If Stax, Motown or Sun Records figure in pop iconography as labels almost as famous as the legends they launched, Blue Note, Riverside, Impulse! or ECM are jazz music's equivalents – even if they are less likely to wind up as answers in a pub quiz. In its heyday in the 1950s and 60s, Blue Note was almost as widely admired for Esquire designer Reid Miles's cool typography and brooding, deep-hued cover images (shots that took you straight to the bar of a midnight Manhattan jazz club, boiling with noise) as it was for its star signings of the era – Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter. Germany's ECM has a comparably glamorous catalogue of stars (the post-60s generation of innovators from America's Keith Jarrett to Norway's Jan Garbarek, and a constantly expanding roster of gifted newcomers) and its own instantly recognisable graphics.(The Guardian)
Friday, January 13, 2012
ACT Records: 'It doesn't happen like this in the corporate world'
When its star artist Esbjörn Svensson died in a scuba accident, ACT Records almost called it a day. Instead, it's just reached its 20th anniversary on top of the jazz world
If Stax, Motown or Sun Records figure in pop iconography as labels almost as famous as the legends they launched, Blue Note, Riverside, Impulse! or ECM are jazz music's equivalents – even if they are less likely to wind up as answers in a pub quiz. In its heyday in the 1950s and 60s, Blue Note was almost as widely admired for Esquire designer Reid Miles's cool typography and brooding, deep-hued cover images (shots that took you straight to the bar of a midnight Manhattan jazz club, boiling with noise) as it was for its star signings of the era – Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter. Germany's ECM has a comparably glamorous catalogue of stars (the post-60s generation of innovators from America's Keith Jarrett to Norway's Jan Garbarek, and a constantly expanding roster of gifted newcomers) and its own instantly recognisable graphics.(The Guardian)
If Stax, Motown or Sun Records figure in pop iconography as labels almost as famous as the legends they launched, Blue Note, Riverside, Impulse! or ECM are jazz music's equivalents – even if they are less likely to wind up as answers in a pub quiz. In its heyday in the 1950s and 60s, Blue Note was almost as widely admired for Esquire designer Reid Miles's cool typography and brooding, deep-hued cover images (shots that took you straight to the bar of a midnight Manhattan jazz club, boiling with noise) as it was for its star signings of the era – Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter. Germany's ECM has a comparably glamorous catalogue of stars (the post-60s generation of innovators from America's Keith Jarrett to Norway's Jan Garbarek, and a constantly expanding roster of gifted newcomers) and its own instantly recognisable graphics.(The Guardian)
