 to 1969, that mostly released folk music. In 1971, the company was sold to Fantasy, which was later absorbed by Concord.
Sirsy is an American rock duo from Albany, New York consisting of husband and wife Melanie Krahmer and Rich Libutti. During their live shows, Krahmer also plays bass on a keyboard with her drumstick and Libutti plays bass pedals with his feet.
Irving Harold Mills was a music publisher, musician, lyricist, and jazz promoter. He often used the pseudonyms Goody Goodwin and Joe Primrose.
Bob Weinstock was an American record producer best known for his label Prestige Records, established in 1949, which was responsible for many significant jazz recordings during his more than two decades operating the firm.
Shelley Moore was an English-born American jazz singer.
Henry Bertholf "Spike" Robinson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He began playing at age twelve, recording on several labels, including Discovery, Hep and Concord. However, he sought an engineering degree and followed that profession for nearly 30 years. In 1981 he returned to recording music.
Peter Austin Harley Newbrook BSC was an English cinematographer, director, producer and writer.
Coltrane for Lovers is a compilation album of recordings by American jazz saxophonist-composer John Coltrane, released posthumously on January 23, 2001, by Impulse! and Verve Records. The 11 tracks compiled for the album are all romantic ballads from Coltrane's early years with Impulse!, being recorded during December 1961 to April 1963 at engineer Rudy Van Gelder's recording studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Dominated by Coltrane's classic quartet, the sessions also included collaborations with vocalist Johnny Hartman and pianist Duke Ellington.
Sumner Lester, better known as Sonny Lester, was an American Grammy-award-winning music producer from New York City. He started his career as a musician in a big band jazz ensemble before being drafted into the U.S. Army. During the war he earned a Purple Heart and worked under Henry Kissinger, who was an intelligence officer at the time. Lester's recordings have been distributed by labels including Blue Note, United Artists, Capitol, Denon and CBS Records.
Carlo Krahmer was a British jazz drummer and record producer.
Melodisc Records was a record label founded by Emil E. Shalit in the late 1940s. It was one of the first independent record labels in the UK and the parent company of the Blue Beat label.
Starlite & Campbell is a group based in Portugal. Formed in 2016, the band is led by married couple Suzy Starlite and Simon Campbell. Their debut album, Blueberry Pie was nominated for a European Blues Award in November 2017 and blends British blues, British rock, blues and British folk.
