Novus Records

Novus Records
Parent companyArista Records
Founded1978 (1978)
FounderClive Davis
StatusDefunct
GenreJazz
Country of originU.S.

Novus Records (later Arista Novus and RCA Novus) was an American jazz record label run by Steve Backer. Backer worked at Impulse! Records until 1974, when Clive Davis, founder of Arista Records, asked him to oversee the jazz division at Arista.[1]

Backer left Arista in the early 1980s, worked for Windham Hill Records, and then went to RCA to run Novus.[1] Novus's roster included Muhal Richard Abrams, Warren Bernhardt, Steve Coleman, Larry Coryell, Oliver Lake, Steve Lacy, James Moody, Hilton Ruiz, and Henry Threadgill. Beginning in 1989, Backer signed Marcus Roberts, Roy Hargrove, Danilo Pérez, Antonio Hart, and Christopher Hollyday. The label closed in the mid-1990s.[2][3] The catalogue is now managed by Sony Masterworks through its Masterworks Jazz imprint.

  1. ^ a b Chinen, Nate (23 April 2014). "Steve Backer, a Force for Jazz at Major Labels, Dies at 76". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
  2. ^ Kennedy, Gary W. (2001). "Novus". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.‎
  3. ^ Kennedy, Gary (2002). Kernfeld, Barry (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Vol. 3 (2nd ed.). New York: Grove's Dictionaries Inc. p. 177. ISBN 1-56159-284-6.