Spool was a recording label from 1998-2008 started by Vern Weber and Daniel Kernohan. During its life it put out 41 CDs primarily of improvised music, but also electro-acoustic music, experimental & new composition and avant-rock. The label divided it's releases into 4 series, LINE, FIELD, POINT, and ARC. Roughly, LINE was the improviser series, POINT, the composer series, FIELD, electro-acoustic series and ARC, the avant-rock series.

In December 2001, Mark Miller

Mark Miller

Mark Miller may refer to:* Mark Miller , television actor and producer, father of Penelope Ann Miller* Mark Miller , American football quarterback...

 writing in The Globe & Mail said talking about the state of Jazz: "It's work supported not by the majors, but by smaller companies, as small as the Uxbridge, Ont., label Spool, which released two of most interesting Canadian CDs of 2001, West Coast guitarist Tony Wilson's melancholic Lowest Note and a boisterous collaboration between trombonist/composer George Lewis and Vancouver's NOW Orchestra, The Shadowgraph Series." Spool was profiled in Coda magazine by Greg Buium. Spool releases received reviews by Mark Miller (Globe & Mail), Geoff Chapman (The Toronto Star) and in several magazines such as Downbeat

Downbeat

Downbeat, down beat or Down Beat may refer to:*Downbeat, the first beat of a measure in music. This terms originated from orchestral conducting, where the lowest point on the baton signals the first downbeat in a given measure...

, Cadence, Signal to Noise, Exclaim, Georgia Straight, The Province, The Wire, ImproJazz (France), JazzLive (Germany. The label was nominated twice by the National Jazz Awards of Canada.

The label featured such prominent jazz artists as Dewey Redman

Dewey Redman

Dewey Redman was an American jazz saxophonist, known for performing free jazz as a bandleader, and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett....

, Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...

, Paul Rutherford (trombone player)

Paul Rutherford (trombone player)

Paul William Rutherford was an English free improvising trombonist.-Biography:Born in Greenwich, South East London, Rutherford initially played saxophone but switched to trombone...

, George Lewis (trombonist)

George Lewis (trombonist)

George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...

, Mats Gustafsson

Mats Gustafsson

Mats Olof Gustafsson is a Swedish saxophone player and a stalwart on the Scandinavian free jazz scene. He is known for his tonal belligerence and intensity when improvising....

 & Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is an American jazz composer and saxophone and clarinet player.A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate...

. A particular feature of the label was the documentation of the Vancouver scene covering then up & coming musicians and veterans alike including: Paul Plimley

Paul Plimley

Paul Plimley is a free jazz pianist and vibraphonist. He is one of the doyens of the Canadian jazz avant-garde, a co-founder of the New Orchestra Workshop Society and frequent collaborator with the bassist Lisle Ellis...

, François Houle, Peggy Lee, Dylan van der Schyff, Tony Wilson, & NOW Orchestra. Toronto and Montreal scene were also covered with artists such as François Carrier, Lori Freedman, Marilyn Lerner, Brett Larner, Sarah Peebles, Gayle Young, Allison Cameron, John Oswald

John Oswald

John Oswald may refer to:* John Oswald , Scottish philosopher, writer, and revolutionary* John Oswald , British general...

 & AIMToronto Orchestra. European performers of note were Fred Frith

Fred Frith

Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...

, John Butcher, Joelle Leandre, Michael Moore, & Tobias Delius

Tobias Delius

Tobias Delius is a musician who plays the tenor saxophone & clarinet.-Music career:Delius began playing saxophone in 1980 in Germany...

.

