In 1964, Bernard Stollman launched the independent record label ESP-Disk' in New York City to document the free jazz movement there. A bare-bones enterprise, ESP was in the right place at the right time, producing albums by artists like Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and Sun Ra, as well as folk-rock bands like the Fugs and Pearls Before Swine. But the label quickly ran into difficulties and, due to the politically subversive nature of some productions and sloppy business practices, it folded in 1974. Always in Trouble tells the story of ESP-Disk' through a multitude of voices-first Stollman's, as he recounts the improbable life of the label, and then the voices of many of the artists involved.
""'I didn't want ESP to be a niche label,' Mr. Stollman explained in Always in Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-Disk, the Most Outrageous Record Label in America by Jason Weiss. 'Art is anachronistic, and when it becomes categorized, it loses impact. I wanted people who were innovative and inspirational.'""
Nate Chinen
""Bernard Stollman captured the 60s zeitgeist before it'd even hit. His now-legendary label, ESP-Disk, provided the means for a wealth of free jazz firewalkers (Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Frank Wright, Giuseppi Logan) and polemical folk provocateurs (The Fugs and The Holy Modal Rounders) to get their far-out sounds to a wider audience.""
Spencer Grady
"Weiss wonderfully describes the role of ESP in the birth of the free jazz movement and points to the necessity of record label owners (such as Stollman) who translate their passion for music into new musical forms. An absorbing account that will interest any music fan."
