| Vanguard Records | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Parent company | Concord |
| Founded | 1950 (1950) |
| Founder | Maynard Solomon Seymour Solomon |
| Distributor | Virgin Music Label & Artist Services[1] |
| Genre | Classical music,folk,rock,jazz |
| Country of origin | U.S. |
| Official website | concord |
Vanguard Recording Society is an Americanrecord label set up in 1950 by brothersMaynard andSeymour Solomon inNew York City. It was primarily aclassical label during its peak in the 1950s and 1960s,[2] but also has a catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotaljazz,folk, andblues musicians. The Bach Guild was a subsidiary label.
The label was acquired byConcord Bicycle Music in April 2015.[3]
The newly founded venture's first record was of J.S. Bach's 21st cantata,Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21 ("I had much grief"), withJonathan Sternberg conducting the tenorHugues Cuénod and other soloists, chorus and orchestra. "What speaks for the Solomons' steadfastness in their taste and their task", wrote aBillboard journalist in November 1966, "is that this record is still alive in the catalogue (SC-501). As Seymour says, it was a good performance, not easy to top. Of the whole Vanguard/Bach Guild catalogue, numbering about 480 issues, 30 are Bach records..."[4] The label also recorded otherbaroque and earlier works, pieces from theEnglish Madrigal School performed by theDeller Consort, Italian and Frenchmadrigal masterpieces, Elizabethan and Jacobean music, andHenry Purcell.
In 1951, Vanguard's Art DirectorJules Halfant hired Marxist music criticSidney Finkelstein on the staff of the record label,[5] where the latter worked until 1973, mostly writing liner notes on classicalLPs.[6] In the mid-1950s, Vanguard signed blacklisted performersPaul Robeson andthe Weavers. It continued to issue folk music with newly signed artistsJoan Baez,Hedy West,Eric Andersen,the Rooftop Singers,Buffy Sainte-Marie,Ian and Sylvia, andMimi andRichard Fariña. Around this time, the company briefly ran ahi-fi division titled Vanguard Stereolab; the English bandStereolab took their name from it.[7]
In 1953, under the direction ofJohn Hammond, Vanguard began the Jazz Showcase series that concentrated on mainstream jazz, producing about two dozen recordings before it was closed in 1958.[8] Recordings made at theSpirituals to Swing concerts in 1938 and 1939 were released by Vanguard in 1959. The company only intermittently pursued recording jazz after that.
In the summer of 1965,Maynard Solomon hiredSamuel Charters to edit the tapes of the 1964Newport Folk Festival. Following that project, the company sent Charters toChicago to capture the broad range of blues musicians there. Those sessions resulted in the 1966 three-album series titledChicago/The Blues/Today!. The albums includedJunior Wells withBuddy Guy,Otis Rush,Homesick James,Johnny Shines,Big Walter Horton,Charlie Musselwhite andMuddy Waters's bandmatesOtis Spann andJames Cotton.
Vanguard released numerous classical recordings, both domestically produced and imported. Many of the latter came from the United Kingdom'sPye Records label, featuring performances by theHalle Orchestra conducted bySir John Barbirolli. The recordings were so exceptional that many classical radio stations programmed them. Vanguard even released somequadraphonic classical recordings in the early 1970s, including a performance ofTchaikovsky'sFourth Symphony with theAmerican Symphony Orchestra conducted byLeopold Stokowski. The label also released many performances by theUtah Symphony Orchestra conducted byMaurice Abravanel, including one of the first sets of the complete ten symphonies ofGustav Mahler, a complete performance ofThe Nutcracker, as well as the earlierP.D.Q. Bach recordings, from 1965 to 1983. Vanguard was the first American label to release the complete 1944 high fidelity recordings of composerRichard Strauss conducting theVienna Philharmonic Orchestra in most of his tone poems; the recordings were made on theMagnetophon tape recording equipment in theVienna Opera House.
The multiplicity of popular in-houseclassical music series released by the Solomons on Vanguard andBach Guild between 1950 and 1966 included, in addition to 22Bachcantatas, the virtuoso trumpet, virtuoso flute and virtuoso oboe, along with German University Songs withErich Kunz, songs of the Auvergne, Viennese dances withWilli Boskovsky, traditional songs byRoland Hayes,Vivaldi'sFour Seasons and other concertos fromI Solisti di Zagreb, music byRalph Vaughan Williams, numerousHaydn symphonies performed by the Esterhazy Orchestra, a doubleLP ofGluck's operaOrfeo ed Euridice sung in Italian with theVienna State Opera Orchestra led byCharles Mackerras, and an influentialMahler cycle with theUtah Symphony Orchestra conducted byMaurice Abravanel.[9]
After entering therock and roll market by signingCountry Joe and the Fish, Vanguard started a 6500 series for releases by rock acts but had little success. By the early 1970s, with acts such as Joan Baez and Ian & Sylvia leaving for other labels, and disappointing sales for the "Everyman" budget classical series, Vanguard's stature in the music industry was diminished. The label stayed minimally active with specialty releases such as those by Indian classical musician andsarod virtuosoVasant Rai. An unexpected novelty hit on Vanguard, "Shaving Cream" byBenny Bell, led the company to release albums of humorous music inspired byDr. Demento. In the late 1970sTom Paxton issued two albums,New Songs from the Briar-patch andHeroes, on the label. A few disco albums by acts such asPlayers Association, Alphone Mouzon's "Poussez",[10] and Marcus Barone's "The Ring/Savage Lover"[11] were released on Vanguard with both domestic and worldwide chart impact.
After this period of near-dormancy, Vanguard was sold to theWelk Music Group in 1985. The Welk Group sold the classical music catalog back to Seymour Solomon. Welk Music Group revitalized the label, reissuing much of its extensive folk andpopular music back catalogue (a good deal of which had been out of print for several years) on CD, as well as signing a number of new artists (such asMatt Nathanson,Mindy Smith,Greg Laswell, andTrevor Hall), in addition to established musicians such asMerle Haggard,John Fogerty,Chris Isaak,Robert Cray,Shawn Mullins, andLinda Ronstadt. The label also formed marketing partnerships with a number of artist-run label imprints, to includeLevon Helm (Dirt Farmer Music),Indigo Girls (IG Recording), andChely Wright (Painted Red Music), among others. This era for Vanguard also garnered the label three consecutive Grammy Awards for Levon Helm, multiple Grammy Awards for Robert Cray, and anRIAA certified platinum single for Matt Nathanson's "Come on Get Higher." In 2008, Welk Music Group began a distribution deal withEMI to handle its labels, including Vanguard.
After Seymour Solomon's death, Vanguard Classics was sold toArtemis Records, which reactivated the company with new releases byLeon Fleisher and Gil Shaham. When Artemis folded in 2004, the Vanguard Classics catalogue was sold toSheridan Square Entertainment, which is licensing the Vanguard Classics material. Sheridan Square eventually becameIndieBlu, which was acquired byEntertainment One in 2010.[12] Vanguard Music Group was acquired byConcord Bicycle Music in April 2015.,[13] Concord'sCraft Recordings unit manages the Vanguard catalog.[14]
Vanguard used theBrooklyn Masonic Temple in New York City as one of its recording studios for many of its sessions.[15][16]
(Partial list)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
