Verve Music Group Is Ready to Get Down to Business

It’s official. The much-ballyhooed merger between Verve Records and GRP is now a fait accompli. And the long-rumored label name--the Verve Music Group--instantly becomes the symbol for the world’s largest jazz recording company.

Four individual labels--Verve, GRP, Impulse! and Blue Thumb--each with a specific identity, will coexist under the Verve Music Group umbrella. Verve, with its large catalog and solid reputation, will focus on mainstream and traditional jazz. GRP, long a contemporary music trail-blazer, will continue to specialize in smooth jazz. Impulse! will concentrate on a catalog particularly ripe with vanguard performances from the ‘60s, and will release similarly evocative new recordings. And Blue Thumb, following its original path, will be a clearinghouse for projects reaching across the boundaries of world music, blues, special events and soundtracks.

The Verve Music Group’s current releases include three Grammy nominees--Herbie Hancock’s “Gershwin’s World,” Shirley Horn’s “I Remember Miles” and Danilo Perez’s “Central Avenue.” A new album from Diana Krall--whose current release, “Love Scenes,” has sold more than 600,000 copies and was the first jazz album to appear on Billboard’s jazz chart in the No. 1 position in three calendar years--will be released in June. Reportedly, Krall sings several tracks to the accompaniment of lush arrangements by Johnny Mandel.

What does the Verve Music Group’s centralization of power mean for jazz and the company in particular? Not much for some of the still unspecified artists who will be leaving the roster. “It sounds good,” said one former Verve musician who chose to remain anonymous, “but I’m not going to be around to see it.”

Verve Music Group CEO Tommy LiPuma, a first-rate producer who considers himself a music man first and a businessman second, nonetheless feels he has to take a pragmatic position. “Look,” he said recently, “if you have a roster that’s too big, you can’t expect a staff to give any single album the attention and time that it deserves.”

Ironically, that may turn out to be the factor that makes the merger good for jazz in general. A too-massive Verve Group could be like a bull in a china shop. A sleeker entity can serve as a model for the marketing of jazz into the next millennium.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to make something out of this,” LiPuma said. “If I wasn’t, I’d have to get into another profession.”

New Directions: Speaking of new marketing directions, another jazz executive, Blue Note President Bruce Lundvall, has often noted his preference for signing acts that are willing to actively tour to develop their audiences. Toward that end, Blue Note, Esquire magazine and Convergence Group Inc. are presenting four of the label’s most promising young artists--pianist Jason Moran, vibist Stefon Harris and saxophonists Greg Osby and Mark Shim--in a six-week, 20-city 1999 tour.

This will not be the typical record company promotion tour, however. In an effort to expand the potential jazz base for the talented quartet, the concerts generally avoid familiar jazz venues in favor of locations more commonly associated with pop acts. The Los Angeles stop on March 5, for example, will not be at Catalina Bar & Grill or the Jazz Bakery, but at the Mint, 6010 W. Pico Blvd. If the tour is as successful as Lundvall hopes it will be, it could have a significant impact upon the way jazz is marketed in the future.

“We’ve listened to the views of these players as well as their music,” Lundvall says, “and they represent the natural evolution of jazz for the new millennium.”

Fusion Redux: Bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White, the stalwart rhythm team from the seminal jazz fusion band Return to Forever, are the principals in Vertu, which they describe as a “new music collective.” The first album from the quintet, which also includes keyboardist Rachel Z, violinist Karen Briggs and guitarist Richie Kotzen, is currently entering into its post-production, and is scheduled for release May 24 on Legacy/550. According to White, however, “this is not about ‘Let’s play fusion again.’ . . . The band is comprised of aggressive instrumentalists who bring a lot of diverse influences to the mix--jazz, R&B;, rock, fusion and hip-hop--all 20th century forms yet collectively dealt with [in] a 21st century attitude.”

Riffs: Radio station WBGO and the Luce Group are celebrating the Duke Ellington centennial with the production of a series of radio shows dedicated to Ellington and hosted by Nat Hentoff and Stanley Crouch. The series includes 60 five-minute modules and 13 one-hour documentaries. The Southland’s KLON-FM (88.1) plans to run the first 20 modules at 7:45 p.m. after the current fund drive ends, with no decision at the moment on whether to broadcast the documentaries. . . . Dave Brubeck has endowed a new program in jazz studies at his alma mater, the University of the Pacific. The college also will become the repository for his archives, including manuscripts, tapes, compositions and correspondence. . . . The much-ballyhooed linkage announced last spring between Festival Productions, the world’s leading producer of music festivals, and Black Entertainment Television has been abandoned by both parties. “After nearly 50 years of operating as an independent company,” noted George Wein, Festival’s CEO, “we decided to continue what we do best--producing top-quality entertainment events while providing jobs and worldwide exposure for new and established musicians.”

Passing: Trombonist and vocalist Richard Boone, whose death in Copenhagen was reported last week by the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, was active in the Southland in the late ‘50s and ‘60s. Well-known for his humorous scat singing and dependable trombone work, he worked with Gerald Wilson and recorded with Dexter Gordon and Teddy Edwards before touring with Count Basie and settling in Denmark. From 1973 to 1985, he played with the highly regarded Danish Radio Big Band. Last year, he released “Tribute to Love,” recorded with a group of Danish players.