Contemporary Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Lester Koenig in Los Angeles in 1951. Contemporary produced music from a variety of jazz styles and players.

West Coast players

Contemporary became identified with a style of jazz called

West Coast jazz West Coast jazz refers to styles of jazz that developed in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a subgenre of cool jazz, which consisted of a calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music relied re ...

as exemplified by

Art Pepper Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. (September 1, 1925 – June 15, 1982) was an American alto saxophonist and very occasional tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. Active in West Coast jazz, Pepper came to prominence in Stan Kenton's big band. He was know ...

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

, Shelly Manne, and

André Previn André George Previn (; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films, jazz, and classical music. In each he achieved ...

. In the mid 1960s the company fell into relative limbo, but limited new recordings were made in the late 1970s, including a series of albums by Art Pepper recorded at the Village Vanguard club in New York. After Les Koenig's death in 1977, the label was run for seven years by his son, John, who produced albums by George Cables, Joe Farrell,

Joe Henderson Joe Henderson (April 24, 1937 – June 30, 2001) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than four decades, Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent l ...

Bobby Hutcherson Robert Hutcherson (January 27, 1941 – August 15, 2016) was an American jazz vibraphone and marimba player. "Little B's Poem", from the 1966 Blue Note album ''Components'', is one of his best-known compositions.Huey, Steve. "Components – Bob ...

Peter Erskine Peter Erskine (born June 5, 1954) is an American jazz drummer who was a member of the jazz fusion groups Weather Report and Steps Ahead. Early life and education Erskine was born in Somers Point, New Jersey, U.S. He began playing the dru ...

, and Chico Freeman. In 1984 Contemporary was purchased by Fantasy Records, which used the name for a short time. Most Contemporary titles were reissued by Fantasy. Also, some titles have found new life among today's audiophiles as high-quality LP

remasters Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via met ...

from Analogue Productions and other audiophile labels. The Fantasy catalog, including Contemporary and its associated labels,

Good Time Jazz Records Good Time Jazz Records was an American jazz record company and label. It was founded in 1949 by Lester Koenig to record the Firehouse Five Plus Two and earned a reputation for Dixieland jazz. The label produced new releases and reissues, includi ...

, Society for Forgotten Music, and Contemporary Composers Series, was sold to

Concord Records Concord Records is an American record label owned by Concord and based in Los Angeles, California. Concord Records was launched in 1995 as an imprint designed to reach beyond the company's foundational Concord Jazz label. The label's artists have ...

in 2004. Over the years, a number of major figures in the music business worked for Contemporary. Among them were

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most im ...

executive Nesuhi Ertegun, writers Nat Hentoff and Leonard Feather, producer Joe Boyd, recording engineer and studio designer Howard Holzer, and mastering engineer

Bernie Grundman Bernie Grundman is an American audio engineer. He is most known for his mastering work and his studio, Bernie Grundman Mastering, which he opened in 1984 in Hollywood. The studio, which includes engineers Chris Bellman, Patricia Sullivan, and Mi ...

Recording

Koenig maintained high audio standards. He hired Roy DuNann from

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of not ...

in 1956, who, out of the label's shipping room turned studio, turned out some of the best sounding records of the time. DuNann provided some details of his techniques in a ''Stereophile'' article nearly 50 years later. He said Koenig provided him with German ( Neumann/Telefunken U-47) and Austrian ( AKG C-12) condenser microphones and he immediately noted the very high output of these microphones, especially close-in on jazz musicians' dynamic playing. DuNann achieved his signature sound—crisp, clear and balanced without distortion or unpleasant "peak presence"—by keeping his microphone setups very simple (generally one per musician) and avoided the use of pre-amplifiers for them. He built a simple passive mixing system that directly fed the electronics of his

Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...

350 and 351 tape machines. Also, DuNann told ''Stereophile'' that Contemporary sessions were recorded "dry" (without electronic echo added or in a reverberant room). Sometimes, such as in the case of Sonny Rollins' '' Way Out West'', a plate reverb unit was inserted between the tape machine and the LP

disc cutting lathe upPresto 8N Disc Cutting Lathe (1950) used by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to record radio programs A disc cutting lathe is a device used to transfer an audio signal to the modulated spiral groove of a blank master disc for the productio ...

. This is why some later LP and CD reissues of Contemporary albums sound "dry" and "dead" compared to the original LPs mastered by DuNann.

Discography

Contemporary 3500/7500 series

The 3500 (mono)/7500 (stereo) series of 12 inch

LP record The LP (from "long playing" or "long play") is an analog sound storage medium, a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use of the "microgroove" groove specification; an ...

s commenced in 1955 and ran until 1961. Contemporary was the first jazz label to record albums in stereo from 1956.

Contemporary Popular 5000/9000 series

The 5000 (mono)/9000 (stereo) series of 12 inch

s commenced in 1956 and ran until 1962.

Contemporary 3600/7600 series

The 3600 (mono)/7600 (stereo) series of 12 inch

s commenced in 1962 and ran until around the early 1980s. After 3624 all releases were stereo only.Callahan, M
Contemporary Label Discography
Both Sides Now website, accessed May 7, 2015

14000 series

The 14000 series began in 1980 with 12 inch

s and in 1982 commenced releases on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in O ...

.Contemporary Records Catalog: 14000 series
accessed May 7, 2015 After 1992 all releases were CD only.

References

External links

Conrad, Thomas. "The Search for Roy DuNann" (April 2002; ''Stereophile'' Web site)
{{Authority control Defunct record labels of the United States Jazz record labels Record labels established in 1951 1951 establishments in California