Creed Taylor
Encyclopedia
Creed Taylor is an American record producer
, best known for his work with CTI Records
, which he founded in 1968. Taylor’s career also included work at Bethlehem Records
, ABC-Paramount, Verve
, and A&M Records
. He is widely acknowledged for bringing major bossa nova
talent from Brazil (Antonio Carlos Jobim
, João
and Astrud Gilberto
, among others) to record in the U.S. in the 1960s.
as a source of inspiration during his high school years. Taylor recalls spending many evenings beside a small radio, listening to Symphony Sid
's live broadcasts from Birdland in New York City.
After high school, Taylor completed an undergraduate degree in psychology from Duke University
in 1951 while actively performing with the student jazz ensembles the Duke Ambassadors
and the Five Dukes. Taylor credits Duke’s strong tradition of student-led jazz ensembles, and Les Brown's
association with Duke in particular, as initially drawing him to the university. As he recalls, "The reason I went to Duke was from hearing Les Brown and all the history of the bands who went through Duke. This was really a great jazz band, . . . and the book was handed down from one class to the next, you had to audition and all the best players who came to Duke got in the band. . . . I had a ball when I was there." After graduating from Duke, Taylor spent two years in the Marines before returning to Duke for a year of graduate study.
with the Ellis Larkins Trio. Due in part to the album's success, Taylor went on to become head of artists and repertory for Bethlehem Records. He was at Bethlehem during its two most significant years, recording such artists as Oscar Pettiford
, Ruby Braff
, Carmen McRae
, Charles Mingus
, Herbie Mann
, Charlie Shavers
, and the J.J. Johnson
-Kai Winding Quintet
.
. Motivated by the idea of a label dedicated to tasteful, current jazz, Taylor worked with ABC-Paramount executive Harry Levine to advocate for the label, which he dubbed “The New Wave in Jazz.” He is best known for recruiting John Coltrane
to record on Impulse!, who went on to create over twenty albums with the label before his passing in 1967. Taylor’s accomplishments during this period also included gaining immediate credibility for the label by releasing successful gate-fold albums by Ray Charles
, Gil Evans
, Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson and Oliver Nelson
. Taylor was sensitive to the importance of album cover design for visually drawing people to the music, and he regularly hired photographers Pete Turner
and Arnold Newman
to create cover images. Taylor’s successful Impulse! albums regularly blurred the genre-based lines between jazz and popular music, and his superb production values became the hallmark of the label.
” with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Getz. Jobim, a prolific writer on both piano and guitar, had come up with numerous melodies based on the rhythm of the bossa nova. One such piece, "Desafinado," found its way into the repertoire of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (who intuitively recognized the connection to his genre) and caught the ear of jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd
while he was on tour in Brazil.
When Byrd returned to the States in 1961 armed with "Desafinado" and a cache of new Brazilian songs, the first person he rang up was jazz producer Creed Taylor. As Taylor recalls, “I went down to Brazil a few times and spent some time at Jobim’s house and met all the players down there. Then of course after “Desafinado” became a hit, Jobim wanted to come up and see what New York was like, so he came in to see me right off the bat. That started a long friendship and series of albums.”
As Gene Lees
puts it, “Creed Taylor was treating [bossa nova] with respect and dignity. Were it not for Creed Taylor, I am convinced, bossa nova and Brazilian music generally would have retreated in to itself, gone back to Brazil... and become a quaint parochial phenomenon interesting to tourists, instead of the worldwide music and the tremendous influence on jazz itself that it in fact became.”
While at Verve, Taylor also produced immensely popular recordings by Wes Montgomery
, Jimmy Smith
, Bill Evans
and many others.
, Stanley Turrentine
, George Benson
, Chet Baker
, Gerry Mulligan
, Nina Simone
, Paul Desmond
, Art Farmer
, Herbie Hancock
, and Ron Carter
are just a few of the many successful jazz artists who recorded on CTI during the 1970s. Taylor also formed other labels within CTI, including the Kudu label, which focused on soul-jazz recordings by Hank Crawford
, Grover Washington, Jr.
, Esther Phillips and others
Bert Gambini, a radio programmer in Buffalo, summarizes, “In evaluating CTI, I'm going to borrow the wisdom of Witold Rybczynski
, the architectural historian. He felt there was no such thing as a timeless building. Certain structures were admired because they are specifically of their time. I think this too is the case with CTI jazz. This music screams of its era and that's the reason why it's so enjoyable. It's that temporal stamp that I interpret as an asset, not as a liability. Instead of Creed Taylor, think Glenn Miller
for a moment. If you want to aurally represent an era like the early 1940s Swing era, is there any better representation than 'In the Mood' or 'String of Pearls'? The same thing applies to Creed Taylor's CTI's brand of Jazz from 1970 to 1980".
