Norman Granz

American impresario, jazz label founder and producer.

Born August 6, 1918, in Los Angeles, California, USA, of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry, died November 22, 2001, in Geneva, Switzerland, aged 83.

His series of jazz concerts began at the Los Angeles Philharmonic on July 2, 1944, a benefit concert for Hispanic youths jailed in the "zoot suit" riots in the city. Monthly concerts followed, establishing what became known as [a=Jazz At The Philharmonic] (JATP). Tours followed in the US and Canada from 1946 (continuing until 1957, the last was the eighteenth US tour, though JATP briefly resumed a decade later), in Japan during 1953 with 20 concerts and Europe from 1952, continuing with European concerts during the next decade. Granz insisted on non-segregated audiences, dropped certain bookings because venues resisted, and was responsible for the first racially integrated concerts in some American cities. Some concerts were recorded and first distributed under the [l384921] banner, others were unofficially recorded.

In June 1947, he established [l76719] (initially within [l39357] as head of their jazz department, though Granz retained the rights to his JATP recordings), and in spring 1954, [l122392] after his links to Mercury ended, which he ran alongside [l386299], a label for early jazz. On Christmas Eve 1955, he announced, he was fusing his label activities into [l5041], and quickly began the Ella Fitzgerald Songbook series, now releasing about 150 LPs a year during this period. He sold Verve to MGM for $2.5 million in 1960. In 1973, he established his last label, [l33121], the albums on Pablo were initially only available by mail-order; he sold this label to [l268137] in 1987.

Granz moved to Switzerland around 1959 continuing to manage [a31615] and [a254394], plus [a145257] during the sixties, and organized concerts in Europe. On November 1, 1999, Granz received a "Lifetime Achievement Award” from Jazz at Lincoln Center.