George Avakian I Posted It Again
George Avakian, Tape Producer and Talent Scout, Dies at 98
George Avakian, a tape producer and talent scout who played a central function in the early careers of Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett and Bob Newhart, among many others, died on Wednesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 98.
His expiry was confirmed by his daughter Anahid Avakian Gregg.
Over the class of a career that began when he was in higher, Mr. Avakian (pronounced a-VOCK-ee-an) was involved in virtually every facet of the music industry. He helped popularize the long-playing record; organized the first jazz reissue series, preserving the recorded legacies of Louis Armstrong and other pioneers; and introduced Édith Piaf to American audiences.
He fabricated his almost lasting mark equally a jazz producer with Columbia Records in the 1950s. He brought Brubeck and Davis to the characterization, helping to transform them from artists with a loyal merely limited audience to international celebrities. He signed Johnny Mathis, and then an unknown jazz singer, and oversaw his emergence as a chart-topping pop star. He persuaded Louis Armstrong to record the German theater song "Mack the Pocketknife," an unlikely vehicle that became i of his biggest hits. And he supervised the recording of Duke Ellington's performance at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival, which revitalized Ellington's career.
George Mesrop Avakian was built-in on March 15, 1919, in Armavir, Russia, to Armenian parents, Mesrop and Manoushak Avakian. His family unit moved to the United States shortly after he was born. His younger blood brother, Aram, became a respected film editor and director.
An gorging jazz fan and record collector, George was a sophomore at Yale and already a published jazz critic when he persuaded Decca Records to allow him record the guitarist Eddie Condon and other musicians who had been fixtures of the Chicago scene a decade before. Those sessions, in 1939, produced "Chicago Jazz," a package of six 78 r.p.grand. recordings that is widely regarded as the first jazz album.
"When I saw how much alcohol Eddie Condon and his guys drank and driveling their health," Mr. Avakian told Downward Beat mag in 2000, "I was very alarmed and became convinced they couldn't possibly live much longer. So I persuaded Jack Kapp at Decca to allow me produce a serial of reunions to certificate this music before it was too late.
"They were simply in their mid-30s. But I was twenty. What did I know about drinking?"
Columbia hired Mr. Avakian in 1940 to get together and annotate a comprehensive jazz reissue serial, something no record visitor had undertaken earlier. Working i day a week for $25, he compiled anthologies of the work of Armstrong, Ellington, Bessie Smith and others, establishing a template that the manufacture continued to follow into the CD era.
In 1946, after 5 years in the Army, Mr. Avakian became a full-time member of Columbia'due south production staff.
While overseeing the visitor's jazz operations, he wore many other hats besides. He was in accuse of popular albums and served as a one-human being international department, releasing Piaf's "La Vie en Rose" and other important European records in the Us.
He also played a significant role in establishing the 33⅓-r.p.thou. long-playing tape as the manufacture standard, supervising production of the beginning pop LPs shortly subsequently the format was introduced in 1948.
Paradigm
Mr. Avakian after worked briefly for the World Pacific label before joining the Warner Bros. picture studio's newly formed record subsidiary, where he was in accuse of artists and repertoire from 1959 to 1962.
With a mandate to go Warner Bros. Records on solid financial ground past delivering hits, he temporarily shifted his focus from jazz. He brought the Everly Brothers to the label and signed a immature humorist named Bob Newhart, who had been working as an accountant in Chicago and moonlighting as a radio performer but had never performed for a live audience.
Mr. Newhart's commencement anthology, "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," became 1 of the all-time-selling comedy records of all fourth dimension.
In 1962, Mr. Avakian joined RCA Victor Records, where he was in charge of pop production just too had the opportunity to renew his involvement in jazz, producing critically acclaimed albums past Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond and others.
Tiring of the day-to-day grind of the record business, Mr. Avakian became a freelance manager and producer in the mid-60s. His first customer of note was Charles Lloyd, a saxophonist and flutist whose freewheeling style had attracted a young audition and who became one of the first jazz musicians to perform at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and other stone venues.
The pianist in Mr. Lloyd's quartet was Keith Jarrett, and Mr. Avakian worked with him as well, helping to lay the groundwork for his breakthrough every bit one of the about pop jazz musicians of the 1970s.
Past the tardily '90s Mr. Avakian had come up full circle: He returned to Columbia Records to supervise a series of jazz reissues. This time the medium was CD rather than vinyl. And this time many of the recordings being reissued had originally been produced past Mr. Avakian himself.
Mr. Avakian was married for 68 years to the violinist Anahid Ajemian, a founding fellow member of the Composers String Quartet. She died in 2016. Aram Avakian died at 60 in 1987.
In addition to Ms. Gregg, Mr. Avakian is survived past another daughter, Maro Avakian; a son, Greg; and two grandchildren.
In 2014, Mr. Avakian and Ms. Ajemian donated their archives, including unreleased recordings by Armstrong and Ellington, to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Amongst the many honors Mr. Avakian received were a Trustees Award for lifetime achievement from the National University of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2009 and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award for advocacy in 2010.
Receiving the N.Due east.A. award, he said at the fourth dimension, was "a culminating honour that confirms my long-held belief: Live long enough, stay out of jail, and you'll never know what might happen."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/obituaries/george-avakian-dead-record-producer-and-talent-scout.html
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