In 1974, Taylor faced financial problems caused by setting up his own network to distribute CTI labels and made a new distribution deal with Motown. This, however, ended in litigation in 1977 with Taylor having to lose Grover Washington and the artist's Kudu recordings as part of the settlement to quit Motown. He also lost the rights to Bob James's solo recordings for CTI in separate litigation. CTI went into Chapter XI bankruptcy in late 1978 before Taylor reached a distribution deal with Columbia Records the following year, in return for the rights to the remaining master recordings.
Columbia oversaw various reissue programs of CTI’s catalog material, including on CD for the first time. Taylor attempted to buy back the rights to the tapes in 1989, but the recordings remain with Columbia/Sony BMG with sporadic re-releases. Taylor returned to record production in 1990 with a few new album releases on CTI through Polygram but without the success of the 70s.
(Bill Evans, 1963), “The Girl from Ipanema” (Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto, 1964), “Willow Weep for Me
” (Wes Montgomery, 1969), and “First Light
” (Freddie Hubbard
, 1972).
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, best known for his work with CTI Records
CTI Records
CTI Records was a jazz record label founded in 1967 by producer/A&R manager Creed Taylor. Initially, CTI was a subsidiary of A&M Records, but the label went independent in 1970...
, which he founded in 1968. Taylor’s career also included work at Bethlehem Records
Bethlehem Records
Bethlehem Records was a record label based in New York and Hollywood founded by Gus Wildi in 1953. It was bought by King Records in the early 1960s....
, ABC-Paramount, Verve
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
, and A&M Records
A&M Records
A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...
. He is widely acknowledged for bringing major bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
talent from Brazil (Antonio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...
, João
João Gilberto
João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.-Biography:From an early age, music...
and Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She is well known for the Grammy Award-winning song "The Girl from Ipanema".-Biography:...
, among others) to record in the U.S. in the 1960s.
Biography
Early Work
Taylor spent his childhood in Bedford, Virginia, where he played trumpet in the high school marching band and symphony orchestra. Although he grew up surrounded by country music and bluegrass, he gravitated more toward the sounds of jazz, citing Dizzy GillespieDizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
as a source of inspiration during his high school years. Taylor recalls spending many evenings beside a small radio, listening to Symphony Sid
Symphony Sid
Sid Torin was a long-time jazz disk jockey in the United States. Many critics have credited him with introducing jazz to the mass audience.-Early life:...
's live broadcasts from Birdland in New York City.
After high school, Taylor completed an undergraduate degree in psychology from Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
in 1951 while actively performing with the student jazz ensembles the Duke Ambassadors
Duke Ambassadors
The Duke Ambassadors were a student-run jazz big band, active at Duke University from 1934-1964. Student-run big bands continued in 1969 as the Duke Stage Band and from 1971-1974 as the Duke Jazz Ensemble...
and the Five Dukes. Taylor credits Duke’s strong tradition of student-led jazz ensembles, and Les Brown's
Les Brown (bandleader)
Les Brown, Sr. and the Band of Renown are a big band that began in the late 1930s, initially as the group Les Brown and His Blue Devils that Brown led while a student at Duke University. He was the first president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences...
association with Duke in particular, as initially drawing him to the university. As he recalls, "The reason I went to Duke was from hearing Les Brown and all the history of the bands who went through Duke. This was really a great jazz band, . . . and the book was handed down from one class to the next, you had to audition and all the best players who came to Duke got in the band. . . . I had a ball when I was there." After graduating from Duke, Taylor spent two years in the Marines before returning to Duke for a year of graduate study.
The Bethlehem Years
Shortly thereafter, Taylor relocated to New York City in order to pursue his dream of becoming a record producer. Although he had no formal training at the time in record production, he recalls his "mix of naivete and positive thinking" that convinced him that he could succeed. After arriving in NYC, Taylor approached another Duke University alum who was running Bethlehem Records. Taylor convinced Bethlehem Records to allow him to record the vocalist Chris ConnorChris Connor
Chris Connor was an American jazz singer.-Biography:She was born as Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Missouri to Clyde and Mabel Loutsenhizer. She studied and became proficient on the clarinet, having studied for 8 years throughout junior high and high school...
with the Ellis Larkins Trio. Due in part to the album's success, Taylor went on to become head of artists and repertory for Bethlehem Records. He was at Bethlehem during its two most significant years, recording such artists as Oscar Pettiford
Oscar Pettiford
Oscar Pettiford was an American jazz double bassist, cellist and composer known particularly for his pioneering work in bebop.-Biography:...
