Uptown Records (jazz label)

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Uptown Records was an independent Canadian recording company focused on jazz that existed from 1979 to 1991.

History of the label

Joe Thomas (front left) and Eddie Wilcox (right) in 1947 at an appearance at Loyal Charles Lodge No. 167. Photo: William P. Gottlieb

The label Uptown Records was founded in 1979 by the doctor and oncologist Robert E. "Bob" Sunenblick (1943-2018) in Montreal and ran it there until 1986 together with the doctor Mark Feldman; until 1991 Sunenblick was the sole owner of the label. With the company name Uptown , Sunenblick referred to a term that conjured up the image of Afro-American jazz culture in Manhattan's Harlem district in Uptown New York in the 1930s and 1940s. Sunenblick wrote in his memoirs:

“I was a record collector and thought that a large number of musicians were not recorded because they weren't commercially profitable. So I started recording these kinds of eccentric musicians, but found that I had neither the ability to be a producer nor a kind of psychiatrist ”.

Nevertheless, the uptown label started with productions by musicians who had not recorded for a long time: Raw Meat , an LP by tenor saxophonist Joe Thomas , which he recorded in 1979 with Jimmy Rowles , Walter Booker and Akira Tana . Two other early uptown albums were from JR Monterose , a tenor saxophonist who had recorded for Blue Note in the 1950s and 1960s and has since performed at a club in Albany . A live recording was made there in 1979 ( Live in Albany ), on which JR Monterose played with Hod O'Brien , Teddy Kotick and Eddie Robinson . The album A Little Pleasure was created in 1981 as a duo with Tommy Flanagan . Back on Broadway (1980) was an album by dancer and singer John W. Bubbles with pianist Frank Owens .

In the following years Sunenblick published recordings of Dave Schildkraut , Charlie Rouse , Tommy Flanagan, Dicky Wells , Allen Eager , Philly Joe Jones , Haywood Henry , Frank Wess , Pepper Adams , Dexter Gordon , Hank Mobley , Don Sickler , Budd Johnson , Barry Harris , Don Joseph , Buddy Tate , Peter Leitch , Freddie Redd , Claudio Roditi , Kenny Barron , Jimmy Gourley , Carl Fontana , Jack Sheldon , Denzal Sinclaire and Frank Rosolino .

From 1987 onwards, Sunenblick, who now managed the label alone, concentrated more on the publication of historical recordings, for example by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie from New York's Town Hall from June 1945 ( Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 ), which was also noticed in The New York Times . In the following years there were historical recordings of Allen Eager ( In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee 1947-1953 ), Charles Mingus ( Charles 'Baron' Mingus - West Coast, 1945-1949 ), Sonny Clark , Dodo Marmarosa , Sarah Vaughan , Curtis Amy and Lee Wiley .

Allen Eager, at an appearance in the Arcadia Ballroom, New York City, circa May 1947. Photo: Gottlieb

The Uptown label released a total of 35 albums. Since Sunenblick was relatively unsuccessful in terms of the distribution of its productions, a total of only 80,000 copies appeared in the form of long-playing records , music cassettes and (from 1988) compact discs . Only three albums reached 5,000 units, including Transbluency (1986) by Maria Muldaur . In 1995, Sunenblick brought a lawsuit against the hip-hop label of the same name in the United States District Court in New York over the use of the name Uptown Records .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Notice of death at Legacy.com
  2. ↑ a b c SUNENBLICK v. HARRELL. Leagle, accessed March 8, 2018 .
  3. ^ A b Donald Elfman: Uptown Records. All About Jazz , April 9, 2010, accessed March 8, 2018 .