"I always thought the fifties and sixties were the the best of times of putting jazz music on wax? Even the mono recordings were killer. With all those ooey gooey vacuum tube recordings with the best engineers, studios and producers on the planet."
I hate to break it to you but those early recording were produced by independents and were recorded in living rooms and broom closets! In the case of Blue Note, Prestige, Savoy, and others were for the most part engineered regardless of the label by Rudy Van Gelder in the same locations only the producers were different and since Rudy was quite the "yes man" he tailored the sound to what they wanted.
Atlantic was mostly engineered by Tom Dowd under the supervision of Ahmet Ertegun (who founded Atlantic) and his brother Nesuhi who went on later to sign such class acts as Led Zeppelin and Bad Company to name a few.
Candid founded by Archie Bleyer and Nat Hentoff and Riverside by Orrin Keepnews who along with other labels, were also tiny operations but yet brought to the forefront all of the burgeoning talent of the time that we revere today. You could also consider them cutting edge with all of the stereo recording technology being introduced and the technological hurdles that were overcome to produce the stunning jazz recordings we still enjoy today.