Label Guide: Enja

Enja Records is a German Modern Jazz label based in Munich. It was founded by jazz enthusiasts Matthias Winckelmann and Horst Weber in 1971. Enja stands for European New Jazz Association.

The first Enja release was a Mal Waldron album, recorded in a Munich jazz club at a time when Waldron lived in the Bavarian capital. Albums by Attila Zoller, George Gruntz, Walter Norris, Chet Baker, Bennie Wallace, Abbey Lincoln and Abdullah Ibrahim followed. Winckelmann and Weber went seperate ways in 1986 and split Enja in two entities.

There were very many different label colours over the years, and the ones shown here are just examples and in no way meant to cover them all. But the basic design of the label was kept unchanged since 1971.