ESP disk

ESP-Disk is an American independent label that made important recordings in the early days of free jazz .

ESP-Disk was founded in 1964 by lawyer Bernard Stollman (1929–2015) in New York City to publish songs based on the artificial language Esperanto . The second ESP release, however, was already a jazz album, Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity , which, like his New York Eye and Ear Control, would become an influential free jazz album. ESP also released albums by Ornette Coleman ( The Town Hall Concert ), Pharoah Sanders (who made his record debut with ESP), Giuseppi Logan , Sun Ra , Ronnie Boykins , Marion Brown , Sonny Simmons , Paul Bley , Ran Blake , Patty Waters and Gato Barbieri .

ESP also released recordings of underground rock , such as records by Jimi La Lumia & the Psychotic Frogs , The Fugs , The Godz and Pearls Before Swine .

ESP constantly struggled with financial difficulties. On the one hand, Stollman left the artists alone to decide what was published on their albums, on the other hand, in some cases, no royalties should have been paid to his musicians. Many artists were not happy with their deals with Stollman. Stollman himself claimed that the legal situation in the US was unfavorable for his label, which would have led to pirated copies of his best records, but this is not verifiable. The later manager Tom Abbs tried to pay the royalties to the musicians until the 1960s.

The complete label catalog is available again today. ESP has also re-released and re-released historical recordings by Billie Holiday , Charlie Parker and Bud Powell .

literature

Siegfried Schmidt-Joos & Barry Graves : Rock Lexicon. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1977 (updated edition).
Jason Weiss: Always In Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-Disk ', the Most Outrageous Record Label in America. Wesleyan University Press, 2012.

Web links

ESDdisc.com
Label portrait in German (Hayfever Magazin) ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
ESP-Disk 'Discography. Totalshutdown.com
ESP disk at Discogs
Mike Shanley: The History of ESP-Disk '. JazzTimes, August 17, 2020, accessed on August 24, 2020 .

Notes and evidence

↑ ESP is actually the abbreviation for " Extra Sensory Perception ", in English "extrasensory perception". In fact, the label founder was a fan of Esperanto and wanted to call the label Esperanto Disk before he decided on the abbreviated name. See The Man Who Fell to Earth. The Independent , September 5, 1997 (English).
^ ^A ^b Bernard Stollman, Founder of Adventurous Record Label, Dies at 85th New York Times , April 23, 2015.
↑ Kelley, Frannie. Legendary Record Label Loses Staff In Split. NPR.org, November 29, 2013.
↑ The complete discography of the different series of ESP (ESP 1000 series, ESP 2000 series, ESP 3000 series) is available on the English Wikipedia under ESP-Disk discography .

[1] ESP is actually the abbreviation for " Extra Sensory Perception ", in English "extrasensory perception". In fact, the label founder was a fan of Esperanto and wanted to call the label Esperanto Disk before he decided on the abbreviated name. See The Man Who Fell to Earth. The Independent , September 5, 1997 (English).

[nyt2015-2] A ^b Bernard Stollman, Founder of Adventurous Record Label, Dies at 85th New York Times , April 23, 2015.

[3] Kelley, Frannie. Legendary Record Label Loses Staff In Split. NPR.org, November 29, 2013.

[4] The complete discography of the different series of ESP (ESP 1000 series, ESP 2000 series, ESP 3000 series) is available on the English Wikipedia under ESP-Disk discography .