Norman Granz

Influential American jazz label founder, impresario and producer. Born August 6, 1918, in Los Angeles, California, USA, of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry, died November 22, 2001, in Geneva, Switzerland, aged 83. Granz was a fundamental figure in American jazz music, especially of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1946, he established [l76719], and in 1953, [l122392], which he ran alongside the smaller brand [l386299]. In 1956, he fused his label activities into [l5041], which he sold to MGM in 1960. In 1973, he established his fifth and last label, [l33121]. With the releases on these labels, Granz has supervised the recordings of a significant number of jazz classics. He started the [a=Jazz At The Philharmonic] (JATP) concert tours, which were perhaps the first marketed "jam sessions" to be distributed. The concerts were widely recorded and distributed under the [l384921] banner.