Riverside Records, was a
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record labelIn the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
specializing in
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
. Founded by Bill Grauer and
Orrin KeepnewsOrrin Keepnews is an American writer and jazz record producer.- Career :Keepnews graduated from Columbia with a degree in English in 1943...
in
1953-Events:* January 1 — Hank Williams, due to play a New Year's Day show in Canton, Ohio, dies sometime after midnight in the rear seat of his Cadillac, somewhere between Knoxville, Tennessee and Oak Hill, West Virginia...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, the label was to be a major presence in the jazz record industry for a decade.
The label's name was derived from the
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
telephone exchangeIn the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...
of
The Record Changer, a magazine owned by Grauer and edited by Keepnews.
Initially the company was dedicated to reissuing early jazz material licensed from the Chicago-based
Paramount RecordsParamount Records was an American record label, best known for its recordings of African-American jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson....
label and
Gennett RecordsGennett was a United States based record label which flourished in the 1920s.-Label History:Gennett records was founded in Richmond, Indiana by the Starr Piano Company, and released its first records in October 1917. Earlier, the company had produced recordings under the Starr Records label...
.
Riverside Records, was a
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record labelIn the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
specializing in
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
. Founded by Bill Grauer and
Orrin KeepnewsOrrin Keepnews is an American writer and jazz record producer.- Career :Keepnews graduated from Columbia with a degree in English in 1943...
in
1953-Events:* January 1 — Hank Williams, due to play a New Year's Day show in Canton, Ohio, dies sometime after midnight in the rear seat of his Cadillac, somewhere between Knoxville, Tennessee and Oak Hill, West Virginia...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, the label was to be a major presence in the jazz record industry for a decade.
The label's name was derived from the
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
telephone exchangeIn the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...
of
The Record Changer, a magazine owned by Grauer and edited by Keepnews.
Initially the company was dedicated to reissuing early jazz material licensed from the Chicago-based
Paramount RecordsParamount Records was an American record label, best known for its recordings of African-American jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson....
label and
Gennett RecordsGennett was a United States based record label which flourished in the 1920s.-Label History:Gennett records was founded in Richmond, Indiana by the Starr Piano Company, and released its first records in October 1917. Earlier, the company had produced recordings under the Starr Records label...
. Reissued artists included
Jelly Roll MortonFerdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer.Widely recognized as a pivotal figure in early jazz, Morton claimed, in self-promotional hyperbole, to have invented jazz outright in 1902...
, King Oliver
Ma RaineyGertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett Rainey, better known as Ma Rainey , was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues...
and
James P. JohnsonJames Price Johnson [also known as Jimmy Johnson] was an American pianist and composer. With Luckey Roberts, Johnson was one of the originators of the stride style of jazz piano playing.-Biography:...
, but the label began issuing its own contemporary jazz recordings in April 1954, starting with pianist
Randy WestonRandy Weston , is an American jazz pianist and composer, of Jamaican parentage.-Biography:Weston studied classical piano as a child but did not have to travel far to hear the jazz giants who were to influence him. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he ran a restaurant that was...
. In 1955 the
Prestige RecordsPrestige Records was founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. 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...
contract of
Thelonious MonkThelonious Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer who, according to The Penguin Guide to Jazz, was "one of the giants of American music"...
was bought out for $108.24, and Monk was signed by Riverside, where he remained for the next five years. In the next few years, Cannonball Adderley,
Bill EvansWilliam John Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists, including Herbie Hancock, John Taylor, Steve Kuhn, Don...
,
Johnny GriffinJohn Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
and
Wes MontgomeryJohn Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is generally considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, and Pat Metheny.-...
made substantial contributions to Riverside's catalog, establishing it as a major jazz label. Almost all their new jazz recordings were produced by Keepnews, who served as creative head of the label (and several subsidiaries, most notably Jazzland Records), with Grauer directing the company's sales and business operations. Grauer died, following a sudden heart attack, in December 1963, and the company went bankrupt not long after. By that time, its catalogue had become impressive, in terms of both artists and performances, but it remained inactive until late 1972, when virtually all its masters were acquired by
Fantasy RecordsFantasy Records is a United States based record label, which was founded by Max and Sol Weiss in 1949 in San Francisco, California. They had previously operated a record pressing plant called Circle Record Company before forming the Fantasy label...
. The vast bulk of this material was subsequently reissued on CD as part of the new owners' "
Original Jazz ClassicsOriginal Jazz Classics was started in 1983 as an imprint of Fantasy Records. Under this name facsimiles of original editions of jazz LPs have been reissued on CD and formerly on LP and cassette also. The LPs were originally released on Riverside, Prestige and other labels that had been purchased...
" series and remains available today from current Riverside catalogue owner
Concord RecordsConcord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...
.
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