ORRIN KEEPNEWS

American writer and jazz record producer Orrin Keepnews, was born on March 2, 1923 in The Bronx, New York City.

Keepnews graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English in 1943. Subsequently, he was involved in bombing raids over Japan in the final months of World War II, before returning for graduate studies at Columbia in 1946.

While working as an editor for the book publishers Simon and Schuster, Keepnews moonlighted as editor of The Record Changer magazine after fellow Columbia graduate Bill Grauer became its owner in 1948. In 1952 Grauer and Keepnews produced a series of reissues on RCA Victor's Label "X". The following year the partners founded Riverside Records, which was originally devoted to reissue projects in the traditional and swing jazz idioms.

Pianist Randy Weston was the first modern jazz artist signed by the label, and he helped them to begin paying attention to the current jazz scene. Their most significant early move came in 1955, when they were made aware of the availability of Thelonious Monk, who was able to terminate his contract with Prestige Records and became Riverside's first major artist. From this point, the label concentrated on the burgeoning modern jazz scene.

With Keepnews as producer, and adding such significant young artists as Bill Evans,Cannonball and Nat Adderly, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Griffin, Jimmy Heath, the label soon rivalled Prestige and Blue Note Records as the leading New York-based independent labels. In 1961, Keepnews produced what many regard as one of the greatest live jazz recordings of all time with the Bill Evans Trio, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. During this period, Grauer concentrated on business affairs, which ultimately proved to be marred by "creative accounting". At the end of 1963, Grauer died following a sudden heart attack, and Keepnews was unable to save the company from the bankruptcy that followed in mid-1964.

After a period of free-lance activity, Keepnews started Milestone Records in 1966 with a new partner, pianist Dick Katz. Among their most notable artists over the next several years were McCoy Tyner,Joe Henderson,Lee Konitz and Gary Bartz.

Late in 1972 he relocated to San Francisco as director of jazz A&R at Fantasy Records, which had just acquired the Riverside masters. Milestone was bought by Fantasy in the same year, and signed Sonny Rollins, who Keepnews had worked with at Riverside. At Fantasy Keepnews oversaw the repackaging of the company's holdings in the idiom as "twofer"s, including many albums he had produced earlier in his career at Riverside. Bill Evans joined Fantasy at this time, reuniting their previous partnership, however his manager, the late Helen Keane, later a successful producer in her own right, took charge of Evans recording.

After leaving his job at Fantasy in 1980 because, as he said, "even under the best of circumstances, I can't be happy working for someone else," Keepnews returned to working as a freelance.

In 1985 Keepnews founded Landmark Records which included albums recorded by the Kronos Quartet of music by Bill Evans and Monk, as well as straight jazz albums. For Landmark, Bobby Hutcherson recorded his most extensive sequence of latter-day albums. Landmark passed to Muse Records in 1993.

In the CD era Keepnews has continued to be responsible for extensive reissue compilations, including the Duke Ellington 24CD RCA Centennial set in 1999 and Riverside's Keepnews Editions series.
One of his sons, Peter Keepnews, is an editor at the New York Times.

Awards & Tributes

Bill Evans' composition "Re: Person I Knew" was an early tribute to Orrin Keepnews: the title is an anagram of his name.
Orrin Keepnews won several Recording Academy Grammy Awards in the 1980's:Best Album Notes for The "Interplay" Sessions performed by Bill Evans in 1984 and Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes for Thelonious Monk: The Complete Riverside Recordings in 1988. In 2004 was given a Trustees Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Academy.

Orrin talks about The Sound of Sonny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MDTckEx2Hs

Reference - Wikipédia