Products for jazz enthusiasts around the globe – Interview with enja records
Enja records was established in 1971 in Munich by long-time jazz fan Matthias Winckelmann and today has become a label which is highly respected worldwide and is well distributed in most parts of the globe. Since 1997 the Label specialized in jazz and world music is offering its products in an online-shop with the Trusted Shops money-back-guarantee.
Find out more about this interesting shop in the following interview with CEO Jürgen Enninger.
What is the idea behind your online store?
To allow our customers who have no direct contact to retailers to find, pre-listen and buy our music productions.
Why did you decide to start an e-commerce business?
There was a growing gap between the demand for our productions and the physical presence of the CDs in the shops.
How did it all start?
It started with email requests from Jazz aficionados from Canada and Australia who lived in remote areas and had no chance to get in touch with our products.
When did you start your online store?
We started our activities four years ago.
Could you tell us about your professional life before you started your online store?
Before the online shop started we were a purely physical production company which produced Jazz CDs and Vinyls and sold them through the usual channels.
Do you work full-time or part-time for your online business?
In total we have one person only doing online business.
How many employees are currently on your payroll?
We currently have 10 employees.
Where are your customers located?
All over the world.
How important is the UK and the international market for you?
Especially important because we take care of British musicians such as Gilad Atzmon and Mike Westbrook.
Which payment systems does your Shop offer?
Visa, Master and bank collection.
What are the advantages of your online shop against a high street store?
Anyone on the globe with internet access will be aware of our music and can buy our CDs and printed music.
Do you also run a high street store?
Yes we also run a street store and those two concepts suit perfectly as we can also refer to each others activities.
Does your store have any special features or functions?
We have a pre-listening function and a page view function for the printed music.
What measures have you taken to increase consumer confidence?
We have special features such as trusted shop and acquired a special security certificate.
What did you do to increase the visibility of your shop?
We have linked our shop system to different other websites.
Are you using web 2.0 approaches for your online business?
Yes, we have linked our shop to myspace, facebook etc.
Which recommendations would you give to other e-tailers?
As secure as possible and as convenient as possible any obstacle is one customer less.
What are you currently working on?
We plan a complete relaunch of our website.
What is your favourite online-shop as a consumer?
Jpc.de.
About ENJA Records
Established in 1971 in Munich by long-time jazz fans Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber. Beginning in the late fifties M.W. was exposed to many US jazz musicians when growing up in Frankfurt – then the jazz capital of the country. At after hours sessions at famous “Jazzkeller” and a couple of other live jazz spots he met and listened to Oscar Pettiford, Phineas Newborn, Sonny Rollins, Lee Konitz, Attila Zoller, Roy Eldrige, Kenny Clarke, Albert Mangelsdorff, Don Menza, Cedar Walton, Billy Higgins, Chet Baker to name just a few. When M.W. set up ENJA he attended Munich University as a graduate student (economics and sociology).
First recorded artist was U.S. expatriate Mal Waldron. European and Japanese musicians followed (A. Mangelsdorff, Terumasa Hino, Masahiko Sato). After this European style avant-garde phase American fare became the focus produced by Matthias Winckelmann during frequent working visits to New York (Tommy Flanagan, Chet Baker, New York Jazz Quartet, Freddie Hubbard, Abdullah Ibrahim – then Dollar Brand -, David Friedman, Hannibal Peterson, Bennie Wallace, Abbey Lincoln, Franco Ambrosetti, Kenny Barron a.o.)
The Munich club “domicile” offered many opportunities to record visiting U.S. artists (Charles Tolliver, Pepper Adams, Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, John Scofield – his first recording -, Terumasa Hino a.o.), and so did European festivals where ENJA recorded Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Yosuke Yamashita, Walter Norris, Jerry Gonzalez & The Fort Apache Band.
Some tapes were acquired and added a historic dimension to the catalog (Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Elvin Jones, Hampton Hawes. In early 1986 Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber decided to separate and to work individually from now on. Differing views on work intensity, on “where to take the label” were solved this way. M. W. got even more involved with New York’s jazz and produced an average of 30 albums annually on ENJA (Kenny Barron, Ray Anderson, Mitch Watkins, Wayne Krantz, Gary Thomas, Leni Stern, McCoy Tyner, Arthur Blythe, Abdullah Ibrahim, Elvin Jones, Abraham Burton, Maria Schneider Orchestra, Ingrid Jensen, Dan Wall, Lee Konitz, Kevin Mahogany et.al.).
To be able to present “border-crossing” music he established also the TIPTOE label, recording Mike Westbrook’s tribute to the Beatles, Michael Gregory, Kevin Bruce Harris, Intergalactic Maiden Ballet feat. John Zorn, Blue Box, Paul Jackson-Mike Clark a.o. The dormant blues label BLUES BEACON was revived by several releases of the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir and classic blues artists such as Bukka White, Little Brother Montgomery but also contemporaries Lillian Boutté, Christian Willisohn, Nick Woodland, Al Jones.
In recent years Matthias Winckelmann opened ENJA to musical territories far beyond the jazz mainstream and jazz avant-garde of the early years.
The most important artist in this repect has become Lebanese oud player/composer Rabih Abou-Khalil whose work combines classical Arabian technique with a European compositional approach and jazz influenced improvisation. Others are Tunesian vocalist / oud player Dhafer Youssef, Brazilian group Rosanna & Zelia, Lebanese composer / guitarist Mahmoud Turkmani, Israeli instrumentalist and novelist Gilad Atzmon, Moluccan vocalist Monica Akihary and her group Boi Akih, Pasaporte and Clave Y Guaguanco from Cuba, Hungarian acoustic guitar wizard Ferenc Snétberger, Okay Temiz from Turkey – the groove has truly become universal.
Today, ENJA has become a label which is highly respected worldwide and is well distributed in most parts of the globe. We are quite proud that we have achieved this in a truly difficult market place. In October of 1996 M.W. was awarded the Honors Prize Of The German Phonographic Critics, a body of 100 music critics in classical, jazz and pop music. To quote the jury: “Again and again Matthias Winckelmann sets the standard for quality with his productions. He succeeds with ambitioned projects in a market swamped by mediocrity. The name ENJA has gained an excellent reputation throughout the world.” In 2006 Jürgen Enninger joined Mattthias Winckelmann as CEO of the company.
If you want to find out more about the shop go to enjarecords.com or have a look at the shop-profile at Trusted Shops.
