Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its US label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president too. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca, and the link between the UK and US Decca label was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre.
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 22, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. 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.
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America.
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released rock, funk, R&B, doo wop, soul music, blues, pop, rock and roll, and jazz records. In the United States, it is operated through Republic Records; in the United Kingdom and Japan, it is distributed by EMI Records.
Vee-Jay Records is an American record label founded in the 1950s, located in Chicago and specializing in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
Discography is the study and cataloging of published sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified music genres. The exact information included varies depending on the type and scope of the discography, but a discography entry for a specific recording will often list such details as the names of the artists involved, the time and place of the recording, the title of the piece performed, release dates, chart positions, and sales figures.
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape, or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photo album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl long-playing (LP) records played at 33+1⁄3 rpm.
AllMusic is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne.
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.
Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips and the Dutch-American largest record label company Universal Music Group. It was founded as Philips Phonographische Industrie in 1950. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in Amsterdam.
Record collecting is the hobby of collecting sound recordings, usually of music, but sometimes poetry, reading, historical speeches, and ambient noises. Although the typical focus is on vinyl records, all formats of recorded music can be collected.
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.
Song of Innocence is the debut album by American composer and producer David Axelrod. It was released in October 1968 by Capitol Records. In an effort to capitalize on the experimental climate of popular music at the time, Axelrod composed the album as a suite-like tone poem interpreting Songs of Innocence, a 1789 illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. Recording took place at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with an orchestra and studio musicians from the Wrecking Crew collective, including keyboardist and conductor Don Randi, guitarist Al Casey, bassist Carol Kaye, and drummer Earl Palmer.
Speak No Evil is the sixth album by Wayne Shorter. It was released in June 1966 by Blue Note Records. The music combines elements of hard bop and modal jazz, and features Shorter on tenor saxophone, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Elvin Jones. The cover photo is of Shorter's first wife, Teruko (Irene) Nakagami, whom he met in 1961.
Everest Records was a record label based in Bayside, Long Island, started by Harry D. Belock and Bert Whyte in May 1958. It was devoted mainly to classical music.
Fontessa is a 1956 album by the Modern Jazz Quartet released on Atlantic Records. It was the first of their albums released on Atlantic. The album was released in the USA in mono on the black Atlantic label with catalogue number 1231. It was released in the USA in stereo on the green Atlantic label with catalogue number SD 1231. The prefix SD stands for Stereo Disc. The current internationally available CD release is the mono version. A Japanese CD exists of the stereo version. Additionally both mono and stereo versions were released in many other territories, for example the UK with London LTZ-K 15022 for the mono and London SAH-K 6031 for the stereo. The 11-minute title tune by the group's pianist and musical director John Lewis was inspired by Commedia dell'arte, and the four characters depicted in it are pictured on the cover. Lewis wrote of it in the liner notes:
Fontessa is a little suite inspired by the Renaissance Commedia dell’Arte. I had particularly in mind their plays which consisted of a very sketchy plot and in which the details, the lines, etc. were improvised. This suite consists first of a short Prelude to raise the curtain and provide the theme. The first piece after the Prelude has the character of older jazz and improvised parts are by the vibraphone. This piece could perhaps be the character of Harlequin. The second piece has the character of less older jazz and the improvised parts are played by the piano. The character here could perhaps be Pierrot. The third piece is of a still later jazz character and develops the main motif. The improvised parts are by the drums. This character could perhaps be Pantaloon. The opening Prelude closes the suite. Fontessa is the three-note main motif of the suite and is perhaps a substitute for the character of Colombine.
The World Record Club Ltd. was the name of a company in the United Kingdom which issued long-playing records and reel-to-reel tapes, mainly of classical music and jazz, through a membership mail-order system during the 1950s and 1960s.
Gene Rains is a vibraphonist and leader of the Gene Rains Group, a jazz quartet from Hawaii that played a musical style known as Exotica. Rains' short career spanned the early to the mid-1960s and consisted of 4 LP recordings released on Decca Records and the Vocalion label. These LPs were released during the golden era of Hawaiian and Exotica music and the Tiki culture in the United States. The Gene Rains Group repertoire featured popular Hawaiian and Polynesian Island melodies as well as popular American tunes of the era.
Saga Records was a British independent record label first established in 1958. It pioneered budget-priced light classical music and jazz LPs.
