Enja Records

Enja is an independent record label for modern jazz.

Enja was founded in 1971 in Munich by Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber to life. Weber and Winckelmann then founded her label with borrowed money and were able to take Mal Waldron in the Domicile and sell the licenses to Japan. One of the early artists of the label include Albert Mangelsdorff, Attila Zoller and Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino. Initially there was a concentration on the new European jazz intends ( Enja stands for European New Jazz ). However, it soon became much more widely produced. For example, "discovered" the label boss John Scofield (who, however, changed with increasing success to a bigger label ) and resulted in the catalog soon other U.S. musicians such as Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and Gene Ammons. These recordings were partially published in North America under license by Inner City Records. Neither did they receive added archive material, such as Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus.

In the 1970s, they had success with Chet Baker and Abdullah Ibrahim, in the 1980s, particularly with the oud player Rabih Abou- Khalil. 1986 decided the two label founders to separate their businesses. They divided the catalog (then around 350 titles included and currently (2012 ) 800 ) and founded two independent subsidiary label, both of which still exist today. In Winckelmann Enja branch around 15 titles per year appear; He has also opened further in the direction of world jazz and extended by the classical label Marsyas and the booking agency Enja Booking.