He was the producer in the shadow of the albums Getz/Gilberto by Stan Getz and João Gilberto, Red Clay by Freddie Hubbard Genius + Soul = Jazz by Ray Charles, Africa/Brass by John Coltrane, Deodato 2 by Eumir Deodato, or even Stone Flower and wave by Antônio Carlos Jobim… Creed Taylor, founder of legendary labels such as CTI Records and Impulse!, passed away on Tuesday August 23, announced the Impulse! Records and Verve (where he worked) on social networks: “For more than 60 years, Creed Taylor has broadened the horizons of jazz,” can we read on their joint press release where his art of “to find new and special music that would accompany listeners forever”.
Remembering Creed Taylor 1929-2022. pic.twitter.com/o8LK6hyTFc
— impulse! records (@impulselabel) August 23, 2022
Originally from Virginia where he was born on May 13, 1929, Creed Taylor broke into the world of jazz in the 1950s. He made his debut as a producer with the label Bethleem Records where he already worked with artists such as Carmen McRae and Charles Mingus.
In 1956, Taylor joined the ABC-Paramount record company where he founded, four years later, the Impulse label! Records. In 1961 alone, he produced legendary albums like Genius + Soul = Jazz by singer Ray Charles, a mostly cover album co-arranged by Quincy Jones and Ralph Burns, and The Blues and the Abstract Truth by saxophonist Oliver Nelson. It also produces Africa/Brass, the first record on Impulse! of saxophonist John Coltrane whom he brought on his label. Alongside Creed Taylor, worked the sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder who contributed to the success of many jazz albums of the time and who would himself become a legend of jazz.
Creed Taylor doesn’t last long at Impulse! Records. During a busy 1961, he joined the Verve label created in 1956 by Norman Granz. It was there that he helped launch bossa nova in the United States, a refined fusion of jazz and samba that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the mid-1950s. This musical movement, as sensual as it is sophisticated, gradually invaded the world. The conquest started in 1962 with the album Jazz Samba saxophonist Stan Getz – who had just discovered this music in Brazil – and guitarist Charlie Byrd.
In March 1963 in New York, under the aegis of Creed Taylor, Getz recorded an album with singer and guitarist João Gilberto, his wife Astrud Gilberto for the parts sung in English, composer Antônio Carlos “Tom” Jobim on piano and d other Brazilian instrumentalists. The sessions were tense, sometimes stormy, Jobim acting as an intermediary – and mediator – between Getz and Gilberto, who accumulated artistic disagreements and differences over the choice of takes for the record… Taylor began to doubt. He fears that the album will be a failure and freezes the project for a year. Getz/Gilberto was finally released in March 1964 and met with both critical and commercial success. Most of the songs are signed Jobim, they will become timeless classics, like In Garota de Ipanema (a.k.a The Girl from Ipanema,one of the most played songs in the world), Corcovado (Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars), Desafinado and So Danco Samba.
Creed Taylor is not only interested in music. In his eyes, the visual of the disc is important. For the covers of Jazz Samba and Getz/Gilberto, the paintings of the Puerto Rican painter Olga Albizu will mark the spirits.
Still at Verve, in addition to Brazilian music, Taylor produces the records of American guitarist Wes Montgomery, from Movin’ Wes in 1964, until road song, recorded a few weeks before the jazzman’s untimely death in 1968. He also worked with pianist Bill Evans and organist Jimmy Smith, among others.
Continuing his journey between jazz and Brazil, Taylor founded his own label, CTI (Creed Taylor Inc.), in 1967, where he brought in sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder. Having befriended Tom Jobim, he had him record two pivotal albums in his career, essentially instrumental, wave (whose eponymous piece will become a jazz classic, 1967) and Stone Flower (1970).
On the CTI label, or on A&M Records where Creed is also a producer, other great artists will shine at the turn of the 60s and 70s, from the Brazilian pianist Eumir Deodato (Deodato 2, 1973) to Quincy Jones (including Walking in Space in 1969), trumpeter Freddie Hubbard (Red Clay, 1970) to drummer Airto Moreira (Free in 1972, fingers in 1973), but also the singer and guitarist George Benson (with the records Bad Benson in 1974 and Good King Bad in 1975, during a very jazz period of his career), the trumpeter Chet Baker (She Was Too Good to Me, 1974), saxophonists Paul Desmond (Pure Desmond, 1975) and Gerry Mulligan (Carnegie Hall Concert, with Chet Baker, 1974), bassist Ron Carter (four albums with CTI between 1973 and 1976), singer Nina Simone (Baltimore, 1978)…
CTI will experience various financial and legal problems in the mid-1970s, which will finally lead to the purchase of the catalog by Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony. But these difficulties did not tarnish the image of Creed Taylor, a visionary and audacious actor in jazz, capable of skillfully balancing the artistic and commercial aspects of his productions.
> TSF Jazz radio pays tribute to Creed Taylor on Wednesday evening, August 24, in its program “JazzLive” from 9 p.m.