Bob Koester

As the founder of Chicago's independent Delmark Records label, Bob Koester has been responsible for recording and releasing some of the finest jazz and blues of the last half of the 20th century. Always as much of a music fan as he was a businessman, Koester was noted for giving his artists complete freedom in the studio; since Delmark was often financed by profits from the Jazz Record Mart, Koester's retail store, it was never driven by commercial considerations. Of course, that arrangement led to periods of relative inactivity during leaner times, but it also helped Delmark survive intact. The label celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2003, having amassed a large and often seminal back catalog that covered traditional blues, Chicago blues, Dixieland revivalism, hard bop, and avant-garde jazz (especially Chicago's own AACM movement). Robert Gregg Koester was born on October 30, 1932, in Wichita, KS. He discovered jazz and blues as a teenager, catching as many local live shows as he could, and began collecting classic 78 rpm records while still in high school. Since many of those records were passé and no longer in print, Koester scoured local secondhand shops and jukebox suppliers rather than the usual record stores. He soon started trading records, and when he enrolled at St. Louis University in 1951 to study business and cinematography, he started selling them out of his dorm room via mail order, at a substantial profit. He joined a local jazz club, which enabled him to make contacts on the St. Louis scene and promote his business in the meantime. Around 1952, Koester and fellow club member Ron Fister opened a small record shop called K&F Sales; it was successful enough to move into a larger retail space, at which point the name was changed to the Blue Note Record...