, Ruby Braff
Ruby Braff
Reuben "Ruby" Braff was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. Jack Teagarden was once asked about him on the Gary Moore TV show and described Ruby as "The Ivy League Louis Armstrong."Braff was born in Boston...
, Carmen McRae
Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
, Charlie Shavers
Charlie Shavers
Charles James Shavers , known as Charlie Shavers, was an American swing era jazz trumpet player who played at one time or another with Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmy Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams and Billie Holiday...
, and the J.J. Johnson
J.J. Johnson
J. J. Johnson was a United States jazz trombonist, composer and arranger. He was sometimes credited as Jay Jay Johnson....
-Kai Winding Quintet
Kai Winding
Kai Chresten Winding was a popular Danish-born American trombonist and jazz composer. He is well known for a successful collaboration with fellow trombonist J. J. Johnson.-Biography:...
.
The ABC-Paramount Years
In 1956 Taylor left Bethlehem to join ABC-Paramount, where four years later he founded the subsidiary label Impulse!Impulse! Records
Impulse! Records was an American jazz record label, originally established in 1960 by producer Creed Taylor as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount Records, based in New York City...
. Motivated by the idea of a label dedicated to tasteful, current jazz, Taylor worked with ABC-Paramount executive Harry Levine to advocate for the label, which he dubbed “The New Wave in Jazz.” He is best known for recruiting John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
to record on Impulse!, who went on to create over twenty albums with the label before his passing in 1967. Taylor’s accomplishments during this period also included gaining immediate credibility for the label by releasing successful gate-fold albums by Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Gil Evans
Gil Evans
Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States...
, Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson and Oliver Nelson
Oliver Nelson
Oliver Edward Nelson was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger and composer.-Early life and career:...
. Taylor was sensitive to the importance of album cover design for visually drawing people to the music, and he regularly hired photographers Pete Turner
Pete Turner (photographer)
Pete Turner is an American photographer. He is perhaps best known as one of the first masters of color photography. PDN voted him as one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time and in 1981 the A.S.M.P. awarded him the prestigious Outstanding Achievement in Photography honor.Noted...
and Arnold Newman
Arnold Newman
Arnold Abner Newman was an American photographer, noted for his "environmental portraits" of artists and politicians...
to create cover images. Taylor’s successful Impulse! albums regularly blurred the genre-based lines between jazz and popular music, and his superb production values became the hallmark of the label.
The Verve Years
Although he signed John Coltrane for Impulse in 1960, Taylor left the following year to accept a job with Verve Records. There he prominently introduced bossa nova to the US through recordings such as “The Girl from IpanemaThe Girl from Ipanema
"Garota de Ipanema" is a well-known bossa nova song, a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s that won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel.The...
” with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Getz. Jobim, a prolific writer on both piano and guitar, had come up with numerous melodies based on the rhythm of the bossa nova. One such piece, "Desafinado," found its way into the repertoire of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (who intuitively recognized the connection to his genre) and caught the ear of jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd
Charlie Byrd
Charlie Lee Byrd was a famous and versatile American guitarist born in Suffolk, Virginia. His earliest and strongest musical influence was Django Reinhardt, the famous gypsy guitarist. Byrd became the American guitarist who best understood and played Brazilian music, especially the Bossa Nova genre...
while he was on tour in Brazil.
When Byrd returned to the States in 1961 armed with "Desafinado" and a cache of new Brazilian songs, the first person he rang up was jazz producer Creed Taylor. As Taylor recalls, “I went down to Brazil a few times and spent some time at Jobim’s house and met all the players down there. Then of course after “Desafinado” became a hit, Jobim wanted to come up and see what New York was like, so he came in to see me right off the bat. That started a long friendship and series of albums.”
As Gene Lees
Gene Lees
Frederick Eugene John "Gene" Lees was a Canadian music critic, biographer, lyricist, and former journalist. Lees worked as a newspaper journalist in his native Canada before moving to the United States where he was a music critic and lyricist...
puts it, “Creed Taylor was treating [bossa nova] with respect and dignity. Were it not for Creed Taylor, I am convinced, bossa nova and Brazilian music generally would have retreated in to itself, gone back to Brazil... and become a quaint parochial phenomenon interesting to tourists, instead of the worldwide music and the tremendous influence on jazz itself that it in fact became.”
