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.

West Coast players

Contemporary became identified with a style of jazz called West Coast jazz as exemplified by

Art Pepper Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. (September 1, 1925 – June 15, 1982) was an American jazz musician, most known as an alto saxophonist. He occasionally performed and recorded on tenor saxophone, clarinet (his first instrument) and bass clarinet. Active ...

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

, Shelly Manne, and

André Previn André George Previn (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved ...

. In the mid 1960s the company fell into relative limbo, but limited new recordings were made in the late 1970s, including a series of albums by Art Pepper recorded at the

Village Vanguard The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jaz ...

club in New York. After Les Koenig's death in 1977, the label was run for seven years by his son, John, who produced albums by

George Cables George Andrew Cables (born November 14, 1944) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Early life Cables was born in New York City, United States. He was initially taught piano by his mother. He then studied at the High School of Performing Art ...

Joe Farrell Joseph Carl Firrantello (December 16, 1937 – January 10, 1986), known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who primarily performed as a saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name o ...

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, and Chico Freeman. In 1984 Contemporary was purchased by

Fantasy Records Fantasy Records is an American independent record label company founded by brothers Max and Sol Stanley Weiss in 1949. The early years of the company were dedicated to issuing recordings by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who was also one of its inves ...

, which used the name for a short time. Most Contemporary titles were reissued by Fantasy. Also, some titles have found new life among today's audiophiles as high-quality LP remasters from Analogue Productions and other

audiophile An audiophile (from + ) is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. The audiophile seeks to achieve high sound quality in the audio reproduction of recorded music, typically in a quiet listening space in a room with ...

labels. The Fantasy catalog, including Contemporary and its associated labels, Good Time Jazz Records, Society for Forgotten Music, and Contemporary Composers Series, was sold to

Concord Records Concord Records is an American record label owned by Concord and based in Los Angeles, California. Concord Records was launched in 1995 as an imprint designed to reach beyond the company's foundational Concord Jazz label. The label's artists ha ...

in 2004. Over the years, a number of major figures in the music business worked for Contemporary. Among them were

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executive

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, writers

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and

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, producer

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, recording engineer and studio designer Howard Holzer, and mastering engineer

Bernie Grundman Bernie Grundman (born 16 December 1943, Minneapolis) is an American audio engineer. He is most known for his mastering work and his studio, Bernie Grundman Mastering, which he opened in 1984 in Hollywood. The studio, which includes engineers Chr ...

Recording

Koenig maintained high audio standards. He hired Roy DuNann from

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...

in 1956, who, out of the label's shipping room turned studio, turned out some of the best sounding records of the time. DuNann provided some details of his techniques in a ''Stereophile'' article nearly 50 years later. He said Koenig provided him with German ( Neumann/Telefunken U-47) and Austrian ( AKG C-12) condenser microphones and he immediately noted the very high output of these microphones, especially close-in on jazz musicians' dynamic playing. DuNann achieved his signature sound—crisp, clear and balanced without distortion or unpleasant "peak presence"—by keeping his microphone setups very simple (generally one per musician) and avoided the use of pre-amplifiers for them. He built a simple passive mixing system that directly fed the electronics of his

Ampex Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name ''AMPEX'' is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excell ...

350 and 351 tape machines. Also, DuNann told ''Stereophile'' that Contemporary sessions were recorded "dry" (without electronic echo added or in a reverberant room). Sometimes, such as in the case of Sonny Rollins' '' Way Out West'', a plate reverb unit was inserted between the tape machine and the LP

disc cutting lathe upPresto 8N Disc Cutting Lathe (1950) used by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to record radio programs A disc cutting lathe is a device used to transfer an audio signal to the modulated spiral groove of a blank master disc for the productio ...

. This is why some later LP and CD reissues of Contemporary albums sound "dry" and "dead" compared to the original LPs mastered by DuNann.

Discography

Contemporary 3500/7500 series

The 3500 (mono)/7500 (stereo) series of 12 inch

LP record The LP (from long playing or long play) is an Analog recording, analog sound storage medium, specifically a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of revolutions per minute, rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use ...

s commenced in 1955 and ran until 1961. Contemporary was the first jazz label to record albums in stereo from 1956.

Contemporary Popular 5000/9000 series

The 5000 (mono)/9000 (stereo) series of 12 inch

s commenced in 1956 and ran until 1962.

Contemporary 3600/7600 series

The 3600 (mono)/7600 (stereo) series of 12 inch

s commenced in 1962 and ran until around the early 1980s. After 3624 all releases were stereo only.Callahan, M
Contemporary Label Discography
Both Sides Now website, accessed May 7, 2015

14000 series

The 14000 series began in 1980 with 12 inch

s and in 1982 commenced releases on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...

.Contemporary Records Catalog: 14000 series
accessed May 7, 2015 After 1992 all releases were CD only.

References

External links

Conrad, Thomas. "The Search for Roy DuNann" (April 2002; ''Stereophile'' Web site)
{{Authority control Defunct record labels of the United States American jazz record labels Record labels established in 1951 1951 establishments in California