ACT

Siegfried Loch founded ACT Music + Vision in 1988 with Annette Humpe after leaving his position as President of WEA Europe, where he had spent eighteen years rising through the corporate music industry. Born in 1940 in Stolp, Germany (now Słupsk, Poland), Loch's jazz passion ignited after gatecrashing a Sidney Bechet concert in 1956, though his early career took him through Liberty/United Artists Munich and WEA, where he discovered international stars like Al Jarreau and Helen Schneider while producing Jerry Lee Lewis's legendary "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg." ACT initially launched as a pop label but folded quickly, leading Loch to realize he had strayed too far from his original musical love. In 1992, at age 52, he relaunched ACT as a jazz label with "Jazzpaña," a groundbreaking flamenco-jazz fusion project featuring the WDR Big Band, saxophonist Vince Mendoza, and guests including Michael Brecker, Al Di Meola, and Peter Erskine. The album received two Grammy nominations and established ACT's blueprint: a European-flavored jazz aesthetic with distinctive packaging, encouraging artists to express themselves creatively while balancing artistic integrity with commercial viability.

ACT quickly positioned itself as a platform for both German and Scandinavian jazz, introducing listeners to cutting-edge fusions between jazz, pop, and electronic music from scenes that were still emerging in the late 1990s. The label signed German musicians including Joachim Kühn (whose 1994 "Europeana" began a long series of commercially successful albums), Wolfgang Haffner, and Christof Lauer, alongside Norwegian pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, whose "It's Snowing on My Piano" (1997) became an early ACT classic. Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine, French drummer Manu Katché, and Italian trumpeter Paolo Fresu joined the roster, with Loch actively cultivating what The Times later described as building "its own European union of musicians, fostering a freedom of movement between nationalities and genres." The label released reissues of jazz Loch had previously recorded for other companies while developing new talent, with Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren emerging as both artist and producer within the ACT family. By 1999, ACT had established itself through meticulous production values overseen by engineer Klaus Scheuermann and distinctive visual presentation, with the label's commitment to treating each release as a complete artistic package setting it apart from major label competitors.

Swedish trio Esbjörn Svensson Trio (E.S.T.) joined ACT in 1999 with "From Gagarin's Point of View," marking both the band's international breakthrough and ACT's ascendancy to major label status. Founded in 1993 by pianist Esbjörn Svensson with Dan Berglund on bass and Magnus Öström on drums, E.S.T. deliberately blurred genres by drawing on influences from Béla Bartók to Radiohead, using electronic effects and multitrack recording to create a sound that appealed to both jazz fans and younger rock audiences. The trio filled large stadium venues, topped pop and jazz charts across Europe, and became the first European jazz band to grace the cover of DownBeat magazine in May 2006, releasing eight albums on ACT including "Good Morning Susie Soho" (2000), "Strange Place for Snow" (2002), "Viaticum" (2005), and "Tuesday Wonderland" (2006). The tragic death of Esbjörn Svensson in a scuba diving accident on June 14, 2008, at age 44 devastated the jazz world, with the posthumous release "Leucocyte" (September 2008) serving as the trio's final testament, recorded during a two-day improvisation session at Studios 301 in Sydney just months before Svensson's death. During this period, ACT won the ECHO Jazz Label of the Year award four consecutive times from 2010 to 2013, cementing its reputation as one of Europe's most important contemporary jazz labels.

Following Svensson's death, ACT continued building on its foundation with artists like Michael Wollny (ECHO Jazz winner 2010), vocalist Youn Sun Nah (ECHO Jazz winner 2011), and Dan Berglund's new project Tonbruket, which paid homage to Svensson while forging its own psychedelic rock-influenced path with albums like "Forevergreens" (2016) and "Masters of Fog" (2019). The label maintained its pan-European vision by signing Polish violinist Adam Bałdych, French accordionist Vincent Peirani, Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset, and continuing partnerships with established artists like Lars Danielsson, Viktoria Tolstoy, and Iiro Rantala. ACT released the "E.S.T. Symphony" (2016) featuring orchestral arrangements by Hans Ek, along with posthumous live recordings "Live in London" (2018) and "Live in Gothenburg" (2019) that honored the trio's enduring influence on a generation of young European jazz musicians. By 2025, the label's catalog had grown to 683 releases, with co-director Andreas Brandis joining Loch in 2015 to continue the mission of discovering and promoting artists who inspire minds, reach hearts, and touch souls through what Loch calls "Music in the Spirit of Jazz." The label's "Magic Moments" compilation series, curated by Loch, showcases the breadth of ACT's output while maintaining the founder's original vision of music as an art form that touches people directly, transcending commercial considerations to create lasting cultural impact.