AURAL ROBERT

Charles Tolliver and Strata-East

- BY ROBERT BAIRD

The why behind most artist-owned labels tends to be a thicket of motivations. They have more adventurous tastes. They are more artist friendly. They are anxious to be the ones in charge of the money for a change. For jazz trumpeter Charles Tolliver, co-founder of the record label Strata-East, the motivation was a combination of all these factors and more.

During a break in the hectic schedule that preceded the April 2025 release of 32 reissues from the famed Strata-East catalog—including the work of Charlie Rouse, Pharoah Sanders, and Cecil McBee—I caught up with Tolliver and his son Ched, who's now in charge of the label's rebirth. The elder Tolliver, now 83, smiles patiently when I ask why he got into the record business. “We wanted to release [session-]leader records, and we thought the only way to do it at the time was to quickly learn the record industry and do it as professionally as possible.”

Tolliver’s partner in Strata-East, which came into being in 1971, was pianist Stanley Cowell. The pair bonded when they played with drummer Max Roach in the period when Roach recorded his 1968 album