American; initially out of New York. Milestone was founded in 1966 by producer Orrin Keepnews, who secured the services of top-flight Jazz artists such as Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson for his new label. It became part of the Fantasy group in 1972, and continues as part of Fantasy today. In Britain, Milestone linked up with CBS in September 1969; its releases shared the main CBS numerical series and had a joint CBS / Milestone label. No singles were released during the CBS years. Early in 1974 it moved to Transatlantic, and when Transatlantic was sold to Logo in 1977 Milestone went with it. Over here the company concentrated on issuing LPs, but of the few - four? - singles which it released, one managed to get into the Charts: Azymuth's Jazz/Funk instrumental 'Jazz Carnival' (MSP-101; 12/79) reached No.19 in early 1980. The bands's follow-up, 'Dear Limmertz' (MSP-102; 11/80) failed to repeat that success. The earliest single, from the Transatlantic period, was 'Open Your Eyes You Can Fly', by Flora Purim (M-303; 7/76). It had the same catalogue number as the American issue, but had injection-moulded labels (1), Transatlantic records being generally pressed by Phonodisc at that time. The Logo-era singles were manufactured and distributed by RCA. There aren't too many copies of the Flora Purim single around, if the struggle I had to get hold of one is anything to go by.
Copyright 2008 Robert Lyons.