purchase [ New Chautauqua ]
The term “record label” has almost become irrelevant.
As we consume more and more of our music in digital format, record labels as
such have become more or less invisible or irrelevant to the consumer. Not so
50 years back. Musicians we both tied to and touted by the labels. If you were
purchasing music in the 60s and 70s, you knew what to expect from a Tamla, an
Atco, a Polydor. You knew what you were likely to get if the label was ECM.
I knew ECM was European, north European. I knew
it was independent. I knew it meant progressive Jazz. I didn’t know it was short
for Edition of Contemporary Music. I knew the label included among its artists Keith
Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, Eberhard Weber, Ralph Towner and John
Abercrombie because I no small part of my LP collection included them. My
collection also included a bit of Pat Metheny.
I tend to skew more toward the guitar than piano
or sax, and a number of the above fit my prefs. Although Metheny started out
solo (supported by some of the ECM crowd), he is mostly associated with the
self-named Pat Metheny Group, which was releasing records up until about 10
years ago. He released an album titles From This Place about a year ago, and
then Road to the Sun a couple of weeks ago (March 2021). And speaking of record
labels, it caught my attention that most recently, his music has been appearing
on the Nonesuch label, which I knew as a kid because a lot of my parents’
classical collection was on that label (a budget classical label in the 60s
that has :developed into a label that records critically acclaimed music from a
wide variety of genres” –Wikipedia)
