(07) Ella Fitzgerald - Angel Eyes

(Matt Dennis-Earl Brent)
Ella Fitzgerald (vocal) with Barney Kessel (guitar). Recorded July 24, 1957 in Los Angeles. Produced by Norman Granz

A Brief History of the Verve Music Group

Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, and Chick Webb in the 20's. Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman, Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, Jimmie Lunceford, Roy Eldridge, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Jack Teagarden, and Teddy Wilson in the 30's. Nat "King" Cole, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Billy Eckstine, Bud Powell, and Machito in the 40's. Oscar Peterson, Johnny Hodges, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Art Blakey, Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sonny Rollins in the 50's. Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Jimmy Smith, Antonio Carlos, Jobim, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman in the 60's.


In each of the first five decades of recorded jazz, these great names began to make enduring contributions on the labels that are now part of the Verve Music Group Holdings. What's more, many of the artists listed, a virtual who's who of jazz on record, now have significant protions of their careers on VMG labels.

The VMG story begins with some holdings of two great early-jazz labels. Brunswick and Vocation. The first major label in VMG is Decca, started in the Depression by Jack Kapp and dedicated to all kinds of music, but first and foremost a big-band label.


Two remarkable labels followed that defined the work of great Swing Era small combos. Commodore and Keynote. The former, begun by Milt Gabler, who also worked for Decca, was the US label dedicated exclusively to jazz; the latter, the work of Harry Lim, was acturally begun during the recording ban in the early 40's. Between them, they recorded virtually every major combo player of the new era.


Next emerged the labels of the immediate postwar era, Mercury and Verve, which were linked by the presence of Norman Granz, who first worked at Mercury(where he issued some of his early Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts) and then founded Verve iin 1956 (and brought back to the studio many Swing Era starts). In the early 50's, Bob Shad inaugurated an all-jazz subsidiary of Mercury, EmArcy, which specialized in modern combo jazz and vocalists (while Mercury continued to produce more popular vocal records).


New Record companies were started in the 60's to reflect major change in taste. Impulse, under the forward-thinking Bob Thielel, became the jazz label most associated with the avant garde. ABC-Paramount's jazz operations (and impulse's, before Thiele) to biggest-selling albums.


Other record labels dot this history, among them Argo, Cadet, MGM, Limelight, and Philips. Suffice to say that much of the history of jazz is here. And that histor is secure.

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