Series LINE

LINE: noun: a spatial location defined by a real or imaginary unidimensional extent

• SPL130 Anthony Braxton & the AIMToronto Orchestra Creative Orchestra (Guelph) 2007
• SPL129 Box-Cutter New Rules for Noise (w/ Francois Houle & Gordon Grdina)
• SPL128 Box-Cutter Unlearn (w/ Francois Houle & Gordon Grdina)
• SPL127 Dewey Redman & Francois Carrier Open Spaces
• SPL126 Paul Rutherford/Ken Vandermark/Torsten Muller/Dylan van der Schyff HOXHA
• SPL125 Taking Pictures with Wayne Horvitz Intersection Poems
• SPL124 Peggy Lee Band Worlds Apart
• SPL123 Rake-Star Some RA
• SPL122 Jonathan Segel & Shoko Hikage GEN
• SPL121 Brett Larner, Joelle Leandre & Kazuhisa Uchihashi No Day Rising
• SPL120 Fred Frith, Joelle Leandre & Jonathan Segel Tempted To Smile
• SPL119 Tobias Delius, Wilbert de Joode & Dylan van der Schyff The Flying Deer
• SPL118 Michael Moore/ Peggy Lee/ Dylan van der Schyff Floating 1..2..3
• SPL117 Peggy Lee Band Sounds from the Big House
• SPL116 Fred Frith, John Oswald, Anne Bourne dearness
• SPL115 Travis Baker, Sara Shoenbeck Yesca One
• SPL114 Brett Larner Itadakimasu. Duos: A. Braxton, Jim O’ Rourke, Gianni Gebbia, Taku Sugimoto,+
• SPL113 George Lewis & the NOW Orchestra The Shadowgraph Series
• SPL112 Tony Wilson Sextet The Lowest Note
• SPL111 Queen Mab close
• SPL110 Mats Gustafsson, Kurt Newman, Mike Genarro Port Huron Picnic
• SPL109 John Butcher, Gino Robair, Matthew Sperry 12 Milagritos
• SPL108 Rake
• SPL107 The NOW Orchestra with guests George Lewis, Vinny Golia Wowow
• SPL106 Jacques Israelievitch, Richard Reitzenstein, Jesse Stewart, Gayle Young The Test Tubes
• SPL105 The Peggy Lee Band
• SPL104 Eyvind Kang, Francois Houle, Dylan van der Schyff Pieces of Time
• SPL103 Henry Kaiser, Paul Plimley (with Danielle DeGruttola) Passwords
• SPL102 Peggy Lee, Dylan van der Schyff These Are Our Shoes
• SPL101 Chris Tarry, Dylan van der Schyff Sponge

Series FIELD

FIELD: noun: a set of elements such that addition and multiplication are commutative and associative and multiplication is distributive over addition and there are two elements 0 and 1

• SPF301 Broken Record Chamber Free Improv For Robots
• SPF302 Francois Houle Au Coeur du Litige
• SPF303 John Butcher, Mike Hansen & Tomasz Krakowiak Equation
• SPF304 Mike Hansen & Tomasz Krakowiak Relay
• SPF305 Smash & Teeny with John Butcher Gathering

Series ARC

ARC: noun: the apparent path described above and below the horizon by a celestial body

• SPA401 The Skronktet West EL
• SPA402 John Shiurba Triplicate
• SPA403 Matthias von Imhof Mental Scars

Series POINT

POINT: noun: a geometric element that has position but no extension

• SPP201 Bradshaw Pack Alogos (with Talking Pictures, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Standing Wave & David Maggs)
• SPP202 Allison Cameron Ornaments
• SPP203 John Korsrud Odd Jobs, Assorted Climaxes (with Hard Rubber Orchestra, Combustion Chamber, Ron Samworth and Joe Keithley)

Further Reading

• Greg Buium, "Box...One...Spool...Eight (And Counting) Spool: Canada's Bright New Record Label," Coda Magazine, Issue 291, May/June 2000.
• David Dacks, "Label Life; Spool," Exclaim Magazine,
• Alexander Varty, "Preaching Improv's Gospel: The minds behind the Spool record label have a missionary zeal," Georgia Straight, February 3-10, 2000.

External links

• Spool site
• Spool a label profile by David Dacks, Exclaim Magazine.