Pacific Jazz Records

Pacific Jazz Records is an American record label, which in the 1950s and 1960s was active initially known for jazz recordings, and under this name or as World Pacific Records.

History of the record label

The record label Pacific Jazz was made in 1952 by Richard Bock (* 1927, † 1988) founded and drummer Roy Harte in Los Angeles. It was known for his publications of shots of the cool jazz and especially the West Coast jazz. According to Arrigo Polillo will Richard Bock the appearance of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet in the summer of 1952, have inspired the jazz club "The Haig " in Los Angeles so that he decided to publish photographs of the tape to disk. This should have been the starting signal for the establishment of the label.

The best-known musicians, the recordings for Pacific Jazz, had Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond and Gerald Wilson. Also, here recordings of Clifford Brown, Lee Konitz, Buddy Rich, Jimmy Witherspoon, Chico Hamilton, Bud Shank, and Les McCann appeared. Under the sub label founded in 1954 Pacifica next to jazz and pop and hands- plates were published.

In 1957 the label was renamed in World Pacific Records and the musical spectrum of the label both in the direction Rhythm & Blues and toward the world music expanded (especially shots with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha with ). The name " Pacific Jazz New Series " was then used for a sub-label; one of the first recordings that appeared there, the 1958 Gil Evans ' album New Bottle, Old Wine, one of the last Jean -Luc Ponty King Kong: Jean -Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa. From 1957 to 1959 George Avakian was a producer at the label. In 1964 the label was sold to Liberty Records, through which it 1968 Transamerica and from there went to United Artists, although they gave out reissues in the 1970s, but otherwise produced nothing new under Pacific Jazz. Later, the catalog went into the possession of the Capitol and EMI Group. He is now part of the Blue Note catalog.

Many of the cover photo of the album came from William Claxton, who published this in 1955 in his photo book Jazz West Coast ( Hollywood, Linear Productions ). Under the same title (label ) Jazz West Coast, was released a compilation series in the 1950s by Pacific Jazz / World Pacific.