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Interesting article. In 1971 Columbia Records signed four of modern jazz's greatest artists. Within two years all four were gone. What happened? In 1971 Columbia Records, a storied label for jazz artists such as Billie Holiday, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, brought four more notable musicians aboard: free-jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman, bassist Charles Mingus, and two pianists, one established, the other up-and-coming–Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. Columbia executive Clive Davis had been taking the label in a more aggressively youth-and-rock-oriented direction, and a number of its early 70s jazz acts such as Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra were or would be rooted in the ascending jazz-rock sound of fusion, which label mainstay Miles Davis had embraced as well. Coleman, Mingus, Jarrett, and Evans did not fit that marketing mold. Their stay would be brief, but it would yield a trove of compelling and expansive music. The rest of the article can be found here. http://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/great-columbia-jazz-purge-coleman-evans-jarrett-mingus/