Post by Doom Girl on Sept 23, 2021 18:28:45 GMT
Looking through my jazz record collection with an eye to the smaller, unusual labels I was struck by how many of them were from the 1970’s, that is, out of the main purview of the LJC but perhaps still of some interest. The 70’s were rife with fusion and funk, the blending of the jazz characteristic of the 50’s and 60s with rock, R&B, Latin and African styles – Miles post-BITCHES BREW, Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, The Headhunters, and into the 80s and beyond with radio-friendly “smooth jazz.” However, roiling beneath this homogenization there was a plethora of small jazz labels, often created by the artists themselves, which featured music outside of the mainstream.
One of the most important of these artist-led labels was Carla Bley and Mike Mantler’s Jazz Composer’s Orchestra (and its related WATT label, later distributed by ECM). Importantly, Bley and Mantler also set up the NMDS, the New Music Distribution Service, dedicated to identifying and distributing “independently produced ‘New Music’ records regardless of commercial potential or personal taste.” I have acquired one of their late-70’s catalogues and soon realized that identifying these “other labels,” with a description and illustration of labels, as the LJC does, would be an encyclopedic endeavor. Choosing just a few of the labels in the catalog that were clearly focused on or self-identified as what might be classified as “jazz,” I find: AIRBORNE, AK:BA, ALACRA, ALTSAX, ANDREWS MUSIC, ANIMA, BAOBAB, BENT, BIG CITY, BIJA, BIRDSEYE, BIRTH, CONCEPT, DOGTOWN, EARTH FORMS, F.K.T., HAT HUT, INDIA NAVIGATION, IPS, JCOA, KABELL, METAL LANGUAGE, MOZOWN, NESSA, NEW JAZZ, PARACHUTE, PASSIN THRU, PHILLY JAZZ, PROGRESSIVE, SACKVILLE, SURVIVAL, SWEET EARTH, TRIDENT, WATT, WRANEBEAU, etc. etc. A surprisingly high number of those we now recognize as having been among the best players of the era can be found on these small labels.
From Wikipedia: “New Music Distribution Service (or NMDS) was a non-profit record distributor based in New York City. It was founded in 1972 by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler as a means of distributing artist produced recordings of, primarily, experimental contemporary music. It was a program of the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Association (JCOA). The NMDS began by distributing recordings released by many different independent labels and artists….. Several international labels such as Incus and ECM were also included in their catalogs. The biggest selling album in NMDS history was the ECM release of Return to Forever (Chick Corea album) which strained the seams at the service and led to ECM's first US major distribution deal.”
One of the most important of these artist-led labels was Carla Bley and Mike Mantler’s Jazz Composer’s Orchestra (and its related WATT label, later distributed by ECM). Importantly, Bley and Mantler also set up the NMDS, the New Music Distribution Service, dedicated to identifying and distributing “independently produced ‘New Music’ records regardless of commercial potential or personal taste.” I have acquired one of their late-70’s catalogues and soon realized that identifying these “other labels,” with a description and illustration of labels, as the LJC does, would be an encyclopedic endeavor. Choosing just a few of the labels in the catalog that were clearly focused on or self-identified as what might be classified as “jazz,” I find: AIRBORNE, AK:BA, ALACRA, ALTSAX, ANDREWS MUSIC, ANIMA, BAOBAB, BENT, BIG CITY, BIJA, BIRDSEYE, BIRTH, CONCEPT, DOGTOWN, EARTH FORMS, F.K.T., HAT HUT, INDIA NAVIGATION, IPS, JCOA, KABELL, METAL LANGUAGE, MOZOWN, NESSA, NEW JAZZ, PARACHUTE, PASSIN THRU, PHILLY JAZZ, PROGRESSIVE, SACKVILLE, SURVIVAL, SWEET EARTH, TRIDENT, WATT, WRANEBEAU, etc. etc. A surprisingly high number of those we now recognize as having been among the best players of the era can be found on these small labels.
From Wikipedia: “New Music Distribution Service (or NMDS) was a non-profit record distributor based in New York City. It was founded in 1972 by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler as a means of distributing artist produced recordings of, primarily, experimental contemporary music. It was a program of the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Association (JCOA). The NMDS began by distributing recordings released by many different independent labels and artists….. Several international labels such as Incus and ECM were also included in their catalogs. The biggest selling album in NMDS history was the ECM release of Return to Forever (Chick Corea album) which strained the seams at the service and led to ECM's first US major distribution deal.”
