CTI Records

History

Don Sebesky initially created many of the arrangements for CTI and its various sister and subsidiary labels. He was later joined by Bob James, and then by David Matthews in the mid 1970s. Sessions featured some of jazz's finest musicians including bassist Ron Carter, guitarist Eric Gale, keyboardist Herbie Hancock, pianist Bob James, organist Richard Tee, and drummers Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Gadd, Idris Muhammad and Harvey Mason. Taylor mostly used Van Gelder Studios located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with Rudy Van Gelder engineering nearly all sessions until the later years of the label.

CTI's output was generally both commercially and artistically successful with the label becoming a leading force in jazz during its existence. CTI's best-selling release was Deodato's album, Prelude, which reached #3 on the US Billboard Top 40 albums chart in 1973, an unusual achievement for a record on a jazz-based label. A single from the album, "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)", peaked at #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and #7 in the United Kingdom.

Other successful album releases included Grover Washington, Jr.'s Mister Magic and Feels So Good (both reaching #10 in 1975), Esther Phillips' What A Diff'rence A Day Makes (reaching #32 in 1975), and Bob James' BJ4 (reaching #38 in 1977).

Taylor had previously founded Impulse Records and worked for Verve Records where he earned the reputation as an industry-respected producer of jazz albums. His productions for CTI shared a characteristically warm ambiance and helped to establish smooth jazz as a commercially viable musical genre. CTI also became well known for its striking album sleeve designs, most of them featuring vivid photographic images by artist, Pete Turner.

In 1978, CTI Records filed for Chapter XI; however, much of its catalog has remained in print (Creed Taylor launched the 8000 reissue series in 1979), and the label continued active until 1984, releasing new studio albums by such artists as Jim Hall, Urszula Dudziak, Roland Hanna and the all-star studio band Fuse One, all taped at Van Gelder's Studio in Englewood Cliffs.

Creed Taylor restructured CTI in 1989, resuming his partnership with engineer Rudy Van Gelder and photographer Pete Turner when recording the all-star session "Rhythmstick" in June 1989 (an ambitious project released on vinyl, CD, VHS and LaserDisc in 1990). Many young artists were signed to the label, such as Charles Fambrough, Jim Beard, Ted Rosenthal, Bill O'Connell, Donald Harrison, Steve Laury and Jurgen Friedrich, as well as veteran guitarist Larry Coryell who teamed with arranger Don Sebesky on the best-selling Fallen Angel album, which reached #18 in the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums Charts in 1993.

CTI's post-A&M Records output (the titles released between 1970 and 1979) is now owned by Sony Music Entertainment and distributed by Masterworks Jazz in the U.S., while King Records handles the rights for exclusive distribution in Japan. Grover Washington, Jr.'s Kudu albums have been re-issued on Motown and its MoJazz imprint, but now are part of Universal Classics & Jazz. In addition, Bob James' four CTI albums are now controlled by James himself, while Seawind also own their back catalog of CTI releases.

CTI's early A&M-subsidiary releases are now distributed by Verve Records, a division of Universal Music Group where Creed Taylor ironically helped to make his name.

In 2009, Creed Taylor himself produced a reissue series of twenty CTI titles remastered by Rudy Van Gelder for release on SHM-CD format in Japan. New liner notes were provided by jazz writers Ira Gitler, Arnaldo DeSouteiro and Doug Payne. Another reissue series came out, also distributed in Japan by King Records, in December 2013, including forty titles released on Blu-Spec CD format.

3000 Series

The albums comprising the CTI 3000 Series were produced by Creed Taylor between 1967 and 1970 and issued under the A&M label, with a small "CTI" logo on the front cover. These albums were issued with the regular A&M record label with the addition of the "CTI" logo and "produced by Creed Taylor"

1000 Series

In 1970 Creed Taylor established the CTI label independently of A&M and issued the first five releases as the 1000 Series which had a green record label. The 1000 Series featured artists working outside of the jazz genre.

6000 series

The albums in the CTI 6000 series were released between 1970 and 1976 and featured an orange CTI label with black print, but Quadraphonic issues featured a red label variant. Later albums in the 6000 series were distributed by Motown and are designated by the addition of an S1 to the catalog number.

5000 Series

The 5000 Series was introduced in 1975 as a series of popular music recordings and consist of eight issued albums. Only a handful in this series were produced by Creed Taylor; outside producers handled the rest, like Harvey Mason producing Seawind's albums and David Grusin and Larry Rosen producing Patti Austin's second album. The first releases features a "P.S." (which stood for "Pop Series") inside the familiar CTI logo.

7000 Series

The 7000 Series continued the numbering sequence from the 6000 Series after it ended its distribution deal with Motown.

8000 Series

The 8000 series was launched in the late-1970s. Its purpose was to reissue previous CTI and Kudu albums. Some albums had their names changed from their originals. Even artwork on most were changed as well. Also, unlike their original releases which were gatefold album covers, the reissues were only single-sleeved album covers.

9000 Series

The 9000 Series was launched in 1980 and was distributed by CBS Records but maintain its independence (save for Patti Austin's Body Language album which carried a CBS-style look and catalog number) The series started with the classic orange label (used since the 6000 Series) but by 1981 switched to a white label with a new logo design, though in 1983, for George Benson's archive release Pacific Fire, it had a silver label.

Kudu label

The Kudu label was launched by Creed Taylor in July 1971 and specialized in soul jazz artists releasing 39 albums from 1971 to 1979. Kudu is considered CTI's sister label.

Salvation label

Salvation Records was a CTI subsidiary originally intended for gospel albums but after releasing one album by the B. C. & M. Choir and laying fallow for two years the label was revived for a handful of jazz and R&B releases. While Creed Taylor did produce the B. C. & M. Choir album, outside producers would handle the other releases.

Three Brothers label

Three Brothers Records was a short-lived subsidiary of CTI named after Creed Taylor's sons (Creed, Jr., John, and Blake). While it had a few single releases, it only issued one album by Lou Christie.