Impulse! Records

'''Impulse! Records''' is an American based jazz record label, originally launched in 1960 by Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records in New York City. Most Impulse! albums were produced by Bob Thiele who joined the company after Taylor left to head Verve Records, assisted by the sound engineer, Rudy Van Gelder.

Impulse! releases are known for their distictive design, dominated by black and orange on the sleeve spine and record label. The company is perhaps best known as a free jazz label, releasing works by Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown and others but has also recorded more mainstream musicians (Freda Payne...). At one time or another during the sixties Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Milt Jackson, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Stitt, Yusef Lateef, Chico Hamilton, Clark Terry, J.J. Johnson, Oliver Nelson, Lionel Hampton, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, Gabor Szabo, Ray Charles, and Shirley Scott all recorded for the label. Keith Jarrett's American Quartet, with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden Paul Motian & Gato Barbieri recorded a sequence of albums for the label in the mid 1970s. New recordings from the label ceased in the late 1970s.

The label name has since been revived for new recordings only for short periods. Impulse! is now part of Universal Music Group's jazz holdings, The Verve Music Group and has been regulated to a reissue-only label. Recently howevever, Impulse! has release new recordings from those who had historic ties to the label. (esp. from McCoy Tyner & John Coltrane's widow Alice Coltrane).