Celebrating ESP-DISK’ :
50 Years of Unimaginable Sounds – Imagined
This piece was originally published August 26th, 2013.

Bernard Stollman, a 34 year old jazz fan with a law background, had been working with some rhythm and blues and jazz musicians, helping them with copyright and contract issues.
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Bernard Stollman and one of his early ESP logos. |
Titled, Ni Kantu en Esperanto, Stollman decided to self-release his album on a record label that was named after the language itself, ESP-DISK'.
Later in the year he ventured to Harlem and approached Albert Ayler, one of the earliest, most aggressive and primal, free jazz saxophone players of the early 60's about his wish to record him.
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Albert Ayler |
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Albert Ayler's first masterpiece Spiritual Unity, shown here in its original rare black artwork version. |
Albert Ayler's LP Spiritual Unity, would become the 2nd release on ESP-DISK' as well as one of Ayler's most acclaimed albums. The record would garner attention around the improvisational free jazz world from the likes of Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane and give credibility to Stollman's new record label.
The flood gates would soon burst open as ESP-DISK' would record and release an astonishing 45 (!!) albums over the next 18 months.
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Paul Bley |
ESP-Disk' would not only embrace their beloved improvisational free jazz, but also release records by a few highly original, underground, experimental rock groups. appearing on the label were The Fugs, Pearls Before Swine, the Holy Model Rounders and The Godz.
During the mid-Sixties, New York City Pop artist Andy Warhol and his Factory studio denizens, especially as showcased by the now revered band Warhol touted, The Velvet Underground, would embrace and promote a polar opposite look, attitude and sound then what was quickly becoming the mainstream—that of the Flower Power hippy children.
The Warhol/Velvets' scene, which embraced black attire and shades, dark lyrical themes and more of a speed based drug culture rather than an LSD one, found with the ESP-Disk' aesthetic, a kindred spirit.
With their tag line "You never heard such sounds in your life." and a motto that was printed on every LP sleeve, "The artists alone decide what you will hear on their ESP-Disk.", here was a record label that not only released subversive, highly original experimental music, it was also a label that was using business practices that were very different from those of other labels.
So at a rapid pace, ESP-Disk' was looking like a record label that could become famous and successful.
Little did I know as a young teenager how much ESP-Disk' would impact my listening tastes later on.
I first stumbled upon one of their LPs in a used record store. I know nothing of the label, or to be honest the majority of the artists on what was simply entitled ESP-Disk' Sampler: Various Artists (Catalog # ESP 1051).
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The original rare black and white ESP Sampler. Catalog #1051. I never heard such sounds in my life! |
Included as well was a catalog for the label.
I was already a huge fan and child of the Lenny Kaye compiled original Nuggets LP, I was a huge fan of the multitude of psychedelic bands, and was well-versed in most of you great 60's and 70's rock bands. Here though, was something that went much deeper, wilder and was far more underground than what I had already heard before. Like experiencing some truer psychedelic inner sanctum.
A few band names like The Fugs seemed familiar, doubtlessly due to my being a Frank Zappa fan who may have name dropped them once or twice, plus, there were also a couple of familiar author/poet types I had heard of such as William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg lurking on the record.
Yes indeed, I was exposed, and mightily so, to the ESP-Disk' motto, "You never heard such sounds in your life."
I was also impacted by those wonderful ESP-Disk' good vibes years later when I was slated to perform at a music festival in San Francisco, but found out my '63 Fender Jazzmaster had a switch damaged on the flight over. Thankfully I was able to borrow the guitar of none other than Tom Rapp, who had headed Pearls Before Swine on all of their incredible ESP-Disk' LP's.
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The wonderful Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine. |
Sadly, after ESP-Disk' had such a promising start, by 1968 the label closed shop due to the rise of LP bootlegging of much of their catalog. Sales were impacted greatly, his distributors were purchasing bootlegs to sell, thereby cutting out the original label, and while Bernard Stollman would continue to soldier on by licensing his catalog to overseas record labels, where many of his artists had found larger fanbases, by 1975 things were over for ESP-Disk'.
Cry not for The Godz however, as the ESP-Disk' story has a happy continuation these days.
Anti-bootlegging laws, stronger licensing and distribution deals and the resurgences of interest by younger music fans in both vinyl and the artists on the ESP-Disk' catalog have given a new life to the label.
Bernard Stollman continues to oversee the catalog, and there have been many releases of newer musical artists that work well within the ESP-Disk' aesthetic.
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This newer release from ESP-Disk (4000 Series) features 4 cds worth of Pharoah Sanders' earliest recordings |
2013 marks an amazing 50th anniversary reissue campaign that will be ongoing and making available so many of their legendary, long out of print or never released on CD in the US, musical jewels.
Jerry Moore's Life Is A Constant Journey Home, The Byron Allen Trio, The Burton Greene Trio On Tour, Paul Bley's Closer and Patty Waters College Tour are just several of the reissues that are essential listening.
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Patty Waters College Tour LP |
Please give ESP-Disk' your support and tell them Robert Jaz and The Mystery Box sends his improvisational love...
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