Impulse! Records

'''Impulse! Records''' was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City. John Coltrane was Impulse!'s first major signing and thanks to the consistent sales and critical kudos generated by his recordings, the label came to be known in retrospect as "the house that Trane built".

History
Impulse's parent company ABC Paramount Records was established in 1955 as the recording division of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). ABC had benefitted from the government antitrust actions of the 1940s and 1950s, through which several major broadcasters and film studios were forced to divest parts of their companies. In the early 1950s ABC acquired the Blue Network of radio stations from NBC and later merged with the newly independent Paramount Theaters chain, formerly owned by Paramount Pictures.

The new recording division was originally headquartered at 1501 Broadway, above the famous Paramount Theater in Times Square .Under the leadership of former Paramount Pictures executive Leonard Goldenson, ABC-Paramount "sought to establish itself as a cross-media force in television, theatres and sound recordings" (Kahn, p. 16) and enjoyed early success with The Mickey Mouse Club, its landmark joint venture with the Disney corporation.

To market music from the show, ABC-Paramount established the Am-Par Record Corporation and the ABC-Paramount label in early 1955, apppointing former Boston record distributor Sam Clark as label president, assisted by sales manager Larry Newton and A&R director Harry Levine, and the new recording company enjoyed Goldenson's full support. Producer-arranger Sid Feller, the company's first salaried employee, started work on 14 July 1955.

In 1960 Am-Par established a new jazz subsidiary and hired noted producer Creed Taylor as its inaugural house producer and A&R manager. Taylor originally hit on the name "Pulse", but shortly before the label was launched his team discovered that there was already a label with that name, so Taylor cleverly decided to add a prefix, becoming Impulse.

The original Impulse! 12" long-playing (LP) albums are noted for their distinctive style: the label's trademark black, orange and white livery was devised by original art director Fran Attaway (who left shortly before the label was launched); this combination was chosen for its brightness and because no other label used these colours. Following the last-minute change from Pulse to Impulse, the striking new logo (top right) was designed by Attaway's successor Margo Guryan . It featured the label name in white, in a heavy sans serif lower-case font, on a black background, followed by an inverted exclamation mark with orange dot at the end of the name. The exclamation point is mirrored by the lower-case "i" at the beginning, also surmounted by a matching orange dot. Like its older contemporary Blue Note, Impulse! LPs featured stylish front-cover photographs -- many taken by noted photographers such as Roy De Carava and Pete Turner -- which typically 'bled' to the edges of the cover and were printed on glossy laminated stock. The distinctive, sparse B&W back cover design bore the slogan, "The New Wave of Jazz is on IMPULSE!" and many LPs were issued in a gatefold sleeve with photographs and liner notes or an essay and in some cases, lavish multi-page insert booklets.

Impulse's founding house producer / A&R manager Creed Taylor had previously worked with the New York-based Bethlehem Records label, moving to ABC-Paramount to establish Impulse! in 1960. Taylor scored early success by signing Ray Charles, who had just ended his contract with Atlantic Records, and his debut for the label, Genius + Soul = Jazz provided Impulse with its first hit, becoming the fourth-highest charting album of Chrles' career. Other early successes for impulse included the album Out of the Cool by composer-arranger Gil Evans, who had risen to prominence through his work with Miles Davis. Taylor also set the scene for Impulse's most successful period with his far-sighted signing of another leading Atlantic artist, saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, who had also risen to fame during his stint with Miles Davis in the 1950s. Another significant early Impulse release was The Blues and the Abstract Truth by composer-arranger Oliver Nelson, who played an important part in the label's early years before relocating to Los Angeles, where he was noted for his film and television work. Creed Taylor left Impulse in the summer of 1961 after being approached by MGM to take over the running of Verve Records.

Most of the albums released during the 'classic' period of Impulse jazz were produced by Taylor's successor, Bob Thiele, who had previously worked for the Decca Records and its subsidiary Coral. Thiele's Decca credits included Alan Dale, The Macguire Sisters, Pearl Bailey] and many hits for Theresa Brewer, whom he subsequntly married. In 1957, against company resistance, Thiele scored a coup by signing rising rock'n'roll singer-songwriter Buddy Holly to Decca's Brunswick label.

