VERVE
Verve Records was an American Jazz record label, founded by Norman Granz in 1956, which absorbed the catalogs of his earlier Norgran Records and Clef (founded 1953) labels.
The Verve catalog grew throughout the 1950s and 1960s to include most of the major figures in jazz, though Granz tended to record established artists, sometimes in decline, rather than new talent. It also recognized the potential of comedy albums, producing Spike Jones’ first LP, Dinner Music For People Who Aren’t Very Hungry in 1956 and several best-selling albums featuring live performances by Shelley Berman beginning in 1960.
Granz sold Verve to MGM Records in 1961 for $3 million. Albums were now produced by Creed Taylor, but new recordings ceased, for twenty tears, in the late ‘sixties .
In the seventies the label became part of the Polygram label group, at this point incorporating the Mercury/EmArcy jazz catalog, which Phillips, part owners of Polygram had earlier acquired. Seagram bought Polygram in 1998 and merge it with its Universal Music group. Both Polygram & Universal’s jazz holdings were folded into the Verve Music Group.
Since 2002, the label has released a series of Verve Remixed compilation discs where classic tracks by Verve artists are remixed by contemporary electronic music DJs.
| VERVE Labels | |||||||||||||||
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| Verve Mono CLEF SERIES – 1st Label, sliver fonts on the black background
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Verve Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – 3rd pressing, number starts with V, Label without groove | |||||||||||||
