Livia Records was established in 1977 by the artist Gerald Davis to record and release albums featuring legendary Irish Jazz guitarist Louis Stewart and his contemporaries.
By 1977, when Livia’s first release was issued, Louis Stewart had already won best soloist awards at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival, toured with Benny Goodman and George Shearing, and become an important part of Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott’s bands in the UK. On his regular trips back to Dublin, he filled Dublin bars with fans who queued around the block to see him play.
Livia Records is important because of the quality of the recordings and performances that captured Ireland’s greatest, internationally renowned, Jazz musician at his peak. It was also Ireland’s first dedicated Jazz record label.
Of the 11 albums released, 7 were Jazz featuring Louis in different settings. (The others being theatre/comedy-related albums). The Jazz albums were:
- Out On His Own – solo
- Drums and Friends – with drummer John Wadham
- Alone Together – with flautist Brian Dunning
- I Thought About You – with Sam Jones, Billy Higgins and John Taylor
- Super Session – with Martin Taylor
- Len McCarthy and the Guinness Jazz Allstars – with Len McCarthy and Jim Doherty
- Spondance – with Bobby Shew and Jim Doherty
Livia’s first release, Louis Stewart’s 1977 “Out on His Own” got outstanding reviews. The Irish Times Classical Music critic, Chares Acton noted that not only was the release,
“a record that fills me with pleasure and admiration”
he praised Gerald Davis for the energy and professionalism that led to Livia’s establishment highlighting what other existing labels had failed to achieve by
“playacting with the work, reputations, and earnings of important Irish artists”
– while noting that the release had recovered its costs within a few weeks.
In parallel the Irish Times Jazz critic, Ray Comiskey, stated in his review of the album:
“It is a performance of such virtuosity, that very few guitarists of any era could ever hope to match it” and ”…a brilliant combination of melodic inventiveness, harmonic ingenuity, technical virtuosity and sheer joy in playing that seems certain to win for it an outstanding place in the record of Jazz guitar”.
Other reviewers offered similar praise, confirming that quality recordings and performances were the label’s hallmark.
