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]
Kind of Blue is the fifth studio album released on Columbia, and twenty-eighth overall, by American jazz musician, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, and released on August 17 of that same year by 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" – in place of Evans.
William Clarence Eckstine was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award "for performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording." His recording of "I Apologize" was given the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. The New York Times described him as an "influential band leader" whose "suave bass-baritone" and "full-throated, sugary approach to popular songs inspired singers like Earl Coleman, Johnny Hartman, Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock, and Lou Rawls."
James Melvin Lunceford was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader in the swing era.
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.
Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the catalog division for Warner Music Group. Its current CEO is Mark Pinkus.
Sue Records was also the name of a Louisiana-based record company which owned Jewel Records.
Sleep Dirt is an album by Frank Zappa released in January 1979, on his own DiscReet Records label. It reached #175 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States.
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. It was recorded in December 1976 at a series of concerts at the Palladium in New York City.
River Deep – Mountain High is a studio album by Ike & Tina Turner. It was originally released by London Records in the UK in 1966, and later A&M Records in the US in 1969. In 2017, Pitchfork ranked it at No. 40 on their list of the 200 Best Albums of the 1960s.
Cool Struttin' is an album by jazz pianist Sonny Clark that was released by Blue Note Records in August 1958. Described as an "enduring hard-bop classic" by The New York Times, the album features alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, trumpeter Art Farmer and two members of the Miles Davis Quintet, drummer Philly Joe Jones and bassist Paul Chambers. According to The Stereo Times, the album enjoys "a nearly cult status among hardcore jazz followers", a reputation AllMusic asserts it deserves "for its soul appeal alone".
This is the discography of recordings by Duke Ellington, including those nominally led by his sidemen, and his later collaborations with musicians with whom Ellington had generally not previously recorded.
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.
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".
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.