Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
In Memoriam: Al Foster, 1943–2025
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
“What if we started a record label?” was the question posed by Shifting Paradigm artist and co-founder Zacc Harris.
(Photo: Courtesy Shifting Paradigm)Artist-run labels have long played key roles in jazz history. Many, like Debut (co-founded by Charles Mingus and Max Roach), Cecil Taylor’s Unit Core and Rashied Ali’s Survival, were small-scale efforts aimed at maintaining artistic independence in the face of a disinterested industry. But others, like Detroit’s Strata-East and Oakland’s Black Jazz, had bigger ideas, and provided outlets for a wide range of music by all sorts of artists.
Shifting Paradigm, a label based out of Minneapolis, is definitely in the latter category. Founded almost 15 years ago by guitarist Zacc Harris, drummer JT Bates and pianist Bryan Nichols, it began as a way for them to promote their own music, but before long other artists were reaching out. As of 2025, Shifting Paradigm has released well over 100 titles by musicians from around the U.S. in a variety of styles.
“It all started maybe 2010 or 2011,” Harris recalls. “There is a pianist in town named Jeremy Walker who organized a bunch of us Twin Cities jazz folks for a meeting, asking the question, What can we do to try and elevate the Twin Cities jazz scene? And there were maybe 15 or so people there, and as you can imagine with that many creative people, there were a lot of different ideas and opinions and the idea I had was, ‘What if we started a record label?’” Bates and Nichols agreed, and in May 2012, Harris’ The Garden became the first Shifting Paradigm release.
The label held a kind of coming-out party a few years later with a concert — part of a series Harris was curating — and requests to release work on Shifting Paradigm began to roll in. “I have always tried to make it as artist-friendly as possible,” he says. “These are my colleagues, my peers, and I want everybody to feel like this is a cooperative endeavor.”
One key early relationship that raised the label’s profile was with brass player John Raymond, a Minnesotan who’d headed for New York. After one independent release and another on Fresh Sound New Talent, he approached Shifting Paradigm about a new project. Real Feels was a trio with guitarist Gilad Hekselman and drummer Colin Stranahan whose repertoire included versions of gospel songs like “I’ll Fly Away” and “Amazing Grace” alongside pop and rock songs by the Beatles, Paul Simon and Atoms For Peace. They released a live EP and a studio album in 2016. “I think that that album represented this kind of Midwest homecoming sensibility for him, and it just made sense for him to do it [with us], but that was for sure kind of a big moment for the label in terms of gaining more national and international notoriety.”
More than a decade in, the label has become a respected brand name in the Midwest, and receives a steady flow of submissions. Many of the albums Harris selects for release arrive market-ready; he offers access to distribution and PR, but the work is entirely the product of its creators, and as such, there’s no way to describe a “typical” Shifting Paradigm release. Harris’ own Chasing Shadows is an energetic and thoughtfully composed post-bop quintet date; vocalist Julia Danielle’s self-titled debut offers folk-tinged versions of standards, occasionally augmented by a vocal ensemble or a string quartet; baritone saxophonist Jimmy Farace’s Hours Fly, Flowers Die showcases retro compositions for a small group plus strings; while Outside The Sphere’s Full Potential is an electroacoustic duo improv session featuring saxophone, drums and electronics.
Shifting Paradigm’s brand identity may have been Midwestern to start, but “as more artists have become part of the label from different places, I think that they have brought with them their audience, their fan base,” Harris said. “Then they benefit from the audiences that have already been brought into the label, and I think everyone benefits from it.” DB
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
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