Music Minus One

Last updated
Music Minus One
Industry Music production and recording
Founded1950;74 years ago (1950)
FounderIrv Kratka
Headquarters,
Parent Hal Leonard
Website www.musicminusone.com

Music Minus One (MMO) is an American music production and recording company in Westchester, New York. The company releases albums that are meant to be accompanied by the listener on whichever instrument (or voice type) is excluded from the recording, as an aid to practice, or as an accompaniment to home performance.

Contents

Background

Music Minus One was founded in 1950 by Irv Kratka, a 24-year-old college student. The company's first recording was based on Schubert's Trout Quintet, with one of the five instruments omitted in each of the versions. This release received a full page review in 1953 in The New York Times . It was also covered in mazagines such as Look , Life , Time and Newsweek . [1] [ third-party source needed ]

In the following years, the company released chamber music and jazz rhythm recordings utilizing New York. Stan Getz, Hank Jones, George Barnes, Max Roach, Julius Baker, Elaine Douvas, Armando Ghitalla, Stanley Drucker, Christian Reichert have played on MMO recordings. [1] To date, MMO has produced approximately nine hundred albums[ citation needed ], covering the genres of classical, chamber music, opera, lieder, popular, jazz and religious music. [1]

Sale to Hal Leonard

In 2016, the CEO of the Hal Leonard Corporation, Keith Mardak, purchased Music Minus One. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Dolphy</span> American jazz musician (1928–1964)

Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist and bandleader. Primarily an alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and flautist, Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence during the same era. His use of the bass clarinet helped to establish the unconventional instrument within jazz. Dolphy extended the vocabulary and boundaries of the alto saxophone, and was among the earliest significant jazz flute soloists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Roach</span> American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer (1924–2007)

Maxwell Lemuel Roach was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Clifford Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. He also played with his daughter Maxine Roach, Grammy nominated Violist. He was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horace Silver</span> American jazz pianist and composer (1928–2014)

Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, particularly in the hard bop style that he helped pioneer in the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clifford Brown</span> American jazz musician (1930–1956)

Clifford Benjamin Brown was an American jazz trumpeter. pianist and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", and "Daahoud" have become jazz standards. Brown won the DownBeat magazine Critics' Poll for New Star of the Year in 1954; he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oscar Pettiford</span> American jazz musician and composer (1922–1960)

Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist, cellist and composer. He was one of the earliest musicians to work in the bebop idiom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Farmer</span> American jazz trumpeter (1928–1999)

Arthur Stewart Farmer was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, double bassist Addison Farmer, started playing professionally while at high school in Los Angeles. Art gained greater attention after the release of a recording of his composition "Farmer's Market" in 1952. He subsequently moved from Los Angeles to New York, where he performed and recorded with musicians such as Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, and Gigi Gryce and became known principally as a bebop player.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Douglas (trumpeter)</span> American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator

Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Brown (musician)</span> American jazz double bassist (1926–2002)

Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist, known for his extensive work with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a founding member of the group that would later develop into the Modern Jazz Quartet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elmo Hope</span> American jazz musician

St. Elmo Sylvester Hope was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were close friends of another influential pianist, Thelonious Monk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Adderley</span> American jazz cornet & trumpet player (1931–2000)

Nathaniel Carlyle Adderley was an American jazz trumpeter. He was the younger brother of saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, whom he supported and played with for many years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Wallington</span> American jazz pianist and composer

George Wallington was an American jazz pianist and composer. Born in Sicily, his career as a pianist began in the early 1940s, when he played with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and contributed to the development of bebop. Following several years as a sideman during the late 1940s, he formed his own group, experimenting with trios and a string ensemble before settling upon a permanent quintet.

<i>Round About Midnight</i> 1957 studio album by Miles Davis

'Round About Midnight is an album by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis that was originally released by Columbia Records in March 1957. It was Davis' first album with Columbia.

<i>Filles de Kilimanjaro</i> 1968 studio album by Miles Davis

Filles de Kilimanjaro is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It was recorded in June and September 1968, and released on Columbia Records. It was released in the United Kingdom by the company's subsidiary Columbia (CBS) in 1968 and in the United States during February 1969. The album is a transitional work for Davis, who was shifting stylistically from acoustic recordings with his "second great quintet" to his electric period. Filles de Kilimanjaro was well received by contemporary music critics, who viewed it as a significant release in modern jazz. Pianist Chick Corea and bassist Dave Holland appear together on two tracks, their first participation on a Davis album.

<i>Nefertiti</i> (Miles Davis album) 1968 studio album by Miles Davis

Nefertiti is a studio album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in March 1968. Recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio over four dates between June 7 and July 19, 1967, the album was Davis' last fully acoustic album. Davis himself did not contribute any compositions – three were written by tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, two by pianist Herbie Hancock, and one by drummer Tony Williams.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Elliott</span> American jazz musician

Don ElliottHelfman, known as Don Elliott, was an American jazz trumpeter, vibraphonist, vocalist, and mellophone player. Elliott recorded over 60 albums and 5,000 advertising jingles throughout his career.

Hal McKusick was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, and flutist who worked with Boyd Raeburn from 1944 to 1945 and Claude Thornhill from 1948 to 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Morgan (musician)</span> American jazz saxophonist

Frank Morgan was a jazz saxophonist with a career spanning more than 50 years. He mainly played alto saxophone but also played soprano saxophone. He was known as a Charlie Parker successor who primarily played bebop and ballads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fernando Otero</span> Musical artist

Fernando Otero is a Grammy-award-winning Argentine pianist, vocalist, and composer.

Inner City Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Irv Kratka in 1976 in New York City.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Music Minus One - About Us
  2. "Hal Leonard Buys Play-Along Music Publisher Music Minus One". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2017-01-29.