|
Site Information
All sales from the headsup.com web site are actually sold through our secure server at www.concordmusicgroup.com the web site of our parent company.
For additional information regarding ordering online www.concordmusicgroup.com/faq.html
You can navigate to any page on the web site from any page inside the web site.
To clarify, you do not have to use the homepage as a jumping off place to navigate within the site.
All inquires regarding the Heads Up web site can be e-mailed to Web Master at zweil@headsup.com
Our web site has many links to other web sites such as artist web sites, MySpace pages, YouTube pages and others. Please note that it may be necessary to either pause our media player or pause the media player on the destination that that you are linking to. This will avoid music and or video coming from both sites at the same time.
You need Flash player to view this video and hear the audio in our media player. Click here to get it.
Anytime you choose to delete yourself from future correspondence you may contact Web Master at zweil@headsup.com
Please note that by entering any contest, promotion or if you provide us your contact details you are providing your information to our entire group of labels within the Concord Music Group. For a complete listing of our group of labels visit www.concordmusicgroup.com/labels
Heads Up International is a division of Concord Music Group Inc.
Thank You For Visiting,
Your Heads Up Online Team
back to top
Company Profile
Since 1990, Heads Up International has been successfully carving its niche in the world of contemporary
instrumental music. In that time, Heads Up artists and releases have consistently landed on Billboard’s
Contemporary Jazz, Traditional Jazz and World Music charts, and have garnered numerous industry awards,
including Billboard’s Contemporary Latin Jazz Album of the Year (Roberto Perera’s Dreams & Desires), the AFIM’s Independent Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year (Pieces of a Dreams’ Love’s Silhouette), a GRAMMY
nomination in 2004 (Yellowjackets’ Time Squared), a GRAMMY Award for Best Traditional World Music Album in 2005 (Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Raise Your Spirit Higher), a GRAMMY nomination for Best Surround Sound Award in the first ever surround sound category at the GRAMMYs (Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Raise Your Spirit Higher), ten additional GRAMMY nominations for such groups as Spyro Gyra, Michael Brecker, Joe Zawinul, Mike Stern, and others, JazzWeek’s Radio Programmers Album Of The Year Award for two consecutive years (Jaco Pastorius Big Band’s Word of Mouth Revisited and The Word Is Out!), and Gibson Guitar’s Best Female Jazz Guitarist (Joyce Cooling). In addition to the awards and accolades, Heads Up artists have regularly captured the #1 slot in national radio airplay.
Heads Up has also been a leader in recording technology. For more than 12 years, the label has offered enhanced CDs with videos, artist bios and other bonus material. Heads Up was also among the first to release in the Super Audio CD 5.1 Surround Sound (SACD) format and the first to incorporate enhanced CD technology with SACDs.
Dave Love, founder of Heads Up, attributes the label’s success to its roster of fine artists. “With signings over the years of such artists as Yellowjackets, Najee, Spyro Gyra, Pieces Of A Dream, Hiroshima, Ladysmith Black
Mambazo, Andy Narell, Stanley Clarke, Marion Meadows, Jaco Pastorius Big Band and Walter Beasley, I feel that the label is developing its own sound – that of a unique mix of contemporary music,” says Love. “The crossover potential and international appeal of this repertoire has aided us in garnering worldwide success.”
The label takes its name from the jazz group that Love – a trumpet player since elementary school – formed while attending North Texas State University on a jazz studies, arranging and composition scholarship. After college, Love became musical director for Dr. Donald Byrd. Later, he recorded an album with his band and soprano saxophonist Dave Liebman. While shopping the release to record labels, Love took a position as the National Director of Sales & Marketing for Oxymoron P&D, Inc., whose principals convinced him to start his own label with the release.
Using Oxymoron for distribution, Love began Heads Up International, Ltd., out of Seattle, Washington, in 1990.
The labels’ maiden voyage was the Liebman recording, The Energy of the Chance.
In 1996, Love made the commitment to release selected titles as Enhanced CDs. “We were the first contemporary jazz label to fully commit to this new format,” he says. “Along with artist profiles and music videos, we introduced a new dimension in marketing by providing the user with additional music videos, sound bytes and biographies of our artists as an added value. In 2001, the company began releasing recordings in the SACD 5.1 Surround Sound Audio format,” states Love.
In 2000, Heads Up International merged with Telarc International Corporation. This strategic alliance has helped Heads Up to further its distribution worldwide and tap into the financial resources necessary to take the label to a higher level of strength and visibility within the industry and in the consumer market. In 2005 the two entities were acquired by the Concord Music Group.
The Heads Up Africa series, a critically acclaimed collection that spotlights some of southern Africa’s finest vocalists and instrumentalists, was launched to mark the tenth anniversary of the end of apartheid. Artists such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Miriam Makeba, Oliver Mtukudzi, Hugh Masekela and other top talent from this musically and culturally rich part of the world have graced numerous recordings for the company.
In 2007, Heads Up was honored to release the final recordings of two jazz giants who have since passed on,
Michael Brecker (Pilgrimage) and Joe Zawinul (Brown Street).
Heads Up kicks off its 18th year with label debut recordings by Victor Wooten, Esperanza Spalding, Take Six, George Duke and Taj Mahal.
“Music will always be an integral part of mankind’s emotions,” says Love, “and it is most rewarding to feel we are making music history today.”
back to top
|
|
