Bob Weinstock

born on 2/10/1928 in New York City, NY, United States

died on 14/1/2006 in Boca Raton, FL, United States

Prestige Records

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Prestige Records
Parent company Concord Music Group
Founded 1949
Founder(s) Bob Weinstock
Genre(s) Jazz
Country of origin United States
Location New York City
Official Website concordmusicgroup.com/labels/Prestige/

Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several subsidiaries. In 1971, the company was sold to Fantasy, which was later absorbed by Concord.

History

Weinstock opened a record store for collectors in 1948 while still a teenager. The store was next door to the Metropole Jazz Club in New York City. Jazz musicians would hang out and rehearse at the club, and then migrate upstairs next door to Weinstock's store. Weinstock got the idea to record these jazz stars by offering them cash payments.

Prestige office was located at 446 West 50th Street, New York City.[1] The label's name was initially New Jazz, but changed to Prestige Records the next year. Its catalog contains a significant number of jazz classics, including renowned works by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and many others. Weinstock was known for encouraging the performances to be unrehearsed for a more authentic, exciting sound. To this effect, Prestige Records, unlike Blue Note Records, would not pay musicians for rehearsals. Another Weinstock practice, of rewinding the tapes after "bad" takes, has resulted in very few alternate takes surfacing from the classic Prestige years.

For most of the 1950s and 1960s, the recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder was responsible for recording the company's releases and Ira Gitler occasionally fulfilled the role of producer in the early 1950s. Around 1958, Prestige began to diversify, reviving the New Jazz name, usually for recordings by emerging musicians, and introduced the Swingsville and Moodsville lines, though these were relatively short-lived, many albums being re-released later in the 1960s on Prestige itself. Bluesville and Folklore were also subsidiary labels of Prestige releasing blues and folk orientated LPs respectively.

During this period, Weinstock ceased supervising recording sessions directly, employing Chris Albertson, Ozzie Cadena, Esmond Edwards, Don Schlitten, and producer/music supervisor Bob Porter, among others, to fulfil this function. Musicians recording for the label at this time included Jaki Byard and Booker Ervin, while Prestige remained commercially viable by recording a number of soul jazz artists like Charles Earland. In the mid-sixties the company's headquarters were located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey,[2]

Bob Weinstock has been criticized over the years for allegedly sharp business practices. Jackie McLean in A.B. Spellman's Four Lives in the Bebop Business (1966) is particularly outspoken, but others, including Albertson and Miles Davis in his autobiography, have defended him. The company was sold[3] to Fantasy Records in 1971, and original releases on the label formed a significant proportion of their Original Jazz Classics line. Fantasy was purchased by Concord Records in 2005.[3]

Discography

Main article: Prestige Records discography

References

  1. Van Gelder Studio by Ira Gitler
  2. Original 1965 liner notes to Blue Seven by Shirley Scott, Prestige PRLP 7376
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Prestige Legacy. Retrieved on 21 March 2010.

External links

  • Official website
  • Prestige discography
This page was last modified 01.04.2014 22:51:41

This article uses material from the article Prestige Records from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.