Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody "Linus and Lucy" and the holiday standard "Christmas Time Is Here". Guaraldi is also known for his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader's 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. Guaraldi's 1962 composition "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of a heart attack on February 6, 1976, at age 47, moments after concluding a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California.
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.
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist.
Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. was an American Latin Jazz musician, often described as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, especially small group modern jazz, even as he continued to perform music of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Sheldon "Shelly" Manne was an American jazz drummer. Most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, he was known for his versatility and also played in a number of other styles, including Dixieland, swing, bebop, avant-garde jazz, and later fusion. He also contributed to the musical background of hundreds of Hollywood films and television programs.
Fantasy Records is an American independent record label company founded by brothers Max and Sol Stanley Weiss in 1949. The early years of the company were dedicated to issuing recordings by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who was also one of its investors, but in more recent years the label has been known for its recordings of comedian Lenny Bruce, jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, the last recordings made on the Wurlitzer organ in the San Francisco Fox Theatre before the theatre was demolished, organist Korla Pandit, the 1960s rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, bandleader Woody Herman, and Disco/R&B singer Sylvester.
Vanguard Recording Society is an American record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York City. It was a primarily classical label at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, but also has a catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal jazz, folk, and blues musicians. The Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
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.
Contemporary Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Lester Koenig in Los Angeles in 1951. Contemporary produced music from a variety of jazz styles and players.
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.
Lucius Carl Watters was a trumpeter and bandleader of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band. Jazz critic Leonard Feather said, “The Yerba Buena band was perhaps the most vital factor in the reawakening of public interest in traditional jazz on the west coast.”
Lu Watters & the Yerba Buena Jazz Band is the name of an American traditional jazz revival band founded by Lu Watters in 1940. Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco, California. Notable members included singer and banjoist Clancy Hayes, clarinetist Bob Helm, trumpeter Bob Scobey, trombonist Turk Murphy, tubist/bassist Dick Lammi, and Watters himself.
The Cats is a jazz album released in December 1959 on New Jazz, a subsidiary label of Prestige Records. It is credited to pianist Tommy Flanagan, saxophonist John Coltrane, guitarist Kenny Burrell, and trumpeter Idrees Sulieman. It was issued after Coltrane's Prestige contract had ended. The record was the first to feature Coltrane, Burrell, and Flanagan playing together in a small group. Eleven months later, the three recorded Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane, which was first released in April of 1963 on the New Jazz label.
Howard Rumsey was an American jazz double-bassist known for his leadership of the Lighthouse All-Stars in the 1950s.
Nesuhi Ertegun was a Turkish-American record producer and executive of Atlantic Records and WEA International.
Blackstone Legacy is the debut album by trumpeter Woody Shaw recorded in 1970 and released on the Contemporary label.
Jazz Man Records was an American record company and independent record label devoted to traditional New Orleans-style jazz. David Stuart (né David Ashford Stuart; 1910–1984) founded the label in 1941 and sold it to Marili Morden and Nesuhi Ertegun. The label and its namesake – Jazz Man Record Shop, in Hollywood – were in the vanguard of an international revival of traditional jazz in the 1940s.
Lester Koenig was an American screenwriter, film producer, and founder of the jazz record label Contemporary Records.
