Michael Cuscuna
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Michael Cuscuna
Michael Cuscuna (born September 20, 1949 in Stamford, Connecticut, United States) is an American jazz record producer and writer. He is the co-founder of Mosaic Records and a discographer of Blue Note Records. Cuscuna played drums, saxophone and flute while young, but placed his emphasis on founding his own record label. He had a jazz show on WXPN and worked for ESP-Disk late in the 1960s, in addition to writing for ''Jazz & Pop Magazine ''and '' Down Beat''. He moved from WXPN to WMMR in 1970, then onto WABC-FM (now WPLJ) as a progressive rock DJ at both stations. He took a position as a producer with Atlantic Records in the 1970s, recording Dave Brubeck and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In the early 1970s, he also produced albums by Bonnie Raitt ('' Give It Up'') and Chris Smither. He also worked at Motown, ABC (for reissues of Impulse! albums), Arista, Muse, Freedom, Elektra and Novus. From 1975 to 1981, he searched the Blue Note archive for previously unissued sessions wh ...
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Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 2020 census. It is in the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury metropolitan statistical area, which is part of the New York City metropolitan area (specifically, the New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA Combined Statistical Area). As of 2019, Stamford is home to nine Fortune 500 companies and numerous divisions of large corporations. This gives it the largest financial district in the New York metropolitan region outside New York City and one of the nation's largest concentrations of corporations. Dominant sectors of Stamford's economy include financial services, tourism, information technology, healthcare, telecommunications, transportation, and retail. Its metropolitan division is home to colleges and universities including UConn Stamf ...
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Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt (; born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer and guitarist. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk, and country. She was also a frequent session player and collaborator with other artists, including Warren Zevon, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, The Pointer Sisters, John Prine and Leon Russell. In 1989, after several years of limited commercial success, she had a major hit with her tenth studio album '' Nick of Time'', which included the song of the same name. The album reached number one on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It has since been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry. Her following two albums, '' Luck of the Draw'' (1991) and ''Longing in Their Hearts'' (1994), were multimillion sell ...
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Charlie Lourie
Mosaic Records is an American jazz record company and label established in 1982 by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie. It produces limited-edition box sets. The sets recordings are leased from the major record companies, usually for a three- or five-year period, with the edition limited to a specific number of copies typically 5,000. Sometimes the complete catalog of a label would appear: the complete masters of Milt Gabler's Commodore Records were contained in three sets consisting of some 66 LPs. In 2003, the company initiated the Select series of smaller sets, not necessarily "complete" in the usual sense. In 2006, the company began a third line, Mosaic Singles, a series dedicated to reissuing individual albums on CD that have not previously been available in US editions, or at all. In 2009, Mosaic returned to the vinyl format with the HQ Vinyl Series and began issuing three and four LP sets of 2,500-5,000 copies. Mosaic's sets are primarily sold and distributed directly to cu ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) 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. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Gui ...
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Blue Note
In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical context. Origins and meaning The blue notes are usually said to be the lowered third, lowered fifth, and lowered seventh scale degrees. The lowered fifth is also known as the raised fourth.Ferguson, Jim (1999). ''All Blues Soloing for Jazz Guitar: Scales, Licks, Concepts & Choruses'', p. 20. . Though the blues scale has "an inherent minor tonality, it is commonly 'forced' over major-key chord changes, resulting in a distinctively dissonant conflict of tonalities". A similar conflict occurs between the notes of the minor scale and the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as " Why Don't You Do Right?", "Happy" and " Sweet About Me". In the case of the lowered third over the root (or the lowered seventh over the dominant), the resu ...
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Novus Records
Novus Records (later Arista Novus and RCA Novus) was an American jazz record label run by Steve Backer. Backer worked at Impulse! Records until 1974, when Clive Davis, founder of Arista Records, asked him to oversee the jazz division at Arista. Backer left Arista in the early 1980s, worked for Windham Hill Records, and then went to RCA to run Novus. Novus's roster included Muhal Richard Abrams, Warren Bernhardt, Steve Coleman, Larry Coryell, Oliver Lake, Steve Lacy, James Moody, Hilton Ruiz, and Henry Threadgill. Beginning in 1989, Backer signed Marcus Roberts, Roy Hargrove, Danilo Pérez, Antonio Hart, and Christopher Hollyday. The label closed in the mid-1990s. The catalogue is now managed by Sony Masterworks through its Masterworks Jazz imprint. Discography 3000-N (RCA) series *3000: Muhal Richard Abrams – ''Lifea Blinec'' *3001: Warren Bernhardt – ''Solo Piano'' *3002: Air – ''Open Air Suit'' *3003: Oliver Lake – ''Life Dance of Is'' *3004: Baird Hersey – ''Looki ...
