ENJA Records

ENJA was founded in 1971 by Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber in Munich, Germany. They established the label with borrowed money, recorded a concert of Mal Waldron in Munich and sold the licenses to Japan. Early ENJA artists have been e.g. Albert Mangelsdorff and the Japanese trumpet player Terumasa Hino. The intention behind the label was to focus on modern European jazz music (ENJA stands for European New Jazz). But soon, they also offered a variety of international productions. The catalogue contained artists like John Scofield, Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie and Gene Ammons. In 1986 Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber decided to split and founded two separate labels ENJA Records Matthias Winckelmann and ENJA Records Horst Weber. Today, the ENJA catalogues are reunited. Whereas the former ENJA Horst Weber part and the new label YellowBird are lead by Werner Aldinger, Matthias Winckelmann administers ENJA Records M. Winckelmann. Additionally, ENJA also includes a booking agency "ENJA Booking" and the ENJA Publishing department with “enja European New Jazz Musikverlagsgesellschaft mbH”, “Edition MAWI” and several administrated publishing companies. The name ENJA has gained an excellent reputation throughout the world.