Thiele's first Impulse! production was Live! at the Village Vanguard (Mar. 1962). In terms of its catalogue, Impulse! during the Thiele years is recognised as a key outlet for free jazz and the broad musical movement (sometimes referred to as "The New Thing") that was spearheaded by artists such as Albert Ayler, John Coltrane and his wife Alice, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, McCoy Tyner and Sun Ra. Alongside Impulse's groundbreaking avant-garde releases, Thiele also facilitated and produced the recording of two classic collaborations between Coltrane and two of their mutual heroes, Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins.

Aided by good promotion and ABC's solid distribution chain, Coltrane enjoyed the highest profile and the strongest and most consistent sales of any Impulse! artist -- A Love Supreme sold more than 100,000 copies. The music he recorded between 1961 and 1967 exerted an enormous effect on both jazz and popular music. Even mainstream pop acts like The Byrds acknowledged his influence, with founding member Roger McGuinn repeatedly stating that he listened to Coltrane extensively in this period, and that Coltrane's saxophone playing was a direct influence on his own 12-string guitar playing on The Byrds' landmark 1965 hit "Eight Miles High".

Coltrane's premature death from liver cancer in 1967 robbed Impulse! of its most important, best-selling and productive artist, but fortunately for the company, Coltrane left a considerable legacy of material and subsequent anthology collections were interspersed with 'new' albums featuring previously unreleased recordings or alternate versions of previously issued tracks. Many of these recordings were co-produced by his widow Alice and issued through a distribution deal facilitated by Thiele.

Bob Thiele gradually severed his ties with Impulse! during 1969, setting up a shortlived deal to provide independently-produced recordings, before leaving the label entirely to establish his own imprint, Flying Dutchman. Thiele's departure was in part precipitated by the deterioration of his relationship with ABC sales manager Larry Newton. One of Thiele's last major assignments was the classic Louis Armstrong song "What A Wonderful World", which Thiele co-wrote and produced for ABC's pop division shortly before Armstrong's death.

Although the musicians were apparently unaware of the drama, this recording session is reported to have been the scene of a major clash between the two men. Newton arrived at the session and became upset when he discovered that Armstrong was recording a ballad rather than a 'Dixieland'-style number, like his earlier hit "Hello Dolly". According to Thiele's own account, this led to a screaming match; Newton then had to be locked out of the studio and he stood outside throughout the session, banging on the door and yelling to be let in. Possibly because of this clash, the single was released with little promotion from ABC and it sold relatively poorly in the USA, although it fared extremely well in Europe, where it sold more than 1.5 million copies and became #1 in the United Kingdom. Ironically, twenty years later, it became the most successful recording of both Armstrong and Thiele's careers, thanks to its inclusion on the hit soundtrack to the Robin Williams film Good Morning Vietnam.

By the early 1970s ABC's pop subsidiary Dunhill Records -- which included The Mamas & The Papas, Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night and Steely Dan -- had greatly outstripped the revenue generated by Impulse! and ABC restructured its recording division, moving Impulse! to share headquarters with Dunhill in Los Angeles. Under the guidance of Thiele's successor Ed Michael, Impulse! issued some notable recoordings, including the debut album by the Liberation Music Orchestra, the first of four acclaimed collaborations between bassist Charlie Haden and composer-arranger Carla Bley.

New recordings from the label ceased in the late 1970s, but ABC-Paramount Records kept reissuing classic titles until the company was sold to MCA Records in 1979.The label name has since been revived for new recordings only for short periods. Impulse! has released new recordings from those who had historic ties to the label, such as (McCoy Tyner and [[Alice Coltrane), but also more mainstream and commercial artists like Diana Krall. Impulse! is now part of Universal Music Group's jazz holdings, The Verve Music Group and has been relegated to a reissue-only label.