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Visionary founder of Verve, Pablo, and Jazz At The Philharmonic
While working as an assistant editor at Warner Brothers pictures, a young jazz
fan named Norman Granz acted as technical advisor for a ten minute short film,
Jammin' The Blues, which won an Academy Award for best short subject
for 1944. Granz should have gotten the director's credit, but settled for technical
advisor - probably a guild problem. Legendary photographer Gjon Mili was given
the director's credit and there's no argument here on that score because visually
he the star was his lighting and cinematography, but he probably wasn't a member
of the cameraman's union of IATSE. The film featured Lester Young, Illinois
Jacquet on saxes; Marlowe Morris on piano; Red Callendar,b; Big Sid Catlett
and Jo Jones, dms. plus dancer Archie Savage and dancer-vocalist Marie Bryant,
who sang well enough that a lot of people remember her as either Ella Fitzgerald
or Billie Holiday. Still the best ten minutes in jazz video history more than
a half-century later!
If Norman Granz had only done that one film, we'd have a lot of reasons to celebrate
his life which began in south central Los Angeles, August 6, 1918 and, sadly,
ended November 22, 2001 in Geneva, Switzerland.
When the Messner brothers started the Philo (later Aladdin) label that same
year, Norman Granz was on board to produce the legendary session by Lester Young
with Nat Cole on piano. Additional sessions followed. I always wondered if he
was involved in the Coleman Hawkins date with Miles Davis on trumpet.
When Aladdin quit business, they sold some of the Prez masters to the Bihari
Brothers who reissued some of the sides on their $1.00 Crown label. To cut down
on the mechanical royalties, they repeated some of Prez's solos on several of
the tunes so that the album would have 30 minutes of music on it. Sadly, this
meant that several Prez titles owned by Crown never were issued by that company.
These Aladdin records sold well enough that the label survived the early years
and was around to document the California blues scene: Charles Brown, Amos Milburn,
etc. etc. etc.
1944 was also the year Granz promoted (and recorded) a concert at the Philharmonic
Auditorium in L.A.. He sold the master to Moe Asch who issued it on his label,
then distributed by Disc Company of America (another great record biz story).
The album featured the first cover art of the great David Stone Martin. The
concert had been successful but the record was a revolution! The first live
jazz recording, Jazz At The Philharmonic, was followed by numerous other
volumes. JATP was a trade mark and you only needed the four initials to talk
about it. Tours and radio broadcasts followed. JATP even settled in the Sherman
Hotel in Chicago featuring Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge for a spell c.1948...I
used to listen to it in Wichita.
After a few additional albums with Disc, Granz started his Clef label which,
after the Keynote-Mercury merger, became Mercury's jazz line. But Norman kept
title to his masters and trademarks so when the original contract expired he
restarted Clef with his own distribution.
(Years later, since Granz hadn't bothered reclaiming his 78 rpm metal parts,
a print out of Mercury master holdings erroneously included such artists as
Charlie Parker, Lester Young, etc.)
Granz could afford a jazz label because his concerts were profitable. So profitable,
in fact, that he became a fighter for civil rights. If they wanted JATP they
could not discriminate against the people who had given birth to the music.
His concert-records formula has been followed in recent years in France with
Black & Blue Records and in Holland with Timeless.
In the late 50's, Granz wanted to issue more albums without inter-label competition
so he shifted some artists to Norgran and inaugurated the Verve label when he
signed Ella Fitzgerald. Clef and Norgran featured modern jazz and swing and
another brand, Down Home (purchased from Lu Watters) specialized in traditional
jazz which Granz virtually locked up by signing Red Allen, Jack Teagarden, Ralph
Sutton, Turk Murphy, Bob Scobey, Joe Sullivan, George Lewis and Kid Ory. Verve
became a jazz-pop label with Ella, Mel Torme and Anita O'Day on the roster but
he also had a spoken word series which introduced comedians Mort Sahl and Shelly
Berman successfully and a few others less so. Spike Jones, Ricky Nelson and
other unjazz artists also appeared on Verve.
The idea of multiple labels in the record business is to have different people
selling each label. It worked for RCA's Vik and Columbia's Epic labels because
these majors had their own branches to sell their main label, and indie distributors
were happy to have product backed with major label money and clout. But Granz
had a problem -- the distributors only wanted Verve and were oft unwilling to
handle the slower-moving other lines. So Granz switched his entire catalog to
Verve.
In 1959, Norman moved to Europe where he booked extensive tours and managed
Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald's careers, coming to the U.S. only for periods
short enough to maintain the tax advantage of his Swiss residency. He eventually
sold Verve to MGM. The package included 100+ unissued albums which, like the
Blue Note trove, may not see release in my lifetime.
Granz continued recording live concerts. He was involved in recording his two
artists on BASF as well so he eventually got that studio itch again. It's hard
to figure out just when he started Pablo because he was pressing small quantities
of those first releases and selling them by direct mail a year or two before
they were marketed thru stores (by RCA in the US) in 1973. It was Verve revisited.
Tho some of the greats had passed from the scene, he still had Ella, Basie,
Peterson, etc, and introduced Joe Pass and many others.
Did you know he had Nils-Henning Orsted Pedersen on salary? When Oscar Peterson
played Dick's Last Resort, the considerable fee for O.P. didn't include traveling
sidemen but Granz sent Pedersen to Chicago to accompany him. That's the kind
of man he was and the jazz scene won't replace him.
- Bob Koester
