ABSTRACT

Pop/jazz producer/label executive, LiPuma was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and began his career listening to and playing jazz. As a teenager, he got work as a jazz saxophonist in local bands, and then relocated to southern California in the mid-1960s. In 1968, he was hired as a staff producer for A&M, where he oversaw hits by the pop vocal group the Sandpipers and chanteuse Claudine Longet. He co-owned the Blue Thumb label in the early 1970s, producing a variety of acts including the retro-pop group Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. In the 1970s he was hired by Warner Bros. but also worked as a freelancer, producing Barbra Streisand (soundtrack for The Way We Were [1974]), Dave Mason (Alone Together [1970]), and George Benson (the big selling Breezin’ album [1976]), among many others. LiPuma produced Miles Davis’s last pop-jazz albums for Warner Bros. (Tutu [1986], and Amandla [1987]). In 1990, he was hired by Elektra Records, where he oversaw the work of jazz-influenced pop stars like Anita Baker, David Sanborn, and Natalie Cole’s homage to her father, the album Unforgettable. In 1995, he was appointed president of GRP and Impulse! Records,where he revived the Blue Thumb label, and in 1999 became president of the Verve Group (which subsumed GRP and other jazz labels owned by BMG). He has achieved recent success producing the jazz vocalist Diana Krall.