Results tagged “espdisc”

In part one of Austinist's coverage of ESP-Disk, we discussed the label's jazz and free-jazz reissues, as these are in many ways the bread and butter of its history. In this installment, we'll hit upon a few other areas of note - psychedelic folk, a one-off Afro-Latin release, and earth-scorching vocals courtesy of Patty Waters, whose work could fall under jazz though her influence has catapulted her far beyond category.

Few record labels signify the American counterculture movement of the 1960s as much as ESP-Disk, founded by New York lawyer Bernard Stollman in 1964. Over the course of about 120 albums and nearly a decade, the ESP catalog covered a wide range of music, from free jazz and experimental, unclassifiable sounds to protest folk, psychedelic rock and proto-punk. In this case, "ESP" is shorthand for Esperanto, and most titles had their address and ordering information printed in the universal language. The label's first release, little-known except to collectors, was an album of sing-along folk music in Esperanto, entitled Ni Kantu en Esperanto (Let's Sing in Esperanto). ESP-Disk shut down in 1975 after several years of financial troubles.