ESP-Disk is a New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

-based record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

, founded in 1964

1964 in music

-Events:*January 1 – Top of the Pops is broadcast for the first time, on BBC television.*January 3 – Footage of the Beatles performing a concert in Bournemouth, England is shown on The Jack Paar Show....

 by lawyer Bernard Stollman

Bernard Stollman

Bernard Stollman is an American lawyer and the founder of the ESP-Disk record label.He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and grew up in Plattsburgh, upstate New York, where his parents owned a chain of women's wear stores. When he was 16, his family moved to Forest Hills, Queens, and he...

.

From the beginning, the label's goal has been to provide its recording artists with complete artistic freedom, unimpeded by any record company interference or commercial expectations—a philosophy summed-up by the ESP motto, printed on every release: “The artists alone decide what you will hear on their ESP-Disk”.

Though it originally existed to release Esperanto

Esperanto

is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...

-based music

Esperanto music

Esperanto music is music written, recorded, and performed in Esperanto, a constructed language used for international communication.-Classical music:...

, starting with its second release (Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity), ESP became the most important exponent of what is commonly referred to as free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

. ESP also released recordings by uncommercial underground rock acts including the Fugs

The Fugs

The Fugs are a band formed in New York in late 1964 by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. Soon afterward, they were joined by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of the Holy Modal Rounders...

, The Godz and Pearls Before Swine

Pearls Before Swine (band)

Pearls Before Swine was an American psychedelic folk band formed by Tom Rapp in 1965 in Eau Gallie, now part of Melbourne, Florida. They released six albums between 1967 and 1971, before Rapp launched a solo career.-Early years, 1965-68:...

. Though it suspended releasing records in the 70s, several new releases by iconic and cutting edge artists have been released by the label, and it still exists with nearly its entire catalog available.

Other artists who have recorded for this label include Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....

 (the "Town Hall Concert"), Pharaoh Sanders (who made his recording debut on ESP), Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

, Ronnie Boykins

Ronnie Boykins

Ronnie Boykins was a jazz bassist and is best known for his work with pianist/bandleader Sun Ra, although he had played with such disparate musicians as Muddy Waters, Johnny Griffin, and Jimmy Witherspoon prior to joining Sun Ra's Arkestra.-Biography:He joined the Arkestra during the Chicago...

, Marion Brown

Marion Brown

Marion Brown was a jazz alto saxophonist and ethnomusicologist. He is most well known as a member of the 1960s avant-garde jazz scene in New York City, playing alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and John Tchicai...

, Sonny Simmons

Sonny Simmons

Huey "Sonny" Simmons is an American jazz musician.He grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing the english horn. At age 16 he took up the alto saxophone, which became his primary instrument...

, Paul Bley

Paul Bley

Paul Bley, CM is a pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing.-Biography:...

, Ran Blake

Ran Blake

Ran Blake is an American pianist and composer from Springfield, Massachusetts. In a career that spans five decades, Blake has created a unique niche in improvised music as an artist and educator...

, and Perry Robinson

Perry Robinson

Perry Morris Robinson is an American jazz clarinetist and composer. He is the son of the noted composer Earl Robinson. -Biography:...

.

The label's catalog has been licensed frequently over the years, but Stollman has resumed direct responsibility for reissues and for emerging artists.

External links

• Official site
• Official Myspace
• Collectors' discography
• The Old New Thing is Newer Than Ever. Liner notes for an ESP-Disk mash-up
  Mashup (music)
  A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...
  
   by Wu Ming
  Wu Ming
  Wu Ming is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna.In their pre-Wu Ming days, the group wrote the novel Q ....
  
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