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Elektra Records
Elektra Records (or Elektra Entertainment) is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk and rock music between the 1950s and 1970s. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived as an imprint of Atlantic in 2009. In October 2018, Elektra was detached from the Atlantic Records umbrella and reorganized into Elektra Music Group, once again operating as an independently managed frontline label of Warner Music. In June 2022, Elektra Music Group was merged with 300 Entertainment to create the umbrella label 300 Elektra Entertainment (3EE), though both Elektra and 300 will continue to maintain their separate identities as labels. History 1950–1971: Founding and early history Elektra was formed in 1950, as the ''Elektra-Stratford Record Corporation'', with a singles label called Stratford ...
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Freedom Records
Freedom Records was a jazz record label headed by Shel Safran and founded by Alan Bates as a division of Black Lion Records. Individual recordings were distributed via Polydor Records and Transatlantic Records during the early 1970s before the company was bought by Arista Records with the imprint dubbed Arista/Freedom in 1975. Discography *1000: Albert Ayler & Don Cherry - '' Vibrations'' *1001: Marion Brown - ''Porto Novo'' *1002: Charles Tolliver - '' Paper Man'' *1003: Gato Barbieri & Dollar Brand- ''Confluence'' *1004: Randy Weston - ''Carnival'' *1005: Cecil Taylor - '' Silent Tongues'' *1006: Roswell Rudd - ''Flexible Flyer'' *1007: Andrew Hill - ''Spiral'' *1008: Oliver Lake - ''Heavy Spirits'' *1009: Stanley Cowell - '' Brilliant Circles'' *1010: Roland Hanna - ''Perugia'' *1011: Dewey Redman - ''Look for the Black Star'' *1012: Julius Hemphill - '' Coon Bid'ness'' *1013: Mal Waldron - '' Blues for Lady Day'' *1014: Randy Weston - '' Blues to Africa'' *1015: ...
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Muse Records
Muse Records was a jazz record company and label founded in New York City by Joe Fields (producer), Joe Fields in 1972. Fields worked as an executive for Prestige Records in the 1960s. Several of the albums were previously released on Cobblestone Records. Muse also had another label, Onyx Records, which operated until 1978, when Fields and collaborator Don Schlitten ended their professional relationship. In the late 1970s, Muse partnered with the Dutch Timeless Records to distribute Timeless Muse. Muse was sold in 1996 to 32 Jazz, which repackaged and reissued a large amount of Muse recordings. In 2003, Savoy Records, Savoy Jazz (which had become a subsidiary of Nippon Columbia) acquired the rights to the Muse catalog (along with that of Landmark Records, Landmark) from 32 Jazz. Fields later founded HighNote Records and Savant Records; many Muse artists later recorded for these labels as well. Discography From 1972 until 1995 Muse released around 500 albums.
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Arista Records
Arista Records () is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was previously handled by BMG Entertainment, the North American division of German conglomerate Bertelsmann. Though the label was founded in November 1974 by Clive Davis, Arista in its current form was re-established in 2018. Along with Epic Records, RCA Records, and Columbia Records, Arista is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels. History Background After being fired from CBS Records, Clive Davis was recruited by Alan Hirschfield, CEO of Columbia Pictures, in June 1974 to be a consultant for the company's record and music operations. Shortly after his hiring by CPI, Davis became president of Bell Records, replacing the departing Larry Uttal. Davis's real goal was to reorganize and revitalize Columbia Pictures' music division. With a $10 million in ...
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Impulse!
Impulse! Records (occasionally styled as "¡mpulse! Records" and "¡!") is an American jazz record company and label established by Creed Taylor in 1960. John Coltrane was among Impulse!'s earliest signings. Thanks to consistent sales and positive critiques of his recordings, the label came to be known as "the house that Trane built". History Impulse!'s parent company, ABC-Paramount Records, was established in 1955 as the recording division of the American Broadcasting Company ( ABC). In the 1940s and 1950s, ABC benefitted from the U.S. government's antitrust actions against broadcasters and film studios who were forced to divest parts of their companies. In the early 1950s, ABC acquired the Blue Network of radio stations from NBC and later merged with the newly independent Paramount Theaters chain, formerly owned by Paramount Pictures. The new recording division was located at 1501 Broadway, above the Paramount Theatre in Times Square. Under the leadership of Leonard Goldenson, ...
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ABC Records
ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels before ABC was sold to MCA Records in 1979. ABC produced music in a variety of genres: pop, rock, jazz, country, rhythm and blues, soundtrack, gospel, and polka. In addition to producing records, ABC licensed masters from independent record producers, and purchased regionally released records for national distribution. The label was initially called Am-Par Records (1955), but quickly changed to ABC-Paramount Records (1955–1966), and then renamed ABC Records in 1966. History Background In the 1940s and early 1950s, the Federal Communications Commission took action against the Anti-competitive practices of movie studios and broadcasting companies, forcing the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to sell the Blue Network, the sister netwo ...
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