Orrin Keepnews
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Orrin Keepnews (born March 2, 1923 in The Bronx, New York City) is an American jazz record producer and writer. Keepnews graduated from Columbia[link] with a degree in English in 1943. Subsequently, he was involved in bombing raids over Japan in the final months of World War II, before returning for graduate studies at Columbia in 1946.
After a spell working for publishers Simon and Schuster, Keepnews served as editor of Record Changer from 1948, after fellow Columbia graduate Bill Grauer became its owner. In 1952 Grauer and Keepnews acted as overseers for reissues on RCA Victor, notably on the "X" label. The following year the partners founded Riverside Records, with the secondary tag "A Bill Grauer Production" on album sleeves, initially continuing with reissue projects in the traditional and swing jazz idioms.
After the pianist Randy Weston persuaded them to sign Thelonious Monk, Keepnews and Grauer shifted their attention on to the burgeoning modern jazz scene for most of the label's releases. In 1961, he produced what many regard to be the greatest live jazz recording of all time with Bill Evans and his trio. Keepnews was the supervisor for the majority of recording sessions, with Grauer concentrating on business affairs, which ultimately proved to be marred by "creative accounting". In 1963, Grauer died suddenly, and Keepnews unsuccessfully struggled to save the company from the bankruptcy which followed in 1964. For a time Keepnews worked in the industry as a freelance.
With new partner, pianist Dick Katz, Keepnews started Milestone Records in 1966. Lee Konitz, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson were signed by Keepnews for releases on Milestone.
In 1972 he relocated to San Francisco as director of jazz A & R at Fantasy Records. Milestone was bought by Fantasy in the same year, and signed Sonny Rollins, who Keepnews had worked with at Riverside. At Fantasy Keepnews oversaw the repackaging of the companies holdings in the idiom as twofers, including many albums he had produced earlier in his career at Riverside. After leaving his job at Fantasy in 1980, because he disliked working for someone else, Keepnews returned to working as a freelance.
In 1985 Keepnews founded Landmark Records,[link] which included albums recorded by the Kronos Quartet of music by Bill Evans and Monk, as well as straight jazz albums. For Landmark, Bobby Hutcherson recorded his most extensive sequence of latter-day albums. Landmark passed to Muse Records in 1993.
In the CD era Keepnews has continued to be responsible for extensive reissue compilations, including the Duke Ellington 24CD RCA Centenniel set in 1999.
One of Keepnews sons, Peter Keepnews, is a jazz critic for the New York Times.
Bibliography
- Orrin Keepnews & Bill Grauer (1956 [1982]) A Pictorial History of Jazz: People and Places from New Orleans to Modern Jazz, Hale Publishing, ISBN 0517000091
- Orrin Keepnews (1989) The View from Within: Jazz Writings, 1948-87, OUP (USA) ISBN 0195052846
External link
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