Legendary Jazz Record Exec Norman Granz Dies

11/28/2001 7:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Kastle

(11/28/01, 7 a.m. ET) -- Jazz record label legend Norman Granz died Thursday (November 22) in Switzerland. He was 83.

Granz founded the Verve label, and he was known for nurturing and recording jazz luminaries such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker.

Granz started his career as a film editor at MGM, booking jazz shows in Los Angeles on the side. He founded the famous Jazz At The Philharmonic concert series in 1944, which became a critical and commercial success. He pioneered live recordings of jazz concerts, bringing its spontaneous side to a generation of home listeners. He originally released Jazz At The Philharmonic recordings on Mercury Records, but he eventually went on to found a series of labels himself.

He recorded many new and established stars, including Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, the Count Basie Band, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Flip Phillips, Illinois Jacquet, Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, Gene Krupa, Ben Webster, Buddy DeFranco, **Louis Bellson**, Tal Farlow, and Sonny Stitt.

In 1954 Granz became manager of Ella Fitzgerald when she was under contract to Decca. In1956 he made the move of consolidating all his labels--including Verve, Clef, Norgran, Pablo, and Down Home--under the Verve name, and bringing Ella Fitzgerald to Verve when her Decca contract ran out. Fitzgerald at that time recorded her critically acclaimed "Songbook" series of interpretations of classic American songwriters.

Granz was known for breaking down racial barriers by touring with integrated bands, paying white and black musicians the same rates, and canceling shows when musicians were treated unfairly.

Granz sold Verve to MGM in 1960, when he was 42, and then moved to Switzerland.

-- Dave Ankers, New York

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