Was Bill Perkins Supposed To Record For impulse!?

[JSngry]

Sure looks like it?

Memo to Ed Michel Impulse Records

But instead shuffled off to ABC Riverside?

And then later it became a Limited Edition OJC.

What's the story here?

 

[mjzee]

I have no information, just guesses.  Riverside died in 1964.  This set was recorded in 1966, but not released until 1970.  It was on "Riverside, distributed by ABC Records."  Perhaps Riverside somehow attained ownership of this date in 1966.  Really, the person to ask would be Ed Michel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-michel-47998069

[JSngry]

The liner note writer uses a note to Ed Michel, Impulse records and they are written in the present tense, late 1966/early 1967. Surely that should have been corrected?

Michel was on or about ABC in 1966, so "Riverside" seems an arbitrary choice of label. So does impulse! For that matter! 

I have several ABC/Riverside records, but they're all reissues. This one is definitely an anomaly.

Ok, his LinkedIn profile has this on his resume:

Staff Producer, Director of International Operations

Riverside Records

1961 - 1964 3 years

But that gig ended in 1964....

 

[felser]

Some pieces - Riverside filed for bankruptcy in 1964 following label co-founder Bill Grauer's death (and accusations of cooked books), and ABC (who already had Impulse) acquired their catalogue (except for those Cannonball masters he took to Capitol - a whole other story).  ABC reissued some Riverside titles but I'm not aware of them recording new music. Orrin Keepnews, the other co-founder, had started Milestone by 1966.  By 1970, Bob Thiele had moved to Flying Dutchman and Impulse was concentrating on releasing albums by people like Pharoah Sanders, the Coltrane's (lots of posthumous releases + the Alice albums), and Archie Shepp, not Bill Perkins.  At that point, Michel seems to have been running Impulse, but putting out a Perkins album would have seemed out of synch in a way it would not have in 1966 (when Impulse was still releasing albums by older musicians such as Ellington and his sidemen, Milt Jackson, etc.).  The Perkins album may have been recorded for Impulse, shelved for whatever reason under Thiele, then when Michel took over, he wanted it released, but Impulse was not the right label for it, and it got shuttled off to the other ABC Jazz label, the barely breathing ABC/Riverside.  In 1972, Fantasy bought the Riverside/Jazzland catalog, and did good work with it for years before Concord bought the catalog and desecrated it.  Just speculation on the path of the Perkins album, but it seems to make sense.  BTW, I've never heard the album.  It looks good, is it?

[JSngry]

I just got it. But I expect it to be, yeah. I found out about it while looking for antecedents for two Mandel pieces that Stan Getz later(?) recorded. Was not expecting to find this...curiosity!

1967 would have been the logical year of release. 

Did Michel produce so LA " weird" stuff for impulse? Howard Roberts in particular...

I wonder if Michel did this thing on spec? Note that Perkins is credited with some remix/ mastering as well as performance. And who/what is "Raya Productions"?

 Tunes are short, airplay friendly(?).

[mjzee]

ABC owned all Impulse titles - that's why they're now owned by Universal.  If ABC at any point owned this Perkins title, it would not have gone with the other Riverside titles to Fantasy (and now to Concord).  That's why the wording "Riverside, distributed by ABC Records" is so important; it doesn't say "Riverside, a division of ABC Records."

The liner notes are on archive.org: https://ia803402.us.archive.org/12/items/lp_quietly-there_bill-perkins-quintet-victor-feldman/lp_quietly-there_bill-perkins-quintet-victor-feldman.pdf

From Jazz Profiles (https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2021/07/quietly-there-bill-perkins-quintet.html😞

I'm not sure what the exact connection was between this recording, which was made in 1966 for Riverside Records [and which I thought went out of business in 1963], Impulse Records, and Ed Michel, but perhaps some relatedness can be derived from the following paragraph from Ashley Kahn, The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records [2006]:

“ENTER MICHEL

Ed Michel came to ABC in the late spring of '69 after years of both playing and recording music in the Los Angeles area. He had been bassist in the house band at the Ash Grove folk club, then was recruited by the Pacific Jazz label, where he learned all aspects of record production. Moving to New York City, he furthered his jazz studio experience as a production assistant for Orrin Keepnews at Riverside Records.”
 

[JSngry]

Ok, ABC leased the Riverside catalog from O. Keepnews. But it seems weird/unlikely that this album was originally recorded for the otherwise inactive Riverside.

felser's scenario seems plausible enough, and I'll stick on the whole session having been done on spec by somebody, "Raya Productions", with Michel finding them a home, no matter how sideways unlikely a home it was.

What's funny is that this OJC has zero previous issue info. None. Neither inside or out.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I've had this CD for years and always enjoyed it. I think I bought it because it said that Perkins played baritone on it and I almost always buy something with a bari on it. Turns out that he only plays the bari on two tunes, and one, 'Groover Wailin'', is one of the songs where Feldman plays some sort of organ that sounds weird to me. I'm not keen on it. 

 

[JSngry]

Does anybody have a contact for Ed Michel that doesn't involve any type of social media?

[clifford_thornton]

On 9/30/2024 at 11:53 PM, JSngry said:

Ok, ABC leased the Riverside catalog from O. Keepnews. But it seems weird/unlikely that this album was originally recorded for the otherwise inactive Riverside.

felser's scenario seems plausible enough, and I'll stick on the whole session having been done on spec by somebody, "Raya Productions", with Michel finding them a home, no matter how sideways unlikely a home it was.

What's funny is that this OJC has zero previous issue info. None. Neither inside or out.

yeah, always thought that Perkins LP on Riverside/ABC was a weird one, existence-wise. Nice album though!

[mikeweil]

4 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

yeah, always thought that Perkins LP on Riverside/ABC was a weird one, existence-wise. Nice album though!

... and the release number - RS-3052 - does not fit into any other Riverside release sequence, no matter who owned the label.

Edited October 15 by mikeweil

[felser]

On 10/15/2024 at 5:38 PM, mikeweil said:

... and the release number - RS-3052 - does not fit into any other Riverside release sequence, no matter who owned the label.

Edit:  L

The 1969 Release of Monk's Two Hours With Thelonious  is RS-3020, so I guess ABC used the 3000 series for awhile.

Edit:  Looks like ABC/Riverside had a 3000 series they issued between 1967-1970, all reissues except the Perkins.

Edited October 18 by felser