Enja Records Matthias Winckelmann GmbH

Enja Records Matthias Winckelmann GmbH
Frundsbergstr. 36
80634 München

Kontakt:
Jürgen Enninger
Fon: 089-18 00 63–21
Fax: 089-18006328
enninger@enjamusic.com
enjamusic.com

ENJA RECORDS, München

The first artist who recorded for ENJA was U.S. ex-patriate Mal Waldron at Munich jazz club DOMICILE in 1971; the following year ENJA RE-CORDS was officially established.

The DOMICILE then offered many opportunities to record visiting U.S. art-ists, and so did European festivals where ENJA recorded Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp and others. Some tapes were acquired and added a historical dimension to the catalogue (Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Ben Webster, Hampton Hawes). An important event for the label was the release of leg-endary trumpeter Chet Baker’s last concert in 1988.

During frequent working visits to New York, Matthias Winckelmann soon also produced American musicians in the jazz capital (Tommy Flanagan, Freddie Hubbard, Abbey Lincoln, Kenny Barron and more).
After splitting up with his partner Horst Weber in 1986, Winckelmann got even more involved into New York’s jazz scene and started to produce such as Kenny Barron, Elvin Jones, Bobby Previte, Abraham Burton, Ray Ander-son, Abdullah Ibrahim, Maria Schneider, Kevin Mahogany, Marty Ehrlich, Melissa Walker.

In recent years, Winckelmann opened ENJA RECORDS to multi-cultural cross-over territories far beyond mainstream jazz. In that area beyond, the label’s most important artist is Lebanese oud player and composer Rabih Abou-Khalil whose work combines classical Arabic techniques, European compositional approach and jazz-influenced improvisation.

Other important names in this field are French-Spanish bass player Renaud Garcia-Fons, Tunesian singer Dhafer Youssef, Lebanese guitarist Mah-moud Turkmani and exile-Israeli Gilad Atzmon. Focussing on the Mediter-ranean cultural area, the label has recently also featured many Italian pro-jects by such as Gianluigi Trovesi, Gabriele Mirabassi, Antonio Faraò and Italian Instabile Orchestra as well as Michel Godard’s “Castel Del Monte” recordings.

Today ENJA RECORDS is among the leading independent labels and pub-lishers worldwide and globally distributed.

In 1996 M.W. was awarded the Honorary Prize of the German Phono-graphic Critics. To quote the jury: “Again and again Matthias Winckelmann sets the standard for quality with its productions. He succeeds in exacting projects in a market swamped by mediocrity. Thanks to his feeling for talent, his understanding of the artist’s personality and his integrity as a producer, young musicians as well as established talent and sometimes nearly forgotten masterpieces have been docu-mented.”

enja music publishing administers more than 10,000 compositions and actively promotes them for licens-ing in TV-, Radio- and movie productions. Moreover the production and distribution of printed score music and the distribution of rental material became genuine part of enja’s publishing activities. For the composers who coop-erate with the label, enja publishing became an important partner for gain-ing additional perspective to their compositions and taking care of their creative work. Furthermore other record labels rely on the publishing expertise of enja music publishing.