ABSTRACT
A firm located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, maker of “L’Artiste,” a disc player advertised heavily in 1920.
Promoter, manager, founder of Verve Records, Norman Granzowes his many successes to a combination of great taste and savvy business practices. Originator of the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series (the first concert was held in Los Angeles in 1944) and tours, Granz introduced American jazz to millions of people through these live concerts and his recordings of them around the world. From the late 1940s, Granz licensed distribution rights to the concert recordings to Mercury Records, but retained ownership of the master tapes. When the arrangement with Mercury expired in 1953, Granz released the music under his Clef label, and a few years later consolidated Clef and other ventures into Verve Records. During the 1950s Granz began his association with singer Ella Fitzgerald, whom he managed while she was under contract to Decca, and later when the jazz legend was on the Verve roster. Granz’s last Jazz at the Philharmonic tour came in 1957.
