Impulse! Records
Impulse! is a company specializing in jazz music record label.
Development of the label
1960 succeeded the producer Creed Taylor to convince his record company ABC - Paramount him the new jazz label Impulse! allow to build. Taylor created the slogan " The New Wave In Jazz " and 1961-1976, the label could this claim be full justice. Many of the most exciting and innovative jazz artists of the time were able to - without being subjected to the usual commercial constraints - between the striking black and orange, and a third color or white, designed album covers hinged realize their ideas. Thanks to the modern label politics and good capitalization by the ABC Group were within a short time internationally known artists such as John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Shelly Manne, Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Shirley Scott, Archie Shepp, Yusef Lateef, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman and Chico Hamilton committed. Thus, Impulse! one of the most influential and important label of the 1960s.
Above all, the work of John Coltrane ( for example his album A Love Supreme) should become the centerpiece and driving force of the Impulse! Catalog. In recognition of artistic creation and the economic success of the saxophonist, the label should be published in 2006 his four-part CD box with a summary of his catalog The House That Trane Built - call The Story of Impulse Records. When Coltrane was contracted, hired ABC - Paramount for the departing Creed Taylor, who had been recruited by Verve, producer Bob Thiele and the recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder at; the two shaped the overall style of the label and its releases in the years lasting until 1969.
After the departure of Bob Thiele, who founded the label Flying Dutchman, was Ed Michel producer at Impulse, which moved its headquarters at this time to Los Angeles in the summer of 1969. In Michels era fall Publications by Pharoah Sanders ( Jewels of Thought, 1970 and Thembi, 1971), Gato Barbieri, Sam Rivers, Archie Shepp, Alice Coltrane ( Ptah, the El Daoud, 1970), Ahmad Jamal ( The Awakening, 1970), Keith Jarrett (Fort Yawuh, 1972), and editions from the estate of John Coltrane, as Sun Ship or Interstellar Space and publication of Saturn Recordings of Sun Ra in the 1950s and 1960s. Added to this was 1971 Steve Backer, who led the Promotion Department on the east coast.
Ed Michel remained until 1975 at the Impulse label, and was then replaced by Esmond Edwards; this released the last four albums Keith Jarrett, but attempted, the company releases from blues albums by Jimmy Ponder, Bobby Bland and BB King to give a slightly altered identity. With the sale of ABC Records to MCA ended the activities of the Impulse label. A recent commercial success, the album was hard work of saxophonist John Handy 1976 Last publications in 1977 were the albums Byablue by Keith Jarrett, First Meditations by John Coltrane and finally Change, Change, Change -. Live at the Roxy by Les McCann.
Mid-1980 there were under the auspices of MCA a brief comeback of the label. The most successful was probably here the tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, which reached top positions in the charts and won a Grammy.
As of 1995, Tommy LiPuma reactivated the label again. Since then, many Impulse! Classics were digitally remixed with the original covers and liner notes, and re-released on CD. In addition, as well as new albums by artists such as McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Danilo Pérez, Eric Reed, Donald Harrison, Gregory Tardy and pianist and singer Diana Krall were published. Impulse! is now under the umbrella of Verve.