When somebody talks about an independent record company the tendency is to think of a bunch of wild eyed young guys producing "indie rock" and other fringe type music. Their rosters seem to be bands that are at a certain point in their career stylistically, or who are looking for their initial exposure. Of course, there are also independent labels which specialize in specific types of music, experimental electronic, and other forms of contemporary composition the mainstream companies don't consider cost efficient.

But there was a time when all of them were independent record companies, because there weren't the multi national corporations of today that have a stranglehold on the music industry. Back in 1953 when Robert Koester founded Delmark Records in Chicago, his was just one of many labels that was producing blues and jazz records in that musical hotbed. The ensuing fifty-five years has seen most of his former competitors fall by the wayside as the industry and tastes in popular music changed.

Delmark rode out the hard times of the sixties and seventies when bues and jazz sales plummeted as first rock and toll, then disco and other watered down versions of the music, dominated sales. Operating in Chicago, for Chicago musicians and the Chicago audience, probably helped them make it when others went under. There aren't many towns where you can go to the bar and see your favourite local act playing, and buy their locally made album the next day at a locally owned and operated store.

Their slogan maybe "Where The Music Lives", but it could be easily amended to read "Where The Music Of Chicago Lives" and you wouldn't be far off the mark. From their new series of re-mastered piano rolls featuring Chicago talent of the 1920's to DVDs and CDs of live shows by local jazz and blues artists recorded in clubs and venues around the city today, Delmark continues to feature the best of the "City with big shoulders" (Carl Sandburg).

The latest example is the irrepressible Little Arthur Duncan and his band caught live on CD and DVD in Little Arthur Duncan: Live At Rosa's Blues Lounge. Recorded in the intimate surroundings of Rosa's Blues Lounge on August 18th this past summer, the music not only lives, it comes alive in a way a show recorded at a bigger venue could never emulate. With five or six camera's running at all times and immaculate sound quality, the only thing missing is the smell of the beer the guy at the table next to you is drinking.