Discography

VITA RECORDS 

Laurence H. Mead owned Perfection Plastic Products, a record pressing plant on North Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena, California (USA). The company pressed over 5,000 records a day, including Korla’s Vita singles and albums. The other pressings were mostly black-artists doo-wop singles. Vita Records had the capability of producing 78s, 45s and LPs; all were delivered to the retail record stores in Hollywood. Mike Gradney managed the record plant. Labels owned by Laurence H. Mead included Kicks, Mambo, Dig and Vita. Korla began recording for the Vita label in 1950. On some Vita recordings, Korla was accompanied by vocalist Jette Satin. For more information about these recordings, please visit our Jette Satin page. In 2012 Essential Media released the four Vita 10 inch albums in remastered editions on compact discs. It is unknown if the original recordings were officially licensed from the parent company Vita.

INDIA RECORDS 

was established in 1954 by its sole artist Korla Pandit, when he released his first independently-produced album series, The Universal Language of Music. So far parts 1, 2, 3 and 5 of this series have been identified. It is extremely likely that part 4 also exists, but so far any information is lacking. Recording facilities varied from album to album. Mailing addresses for these albums and, later, cassettes, which Korla would sell at his various concert and lecture appearances (therefore a great number of the records are signed and dedicated), ran the gamut from San Bernardino and Santa Cruz, to Palm Springs, Santa Rosa (all California, USA), and even British Columbia, depending upon where Korla was headquartered at the time. Since India Records used independent pressing companies, the quality of the discs is inconsistent. Often Korla would re-press the albums when they sold out. This accounts for minor differences in layout of the covers and label information.

FANTASY RECORDS 

was founded in San Francisco in 1949 by Max and Sol Weiss, who started out in the business by running a pressing plant, then ended up owning a record company. Their first artist was an Oakland pianist named Dave Brubeck, and when Brubeck’s recordings began to sell, they went on to record Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Cal Tjader, Lenny Bruce, Odetta, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, and eventually, Korla Pandit. Saul Zaentz, who had joined Fantasy as a salesman in 1955, assembled a group of investors in 1967 and purchased the label from the Weiss brothers. The Fantasy 3000-series denotes high fidelity, mono, Fantasy 8000-series denotes stereo. Nearly all Fantasy records were pressed on regular black, blue and/or red vinyl. Some of the Fantasy records were re-released in the early 80’s. They feature identical covers, but new brown or blue labels. Korla started recording for Fantasy in 1958.