Born in 1932 in
Wichita, Kansas,
Bob Koester was the son of a petroleum engineer. While in the hospital with polio when he was a child, he listened to the radio and was cheered up when he heard
Eddie Condon and
Benny Goodman. In his teens, he was a dedicated jazz fan who began buying old records from a Salvation Army store. At concerts in Kansas City, he heard
Red Allen,
Count Basie,
Jimmy Rushing,
Tommy Douglas,
Lionel Hampton, and
Jay McShann. Moving from Wichita to St. Louis to attend college, Koester began his career as a record trader in his dormitory room. Joining a local jazz club gave Koester his first taste of live jazz, seeing
Clark Terry perform. Koester made acquaintance with a fellow jazz club member, Ron Fister, with whom he opened his first record shop, K & F Sales. Shortly after opening in an old restaurant storefront, they changed the name to the Blue Note Record Shop. About a year after this joint venture, Fister and Koester decided to part ways, with Koester moving to the corner of Delmar and Olive streets in St. Louis. Taking the name from the street his shop was on, Koester recorded a local jazz group the Windy City Six in 1953. Shortly thereafter, Koester found local talent such as
James Crutchfield,
Speckled Red,
J.D. Short, and
Big Joe Williams. Koester moved to Chicago in August 1958. He bought Seymour's Jazz Mart, and in renaming the storefront the Jazz Record Mart, Delmark Records found its new home in the basement of the record shop. By 1963, Koester had moved the shop to a location at 7 West Grand. During this period in Chicago, Delmark released albums by,
Barney Bigard,
Donald Byrd,
Jimmy Forrest,
George Lewis,
Bud Powell, and
Ira Sullivan. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Delmark recorded the
Art Ensemble of Chicago,
Sonny Stitt,
Junior Wells,
Luther Allison,
Arthur Crudup,
Jimmy Dawkins,
Sleepy John Estes,
Buddy Guy,
J. B. Hutto,
Jimmy Johnson,
Magic Sam,
Robert Nighthawk,
Yank Rachell,
Otis Rush,
Roosevelt Sykes, and
Malachi Thompson. In 1966,
Chuck Nessa, manager of the Jazz Record Mart, convinced Koester to release albums by musicians associated with the
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. The first record was
Roscoe Mitchell's
Sound (1966) which received a five star review in
Downbeat. This was followed by
Muhal Richard Abrams'
Levels and Degrees of Light (1968),
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre's
Humility in the Light of the Creator (1969) and
Anthony Braxton's
For Alto (1969). Delmark released two of the earliest
Sun Ra albums,
Sun Song and
Sound of Joy, in 1967 and 1968 respectively. Delmark has also released albums by
Fred Anderson,
Frank Catalano,
Rob Mazurek,
Nicole Mitchell,
Ken Vandermark,
Roy Campbell, Jr., and
Ethnic Heritage Ensemble; and blues musicians including
Zora Young,
Ken Saydak,
Byther Smith,
Michael Coleman,
Little Arthur Duncan,
Eddie C. Campbell,
Jimmy Burns, and
ragtime musicians including
Terry Waldo. In March 2010, Delmark announced the release of the album
Revisit by the Polish duo
Mikrokolektyw. This album was Delmark's first by a European
avant-garde jazz group in its 57-year history. In 2012, Delmark released two
Chicago blues albums by
Linsey Alexander and
Mike Wheeler. In May 2018, Koester retired and sold Delmark Records to Delmark Records LLC, of which Julia A. Miller is the Managing Member. Julia A. Miller became the label President & CEO and Elbio Barilari became the Vice President & Artistic Director. They are two musicians from Chicago and Uruguay, respectively. The sale included Delmark's subsidiary labels, CD and LP inventory, the catalog of masters, and Riverside Studio. ==Discography==