Antwort auf: Jazz-Glossen

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gypsy-tail-wind
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Ein Nachruf auf Bob Koester:

Still in college, Koester joined a local jazz club and made friends and contacts around St. Louis’ music scene. He and another jazz club member, Ron Fister, opened a small record shop called K&F Sales in 1952. It was so successful Koester dropped out of college to focus on the business full-time. The store soon moved into a larger space, where it was renamed the Blue Note Record Shop.

But Koester and Fister’s differing tastes in music ended their partnership by the following year. Striking out solo, he opened a store on the corner of Delmar and Olive streets in St. Louis. He branched out into recording jazz bands, such as the Windy City Six and blues performers including Speckled Red, Big Joe Williams and J.D. Short, for his then-new label Delmar Records.

Just 21 when he started his company, Koester later renamed the label Delmark Records.

Delmark Records was subsidized by the store’s sales, which allowed Koester more freedom in curating a mix of popular jazz and blues musicians alongside more avant-garde, experimental artists and Black classical musicians.

But Koester wasn’t just interested in recording new music that caught his ear. He sought to acquire the rights to vintage music from other labels like United, Apollo and Regal. A trip to Chicago in 1958 to acquire the rights to Paramount label’s holdings led to him moving here permanently.

“He was on the leading edge and one of the first to document music from the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians,” Gaertner said. “When he heard this music in Chicago, he knew that it was important, that it was significant and he was one of the people at the forefront of recording it.”

Koester relocated his shop to Chicago when he was 29 and ended up taking over a shop called Seymour’s Jazz Mart at 439 S. Wabash Ave. from songwriter Seymour Schwartz in 1959.

Koester renamed it Jazz Record Mart and would move around Chicago a few times before arriving at its final address, 27 E. Illinois St. The store closed in 2016 due to the rising rent, Koester said at the time. He opened Bob’s Blues & Jazz Mart at 3419 W. Irving Park Road the same year.

Dass sein Weg ihn eigentlich zum Film hätte führen sollen, war mir noch nicht bekannt gewesen… den ganzen Text inkl. den Abschnitten zu seiner Film- und überhaupt Sammel-Leidenschaft gibt es hier:
https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/05/14/founder-of-delmark-records-owner-of-bobs-blues-jazz-mart-in-irving-park-dies/

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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #150: Neuheiten 2023/24 – 12.3., 22:00; #151: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv – 09.04., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba