A VERY BYG STORY

I had luck during my last Japan travel, thanks to my lovely girlfriend, to find an obscure records shop on a big city suburb. The type of shop that seems to remains the same since the seventies! These odd guys out there managed to put their hands on a old US distributor jazz stock. Amongst other were a large amount of original BYG ACTUEL records. This is the records we propose on this page, sorry there is no others from the catalogue so don't ask! Because we really like this label in frenchattack, not only for the music, but also for the incredibly nice cover art and design, a great influence for us, I think it's time to know more about it right? We didn't succeed to meet one of the creator, but here's some infos it would be cool to know.

The BYG label was founded by a trio: Jacques Bisceglia, Jean-Luc Young, and Jean Georgakarakos, so now you can easily understand why the label is called BYG.
ACTUEL was first a magazine, created in 1967, then they created the label. The first goal was to reissue US jazz records, mostly from the SAVOY catalogue, but soon it became one of the most avant garde and innovative platform for the movement called THE NEW THING, a new approach of jazz that would soon more known as free jazz. The most impressive and well known artist of the label is of course ARCHIE SHEPP, who found in France the creativity and political minded spirit that was no longer present in the United States, and several other american jazzmen followed him and created intense and innovative piece of music with avant garde french jazzmen. Most of the BYG ACTUEL sessions were produced by CLAUDE DELCLOO, a famous producer that always seemed to work as a link between the genre, as you find him as a producer for adventurous records and bands such as CANE & ABLE or FULL MOON ENSEMBLE. It's not a surprise when the label makes a curve to progressive rock at the end in 1969, releasing mythical band like GONG or AME SON. The sessions were usually recorded in the great STUDIO DAVOUT, home of several incredible french records.
The shooting star label took end soon after the Amougies Festival. This festival was the ideas of the BYG bosses, and should take place in Paris, being an incredible event for avant garde music. But because of the 68 riots in Paris, the french government refused a so political venue, and it finally took place in Amougies, Belgium. The festival suffered several technical problems and became the financial issue that took down the label. Despite its very short period of time (67-69), this is really one of the most cult and creative label you could find in France during this period!