Riverside Record company and label

The company was established in New York in 1953 by Bill Grauer(, Jr.) and Orrin Keepnews. Initially it issued famous early jazz recordings drawn principally from the catalogues of Paramount, but also derived material from Champion, the American label Circle, Gennett, Hot Record Society, QRS, and others. In 1954, beginning with two 10-inch albums by Randy Weston, the company started recording modern jazz; it soon became, after Blue Note and Prestige, the most important organization of its era. Most of the new sessions were produced by Keepnews; among the musicians best represented were Thelonious Monk (1955-61), Bill Evans (1956-62), Cannonball Adderley, Johnny Griffin (both 1958-63), Wes Montgomery (1959-63), and Barry Harris (1960-62). The items by Monk rival his earlier material for Blue Note and later work for Columbia, while the sessions by Evans, Adderley, and Montgomery produced each musician's finest recordings. Riverside established the subsidiary labels Judson (late 1950s) and Jazzland (1960). The company also undertook new recordings of older styles of jazz. Many of these were issued in the series Living Legends, which was recorded in New Orleans and Chicago in the early 1960s and included the work of Earl Hines, Al Wynn, Peter Bocage, and Kid Thomas. Grauer died in December 1963, and the company went bankrupt the following year. From the mid-1970s, however, Riverside's catalogue has figured prominently in reissues on Fantasy's labels Milestone and Original Jazz Classics.