Jac Holzman (born 1931) founded
Elektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009.-Beginnings:...
in his
St. John's CollegeSt. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
dorm room in 1950 and
Nonesuch RecordsNonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to license European recordings of classical music. Originally it concentrated heavily on chamber and baroque music, often...
in 1964. He signed such legendary acts as
The DoorsThe Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California by vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. They are considered a controversial and influential band, due mostly to Morrison's cryptic lyrics and unpredictable...
and the
Paul Butterfield Blues BandPaul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player who gained international recognition in part as one of the acts performing at the original Woodstock Festival...
to Elektra and discovered folk singer
Judy CollinsJudith Marjorie Collins is an American folk and standards singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism.-Musical career:As a child Collins studied classical piano with Antonia Brico, making her public debut at age 13,...
. In 1970 he sold all his
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
interests to
Kinney National CompanyKinney National Services, Inc. was formed in 1966 when the Kinney Parking Company and the National Cleaning Company merged. The new company was headed by Steve Ross....
for $10 million. Soon afterwards Kinney consolidated their label holdings under the
Warner CommunicationsWarner Communications was established in 1972 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations and changed its name....
umbrella.
Holzman continued to run Elektra until 1973, when he was appointed senior vice president and chief technologist for Warner.
Jac Holzman (born 1931) founded
Elektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009.-Beginnings:...
in his
St. John's CollegeSt. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...
dorm room in 1950 and
Nonesuch RecordsNonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to license European recordings of classical music. Originally it concentrated heavily on chamber and baroque music, often...
in 1964. He signed such legendary acts as
The DoorsThe Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California by vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. They are considered a controversial and influential band, due mostly to Morrison's cryptic lyrics and unpredictable...
and the
Paul Butterfield Blues BandPaul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player who gained international recognition in part as one of the acts performing at the original Woodstock Festival...
to Elektra and discovered folk singer
Judy CollinsJudith Marjorie Collins is an American folk and standards singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism.-Musical career:As a child Collins studied classical piano with Antonia Brico, making her public debut at age 13,...
. In 1970 he sold all his
musicMusic is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
interests to
Kinney National CompanyKinney National Services, Inc. was formed in 1966 when the Kinney Parking Company and the National Cleaning Company merged. The new company was headed by Steve Ross....
for $10 million. Soon afterwards Kinney consolidated their label holdings under the
Warner CommunicationsWarner Communications was established in 1972 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations and changed its name....
umbrella.
Holzman continued to run Elektra until 1973, when he was appointed senior vice president and chief technologist for Warner. Holzman ushered the company into
home videoHome video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or hired for home entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into the current DVD/Blu-ray Disc age...
and the first interactive
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting in which a television antenna is required...
system. He was a director at Pioneer Electronics through the 1970s, helping that company, and Warner, adopt the
compact discA Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store sound recordings exclusively, but later it also allowed the preservation of other types of data. Audio CDs have been commercially available since October 1982...
. He also worked on product planning as a member of the board of
AtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Infogrames Entertainment SA ....
, one of the first videogame companies, which Warner bought in 1976.
In 1982, following the murder/death of President and founder,
Robert GottschalkRobert Gottschalk was a camera technician and founder of Panavision.His father specialized in building movie theatres, which left the family well-off financially and influenced Gottschalk's interest in film...
, Holzman became chairman of
PanavisionPanavision is a motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product lines to meet...
, a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner and helped turn that financially troubled company around. In 1986, he formed FirstMedia, a closely held investment firm specializing in communications. FirstMedia led the acquisition of
Cinema Products CorporationCinema Products Corporation was an American manufacturer of motion picture camera equipment.It was formed in 1968 by Ed DiGiulio, a former director and vice-president of the Mitchell Camera Corporation....
, the largest non-camera maker of precision equipment for the motion picture industry which includes the Oscar winning
SteadicamA Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera, which mechanically isolates the operator's movement from the camera, allowing a very smooth shot even when the operator is moving quickly over an uneven surface...
camera support system.
In 1991, through FirstMedia, Holzman acquired the Discovery, Trend and Musicraft jazz labels from the estate of Albert Marx which he refashioned into a fully contemporary label. In 1993,
Discovery RecordsDiscovery Records was a United States based record label known for its recordings of jazz music.Discovery was founded in 1948 by jazz fan and promoter Albert Marx...
was acquired by
Warner Music GroupWarner Music Group is the third-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the "big four" record companies. The current incarnation of the company was formed in 2004 when it was spun off by Time Warner, and as a result, Time Warner no longer...
.
After
Edgar Bronfman, Jr.Edgar Miles Bronfman, Jr. , formerly CEO of Seagram and vice-chairman of Vivendi Universal, has been CEO of Warner Music Group since 2004...
and a group of investors bought Warner Music Group from
Time WarnerTime Warner Inc. is the world's largest entertainment conglomerate , as well as the world's fourth largest media conglomerate, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City...
in 2004 for $2.6 billion, Bronfman brought Holzman out of quasi-retirement to help revitalize his company, reuniting him with the company that had acquired his previous forays into the music business. Although Holzman's work at Warner Music covers a range from mentoring executives to brokering deals, his main project to date has been the creation of an electronic-only label,
Cordless RecordingsCordless Recordings is a netlabel owned by Warner Music Group. The label was founded in 2005 by Jac Holzman, who also founded Elektra Records and Nonesuch Records.-Affiliation with Rykodisc - Present:...
, which was introduced in late 2005. Its role is to bring out new bands that Warner is interested in but is not certain if they are worth the nearly half-million dollars to cut an album.
He wrote the story of Elektra Records in his book
Follow the Music, published in hardcover in 1998 (ISBN 0-9661221-1-9) and paperback in 2000 (ISBN 0-9661221-0-0).
Holzman is the father of
Adam HolzmanAdam Holzman is a musician. He was born on February 15, 1958 in New York City. The son of Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, by the early '80s, he was working at a respected instrument store in Los Angeles where he became an expert in MIDI technology and synthesizer programming.These skills led...
, a jazz-rock keyboardist who has played with
Miles DavisMiles Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music including cool jazz, hard bop, free jazz...
, Jaclyn Easton, and Marin Sander-Holzman, an artist and film maker.
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