Great Record Labels: Numero Group

[Ojai Sam]

Numero Group

The Numero Group's Official Website. Your home to the best music you haven't heard yet.

numerogroup.com

Licensing has always been the bane of anyone trying to reissue vintage music. Before the digital era, the major labels were loath to allow their material to be presented by anyone else, indie or major. This problem was exacerbated when the arrival of the compact disc sparked a sudden interest in old songs. In many cases, big hits were rerecorded for CD because the owners of the original masters either couldn't be found or wouldn't cooperate. The successful reissue labels were the ones who were able to negotiate licensing arrangements with the big companies. Rhino, Bear Family, Time-Life, Mosaic and Collectables were among the best at developing a business model based on monetizing the darker corners of the vaults that were too small to interest the huge media conglomerates.

Numero Group took a completely different tack. Founded in 2003 by Rob Sevier, Ken Shipley (former A&R for the similarly eclectic Rykodisc label) and Tom Lunt, from the outset their focus was on preserving rare and obscure music from small labels. Their first success came from the long-running Eccentric Soul series anthologizing hopelessly rare singles from the 60's through the 80's. As time passed they cast their net ever wider to encompass many genres, even adding new material from contemporary artists to the mix.

I'll be back later today with one of their most obscure (re)discoveries that disproves this old ad campaign:

 

[Ojai Sam]

Spirit Free - Spirit Free Plays Starship (1971, * reissue 2011)



I can never resist a mystery bundle from a good label, so I recently gambled $100 on 20 CD's from Numero Group. Since they are responsible for the Eccentric Soul and Cult Cargo series, I figured I couldn't go too far wrong. It proved to be a very wise investment.

This album appeared on the * (pronounced "asterisk") imprint, which Numero explains "was formed to showcase LP and CD reissues by, as one guru put it, 'high-quality acts so obscure that only friends and families remember them.' Apparently, we talked to different friends and family. And if our Asterisk project failed to move the needle on the unfortunate truth above, chalk it up to us housing nine albums in a typographer’s mark exurb, confusing the marketplace with LP-shaped CD sleeves, going full blasé re: formats, and rambling into out-and-out genre disarray. Confession time: We love every single thing on Asterisk."

This album, the 8th * release, showcases the work of Spirit Free, the first modern jazz trio in Las Vegas to go electric. Rick Davis on tenor sax, Ron Feuer (Paul Anka's pianist), Santo Savino (drums) and Orlando Hernandez (bass) gigged relentlessly all over Vegas, developing a tight, pulsing but melodic sound that leaned into the new style without surrendering to its excesses. The original LP on Vega Sound Records goes for hundreds of dollars if you can find it at all. The first side was recorded live at the 1971 UNLV Jazz Festival and the second in the studio. The * reissue adds three more studio tracks, including an 18 minute alternate take of "Starship" that achieves escape velocity at liftoff and never stops soaring until touchdown.

After this record, Feuer wanted to expand Spirit Free to incorporate the advanced sounds of Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. But the other members drifted off to less exciting but better paying work. By the early '80's the band was gone.

on the Sam-O-Meter.