While at Verve, Taylor also produced immensely popular recordings by Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
, Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith (musician)
Jimmy Smith was a jazz musician whose performances on the Hammond B-3 electric organ helped to popularize this instrument...
, Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
and many others.
The A&M Years
Taylor began working at A&M Records in 1967 and formed his own label, CTI (Creed Taylor Inc.), the following year. A&M distributed CTI releases until 1969, when Taylor left A&M to establish CTI as an independent record company. Wes Montgomery joined Taylor at A&M, where he recorded his final three albums.The CTI Years
Taylor soon established CTI among the most popular and successful jazz record companies of the 1970s, achieving fame for his unrivalled ability to balance the artistic with the commercial. Musicians including Freddie HubbardFreddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
, Stanley Turrentine
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
, George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
, Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
, Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond , born Paul Emil Breitenfeld, was a jazz alto saxophonist and composer born in San Francisco, best known for the work he did in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for penning that group's greatest hit, "Take Five"...
, Art Farmer
Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette. His identical twin brother, Addison Farmer Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer (August 21, 1928, Council Bluffs, Iowa –...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, and Ron Carter
Ron Carter
Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
are just a few of the many successful jazz artists who recorded on CTI during the 1970s. Taylor also formed other labels within CTI, including the Kudu label, which focused on soul-jazz recordings by Hank Crawford
Hank Crawford
Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. was an American R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, soul jazz alto saxophonist, arranger and songwriter...
, Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr.
Grover Washington, Jr. was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.He wrote some of his material and...
, Esther Phillips and others
Bert Gambini, a radio programmer in Buffalo, summarizes, “In evaluating CTI, I'm going to borrow the wisdom of Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski , is a Canadian-American architect, professor and writer.Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England before moving at a young age to Canada. He attended Loyola High School , located on Sherbrooke street, in Montreal-Ouest...
, the architectural historian. He felt there was no such thing as a timeless building. Certain structures were admired because they are specifically of their time. I think this too is the case with CTI jazz. This music screams of its era and that's the reason why it's so enjoyable. It's that temporal stamp that I interpret as an asset, not as a liability. Instead of Creed Taylor, think Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
for a moment. If you want to aurally represent an era like the early 1940s Swing era, is there any better representation than 'In the Mood' or 'String of Pearls'? The same thing applies to Creed Taylor's CTI's brand of Jazz from 1970 to 1980".
In 1974, Taylor faced financial problems caused by setting up his own network to distribute CTI labels and made a new distribution deal with Motown. This, however, ended in litigation in 1977 with Taylor having to lose Grover Washington and the artist's Kudu recordings as part of the settlement to quit Motown. He also lost the rights to Bob James's solo recordings for CTI in separate litigation. CTI went into Chapter XI bankruptcy in late 1978 before Taylor reached a distribution deal with Columbia Records the following year, in return for the rights to the remaining master recordings.
Columbia oversaw various reissue programs of CTI’s catalog material, including on CD for the first time. Taylor attempted to buy back the rights to the tapes in 1989, but the recordings remain with Columbia/Sony BMG with sporadic re-releases. Taylor returned to record production in 1990 with a few new album releases on CTI through Polygram but without the success of the 70s.
Awards
Taylor has won numerous Grammy Awards for his decades of production work. These include awards for: Focus (Stan Getz, 1961), “Desafinado” (Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd, 1962), Conversations with MyselfConversations with Myself
Conversations with Myself is a 1963 album by American jazz musician Bill Evans.-History:Recorded at three different studio sessions on February 6 and 9, and May 20, 1963, Evans recorded the album using the then controversial method of overdubbing three different yet corresponding piano tracks for...
(Bill Evans, 1963), “The Girl from Ipanema” (Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto, 1964), “Willow Weep for Me
Willow Weep for Me
"Willow Weep for Me" is a popular song composed in 1932 by Ann Ronell, who also wrote the lyrics. It is mostly known as a jazz standard, but it was a Top 40 hit for the British duo Chad & Jeremy in 1964.-Notable recordings:...
” (Wes Montgomery, 1969), and “First Light
First Light
First Light may refer to:* First Light , 2007* First Light * First Light , 1971* First Light , a 1987 nonfiction book on astronomy by Richard Preston...
” (Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
, 1972).