Label Guide: Contemporary

Two years after establishing his Good Time Jazz label as an outlet for traditional jazz, Lester Koenig founded his modern jazz label Contemporary Records in 1951. The label was based in Los Angeles and - together with Pacific Jazz - became the leading independent jazz label on the West Coast, in the same way that Blue Note and Prestige dominated the East Coast. Contemporary Records quickly set industry standards with its superb audio (Roy DuNann), quiet pressings, striking album graphics, and informative liner notes.

In 1956, it was the first label to record jazz in stereo, using a special imprint and label design, Stereo Records, for their stereo albums, which is basically just the same Contemporary label. Among the most prominent artists on Contemporary were stars of the Southern California jazz scene, including Hampton Hawes, Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, Art Pepper, Andre Previn, and Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars.

By the mid-1960s, the most productive era for Contemporary came to an end and the label's release pipeline slowed down significantly. After Les Koenig's death in 1977, the label was run for seven years by his son, John, who produced albums by Joe Farrell, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Chico Freeman and others. In 1984 Contemporary was purchased by Fantasy Records, who used the label name themselves for a short time and reissued remastered versions of most Contemporary titles through its OJC (Original Jazz Classics) series. The Fantasy catalog, including Contemporary and its associated labels, was then sold to Concord Records in 2004.

Many of the most desirable early Contemporary albums have been reissued multiple times over the decades, and it can be quite difficult to identify original pressings, which are far superior in audio quality to the 1970s and 1980s reprints. LondonJazzCollector wrote an excellent collector's guide to help with this problem.