TCB (Take Care of Business) essentially means two things: It describes on the one hand the personal concept and taste in music projected by the company’s head and on the other hand means plain, simply and unavoidably – Business! For a single person to unite these undeniably controversial elements to one common denominator implies a considerable effort – and this effort has brought success to the one who took the risk of running a record label. His name was Peter Schmidlin.
The city of Basel boasts a widely heralded tradition of drumming. It does therefore not come as a surprise that Peter Schmidlin, born and raised in Basel, took up drumming very young. After a certain number of years as professional musician, he found better economic alternatives and stayed on as a semi-professional, remaining one of the finest and sought-after drummers in Europe. Would this type of musician ever think of a career as a music producer? The answer is… No! However, Peter Schmidlin at one point began seriously to contemplate entering into the other side of the business: becoming a music producer. Maybe he could make the most of some of his innumerable experience and his many contacts made during his career as a professional musician.
That’s why, in 1988, he finally decided to produce Jazz besides playing it, and created his own label, TCB. The first productions were based upon a series of “live” recordings made by Radio Zurich that presented a “house” rhythm section – including Peter Schmidlin on drums – and featured famous Jazz musicians such as Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw, Benny Bailey, Eddie Daniels, Johnny Griffin or Clark Terry, among many others. These first TCB productions were released in the form of a compilation, a series of LPs that featured the best of these recordings. Soon thereafter, the world entered the CD age and TCB had to follow. Peter Schmidlin produced a substantial number of CDs, which presented the best musicians of Switzerland and abroad.
In 1992 office space was rented in Lausanne and the company signed distribution contracts in all parts of Europe, Japan, South Africa, Canada and the United States of America. The company gained further recognition, its product being sold in all major territories thanks to its strength and great musical quality.
New ideas were initiated. Among them a great help to the potential consumer: The spine of a TCB CD got marked with a specific colour, indicating the style of its musical content. Red depicts Bebop/Hardbop; blue is dedicated to the legacy of Benny Goodman and other heroes of the swing era; green marks a series of previously unreleased recordings by Swiss Radio featuring the best Jazz had to offer: Quincy Jones, Cannonball Adderley Sextet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Louis Hayes & Woody Shaw Quintet, Buck Clayton’s All Stars, Don Redman, Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, Clark Terry & Chris Woods, Coleman Hawkins, etc…; yellow indicates “contemporary jazz” with artists like trumpeter Jack Walrath, trombone wizard Ed Neumeister and German keyboard specialist Christoph Spendel; finally, black belongs to productions of “World Jazz Music” with musicians from Switzerland, Africa or Brazil.
For a small record label, inevitably pushed in the shadow of the “majors” and their seriously aggressive marketing, it is not at all easy to remain successful. But this did not prevent Peter from being his usual optimistic self and produce excellent CDs with an admirable regularity.
In 1996, the company moved to Montreux, a city that since 1967 and its first Festival, has undeniably become one of the world capitals of Jazz. And TCB adorned itself with the flattering subtitle “TCB – The Montreux Jazz Label”, a denomination granted to Peter by Claude Nobs himself at the occasion of fine collaborations presenting “TCB Nights” at the “Montreux Jazz Festival”, which allowed TCB to release “Live at Montreux” CDs with Lynne Arriale, Buster Williams or Kenny Drew Jr.
During almost thirty years, Peter Schmidlin put all his energy into his dream project engaging himself with body and soul, producing an impressive list of CDs, all of which can obviously be found on the TCB website. Among the treasures of the catalogue we naturally need to mention some indispensable pearls such as George Gruntz, George Robert (in particular with the great Clark Terry), Thierry Lang, Andy Scherrer, Dusko Guykovich, Mark Murphy, Enrico Pieranunzi, Richard Galliano, Mark Soskin or the Vienna Art Orchestra, and of course those CDs that remind us of the excellent drummer Peter Schmidlin, for instance playing with the trio Cojazz, Franco Ambrosetti, Twobones or, finally, the wonderful trio Schneider – Vallet – Schmidlin, released a few days before Peter Schmidlin’s disappearance, on May 25, 2015.
After a period of mourning and sadness, Barbara Frei Schmidlin, Peter’s widow, nevertheless decided to honour her late husband in the most beautiful way: engaging herself to continue the adventure of TCB and… let Jazz survive! The bet is already made although the socio-economic situation is less and less favourable for Jazz productions. But insofar as more and more new and superb musicians make their voice heard, TCB feels compelled to continue serving this music and accompanying the musicians who choose to share some of their way in its company. Within the different “lines” of TCB, there is a wide range of promising projects, be it for contemporary creators or for the historic and never before released recordings of the “Swiss Radio Days” series. For the record label imagined and created by Peter, the great adventure of Jazz will go on…
