Editing Contemporary Records (section)

==West Coast players==
Contemporary became identified with a style of jazz called [[West Coast jazz]] as exemplified by [[Art Pepper]], [[Chet Baker]], [[Shelly Manne]], and [[André Previn]].<ref name="New Grove" />

In the mid 1960s the company fell into relative limbo, but limited new recordings were made in the late 1970s, including a series of albums by Art Pepper recorded at the [[Village Vanguard]] club in New York. After Les Koenig's death in 1977, the label was run for seven years by his son,<ref name="New Grove" /> John, who produced albums by [[George Cables]], [[Joe Farrell]], [[Joe Henderson]], [[Bobby Hutcherson]], [[Peter Erskine]], and [[Chico Freeman]].

In 1984 Contemporary was purchased by [[Fantasy Records]], which used the name for a short time. Most Contemporary titles were reissued by Fantasy. Also, some titles have found new life among today's audiophiles as high-quality LP [[audio mastering|remasters]] from [[Analogue Productions]] and other [[audiophile]] labels. The Fantasy catalog, including Contemporary and its associated labels, [[Good Time Jazz Records]], Society for Forgotten Music, and Contemporary Composers Series, was sold to [[Concord Records]] in 2004.

Over the years, a number of major figures in the music business worked for Contemporary. Among them were [[Atlantic Records]] executive [[Nesuhi Ertegun]], writers [[Nat Hentoff]] and [[Leonard Feather]], producer [[Joe Boyd]], recording engineer and studio designer Howard Holzer, and mastering engineer [[Bernie Grundman]].