Bernard Stollman’s ESP disks: Medici of ’60s beyond jazz

April 23, 2015 by Howard Mandel

Bernard Stollman – JazzTimes

Bernard Stollman, record producer of Albert Ayler, Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman, the Fugs, Sun Ra and many other iconoclastic musicians of the 1960s up to now on his ESP Disk ur-indie record label, died April 19 at age 85.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Stollman — as well as Marzette Watts, Milford Graves and Frank Lowe — about ESP for The Wire in 1997, and have posted the resulting article in my sidebar “Interviews.”

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I'm a Chicago-born (and after 32 years in NYC, recently repatriated) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, consultant and nascent videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, consulting on media, publishing and jazz-related issues. I'm president of the Jazz Journalists Association, a non-profit membership organization devoted to using all media to disseminate news and views about all kinds of jazz.
My books are Future Jazz (Oxford U Press, 1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (Routledge, 2008). I was general editor of the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues (Flame Tree 2005/Billboard Books 2006). Of course I'm working on something new. . . Read More…

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