Keynote Records was a record label founded by record store owner Eric Bernay in 1940. The label's initial releases were folk and protest songs from the Soviet Union and the Spanish Civil War, and several anti-war releases from American musicians followed. [1] From 1943, the label released recordings in the jazz idiom produced by Harry Lim. The music critic John S. Wilson in 1965 described the company's jazz output as "an unusually valid reflection of the jazz spirits of the times." [2] An unwise investment in a factory to manufacture records in 1947 led to the company becoming bankrupt in 1948, and came under the control of Mercury Records. [1] [3]
The Keynote jazz sessions were comprehensively reissued in 1986 when Nippon Phonogram/PolyGram released a 21 LP set with 115 previously unissued takes. [4] [5] Robert Palmer in The New York Times in October 1986 described it as "a much more substantial addition to the treasury of absolutely essential classic jazz performances than one could have expected or hoped for this late in the game." [6] In 2013, a 11-CD set of Keynote jazz recordings was issued by the Spanish Fresh Sound label. [7] [8] [9] Donald Clarke, writing about Lim's for Keynote, described him as knowing what he was doing and getting "good sound, with no gimmicks." [4]
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America.
Kind of Blue is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis. It was released on August 17, 1959 through Columbia Records. For the recording, Davis led a sextet featuring saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, with new band pianist Wynton Kelly appearing on one track—"Freddie Freeloader"—instead of Evans. The album was recorded in two sessions on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City.
James Melvin Lunceford was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era.
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A Certain Ratio are an English post-punk band formed in Greater Manchester in 1977 by Peter Terrell (guitar), Simon Topping, Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson (drums), with Martha Tilson (vocals) joining soon after.
Monk's Music is a jazz album by the Thelonious Monk Septet, which for this recording included Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane. It was recorded in New York City on June 26, 1957, and released in November the same year.
Mingus Ah Um is a studio album by American jazz musician Charles Mingus which was released in October 1959 by Columbia Records. It was his first album recorded for Columbia. The cover features a painting by S. Neil Fujita. The title is a corruption of an imaginary Latin declension. It is common for Latin students to memorize Latin adjectives by first saying the masculine nominative, then the feminine nominative, and finally the neuter nominative singular —implying a transformation of his name, Mingus, Minga, Mingum. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.
Zappa in New York is a double live album by Frank Zappa released on his own DiscReet Records label, distributed by Warner Bros. Records. It was recorded in December 1976 at a series of concerts at the Palladium in New York City.
In Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Complete, also called The Complete Blackhawk, is a 2003 four-CD boxset of the 1961 live performances of the Miles Davis Quintet at the Black Hawk nightclub in San Francisco.
Sarah Vaughan, reissued in 1991 as Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown, is a 1955 jazz album featuring singer Sarah Vaughan and trumpeter Clifford Brown, released on the EmArcy label. It was the only collaboration between the two musicians. Well received, though not without some criticism, the album was Vaughan's own favorite among her works through 1980. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
Pres and Teddy is a jazz album by The Lester Young and Teddy Wilson Quartet, recorded in January 1956. Originally released on LP by Verve in 1959, it has subsequently been reissued on CD by Verve, Universal Japan and Lonehill Jazz.
Sounds of Christmas is the second holiday-themed album by vocalist Johnny Mathis and the first of his 11 studio projects for Mercury Records. His first yuletide effort, 1958's Merry Christmas, relied heavily on popular holiday carols and standards, but this 1963 release also included two new songs as well as covers of some lesser-known recordings by Andy Williams and Bing Crosby.
The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume Eight is an album by pianist Art Tatum and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, with Red Callender on double bass and Bill Douglass on drums. The 1956 session was originally released in 1958 on Verve Records album produced by Norman Granz as The Art Tatum - Ben Webster Quartet, but Granz re-acquired the masters in the 1970s after the album was allowed to go out of print. He reissued the material as one of a series of eight Group Masterpieces featuring Tatum in collaboration with other artists, also issuing it as part of a boxed set, The Complete Pablo Group Masterpieces. The album has been reissued on CD, including a January 31, 1992 version with bonus tracks.
The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk is a box set by American jazz pianist Thelonious Monk compiling his recordings for Blue Note first released as a limited four-LP box set on Mosaic Records in 1983 before being issued as a four-CD box set by Blue Note for the first time in 1994 as The Complete Blue Note Recordings.
Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection is a box set by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in 2009. It contains all the official releases on the Columbia Records label. The box set consists of 70 CDs and 1 DVD.
Live in Tokyo is a live album by the American jazz trumpeter-composer Charles Tolliver and his quartet Music Inc. Their fifth album overall, it was recorded on December 7, 1973, at Yubinchokin Hall in Tokyo during Tolliver and Music Inc.'s first tour of Japan. The quartet – featuring the pianist Stanley Cowell, the bassist Clint Houston, and Clifford Barbaro on drums – played the show in mostly fast tempo and performed three of Tolliver's original compositions, along with a ballad composed by Cowell and the Thelonious Monk standard "'Round Midnight".
Antoine "Fats" Domino Jr. was an American pianist and singer-songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, more than 65 million records were sold by Domino. He had eleven Top 10 hits between 1955 and 1960.
Eric Bernay was an American record producer, best known for founding Keynote Records.
Harry Lim was a Javanese-American jazz producer, best known for his work with Keynote Records.
Father of Origin is a box set album by multi-instrumentalist Juma Sultan and his open-ended ensemble the Aboriginal Music Society. Drawn from Sultan's archive of recorded material, and released by Eremite Records in 2011, it consists of two vinyl LPs, a CD, and a book containing photos and an extensive essay by jazz scholar Michael Heller, all of which help to document aspects of the loft jazz era of the early 1970s.