Siegfried “Siggi” Loch has been a part of the recording industry
for nearly 55 years - starting as an EMI sales representative in
1960 and he served as a business executive for Liberty Records and Warner
Brothers International. But for the last 22 years, Loch has run his own label,
ACT Music, arguably one of the biggest jazz record labels in Europe.
“I would be really reluctant to advise anybody to start a
record label,” Loch says frankly by phone from Munich, Germany. “I was very
fortunate to live through the golden age of the record industry. The way the
business developed and all the love and the success that I was able to
experience will never happen again.”
The 73 year old jack of all trades knows better than
most that nobody can deter a dream. And more importantly, his artists know that
that love and success is ready and waiting for them. Loch fell in love with
jazz after hearing Sidney Bechet in 1955. Five years later, he had his foot in
the door of the industry peddling the EMI catalogue. Two years after that he
was producing sessions for rockers, jazz musicians and blues artists. “I had
the idea of running my own label after I had my first experience as a producer
in the 1960s. I made records with Jean-Luc Ponty, Sonny Williamson, Memphis
Slim, John Lee Hooker.”
With a few production credits under his belt, he was ready
to set off on his own when an offer to help run Liberty Records, which then
owned Blue Note Records, sidelined his plans. After four years there, he was again ready to start
his label when a call from Nesuhi Ertegun put his dream on the backburner. It would be another twenty years before Loch finally
held his label’s first release in his hands.
That release couldn’t have been better received. Jazzpana was
a global collaboration between Vince Mendoza and Arif Mardin. It was nominated
for two Grammy awards and set the path for a diverse catalogue of over 350
records.
Between the 22 albums under his own name, plus the guest
appearances and production credits scattered over twenty years of collaborating
with Loch, Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren appears on nearly ten percent of
the label’s output.
“Siggi knows what he wants and he has the business skills to
get what he wants,” says Landgren. “Many labels stop when they have a finished
project but ACT spends so much time and effort to make all the projects
visible.”
Swede Esbjorn Svensson, who recorded under the name e.s.t.,
was one of those musicians who benefited from Loch’s well-oiled machine. The
two met through Landgren and Loch was immediately taken with the young pianist’s
use of disparate genres to create a moody palette entirely his own. “I would
only work with his music if he would sign with me directly,” recalls Loch. “As
a result, he became one of the most important European jazz artists.”
Loch’s reputation for promoting the music of Sweden was
enough to earn him a “Northern Star” knighthood from the Swedish king in 2010
but it was a bittersweet honor. Svensson lost his life in a scuba diving accident
only two years prior.
After that traumatic experience, Loch initially considered
shutting down the label entirely but as he worked through his grief, he found
the determination to honor Svensson’s legacy by expanding the reach of the
label to include pianist Vijay Iyer, drummer Manu Katche and pianist Michael
Wollny.
“ACT was e.s.t’s label and there is no musician I know that
hadn’t been somehow struck by this band around that time,” says Wollny about when
he first considered signing with the label. “Over the last decade on the scene,
I can honestly say that Siggi remains the most trustworthy and honest friend I
can imagine.”
To further solidify the label’s sterling reputation, ACT has
been awarded the “Jazz Label of the Year” honor at the German ECHO awards four
years in a row and continues to promote new artists as well as their label
cornerstones like guitarist Nguyen Le and Korean vocalist Youn Sun Nah,
currently one of the biggest selling artists in France.
Through the label’s dramatic expansion, Loch still retains
that sense of togetherness that catapulted the label twenty-two years ago. “There
is a closeness to the company,” says Landgren fondly. “The artists have the feeling
that we belong to the ACT family. We can speak directly to the boss. It feels
like a family business. It makes it rewarding to put in a lot of work because
something good always comes out the other side.”
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