Chiaroscuro Records

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Chiaroscuro Records is an American jazz - label , which by Hank O'Neal was founded in 1973 and now owned by the WVIA Public Media is.

Label history

After initial attempts with the founding of labels , the blues label Melodian Records and the jazz label Halycon (with Marian McPartland ) in the late 1960s, Hank O'Neal, who worked as a government official in New York City, created the independent label Chiaroscuro in 1973 ( Italian : "Light-dark"), inspired by the Chiaroscuro sessions by Eddie Condon . The first production was a solo album by Earl Hines , which made it a Grammy nomination.Most of the sessions took place from 1973 in O'Neal's own Downtown Sound Studio , which had to be closed in 1981. From 1970 to 1978 O'Neal released more than a hundred long-playing records, most of them by musicians of oldtime, swing and mainstream jazz who were then neglected by the major labels , such as Mary Lou Williams , Willie The Lion Smith , Don Ewell , Dick Wellstood , Teddy Wilson , Gene Krupa , Dave McKenna , Claude Hopkins , Jonah Jones , Joe Venuti , Jess Stacy , Max Kaminsky , Ruby Braff , George Barnes and Eddie Condon. Modern-oriented musicians such as Gerry Mulligan , Lee Konitz and Dollar Brand followed ; In the mid-1970s there were also some fusion and avant-garde productions with Arthur Blythe , Hamiet Bluiett , Borah Bergman , Noah Howard , Perry Robinson , Frank Wright , Bruce Ditmas or Ryō Kawasaki .

In 1978 O'Neal sold the label to the American distributor Audio Fidelity. After founding the music agency HOSS in New York, O'Neal and his business partner Andrew Sordoni bought back Chiaroscuro's entire back catalog in 1987 , which was expanded by acquiring the small label Chaz Jazz . a. through recordings by Ralph Sutton , Jay McShann , Kenny Davern , Peanuts Hucko , Eddie Miller and Vic Dickenson . New productions were added from 1989 onwards, some of which were overseen by Sordoni and others by O'Neal. Since then, new recordings have appeared, both on the cruises organized by O'Neal (such as by Al Gray , Flip Phillips , Dorothy Donegan , Louie Bellson ) and in the studio of Rudy Van Gelder , and others. a. by Bobby Rosengarden (with Milt Hinton and Hank Jones ), Junior Mance , Clark Terry , Red Holloway , Terry Gibbs , Urbie Green , John Eaton and Adam Makowicz ( Opal Scese, the last session supervised together with John Hammond ).

Discographic notes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chiaroscuro Records Changes Hands Public radio station WVIA plans to expand label's reach in JazzTimes
  2. ^ A b Horst Schade: Frank O'Neal - Jazz on Sea, Chiaroscuro with a new look. In: Jazz Podium . No. 1, 1997, p. 16 ff.
  3. ↑ Selection based on Richard Cook / Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz, 6th edition, 2003