Norman Granz

The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice

Tad Hershorn

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780520267824
• eBook ISBN: 9780520949775
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Jazz Music

"Any book on my life would start with my basic philosophy of fighting racial prejudice. I loved jazz, and jazz was my way of doing that," Norman Granz told Tad Hershorn during the final interviews given for this book. Granz, who died in 2001, was iconoclastic, independent, immensely influential, often thoroughly unpleasant—and one of jazz's true giants. Granz played an essential part in bringing jazz to audiences around the world, defying racial and social prejudice as he did so, and demanding that African-American performers be treated equally everywhere they toured. In this definitive biography, Hershorn recounts Granz's story: creator of the legendary jam session concerts known as Jazz at the Philharmonic; founder of the Verve record label; pioneer of live recordings and worldwide jazz concert tours; manager and recording producer for numerous stars, including Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Prologue: “I Made Things Work”
• 1 “All I Wanted Was My Freedom”
• 2 “A Marvelous Crucible”
• 3 Cole Train
• 4 “The Opener”
• 5 Let Freedom Swing
• 6 Norman Granz versus . . .
• 7 Mambo Jambo
• 8 Enter Ella and Oscar
• 9 The Continental
• 10 “I Feel Most at Home in the Studio”
• 11 Starry Nights
• 12 “That Tall Old Man Standing Next to Ella Fitzgerald”
• 13 The Jazz Hurricane
• 14 “The Lost Generation”
• 15 Duke, Prez, and Billie
• 16 Joie de Verve
• 17 Across the Sea
• 18 “Musicians Don’t Want to Jam”
• 19 Picasso on the Beach
• 20 “One More Once”
• 21 Takin’ It on Out—for Good
• 22 “Somewhere There’s Music”
• Epilogue: “My Career, Such As It Is . . .”
• Acknowledgments
• Chronology
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index