Gene Norman

b. 22 January 1922, Brooklyn, NY, USA, d. 2 November 2015, Hollywood. California, USA. Located in California in the past due 40s and 50s, Norman was energetic as a disk jockey, record maker and concert promoter. Although he once warned worker Norman Granz never to waste materials his period “with one of these senseless jazz presentations if you wish to stick with me”, he adopted Granz’s example and offered all-star jazz concerts of his personal. Among these periods, which he tagged Simply Jazz, was the exceptional 1947 concert which Lionel Hampton’s All Superstars documented ‘Star Dirt’, developing a performance which has ever since continued to be on the net. He also documented the 1949 Woody Herman music group in concert. Furthermore to his Simply Jazz activities, that have been mainstream to contemporary, Norman kept annual Dixieland Jubilee and Blues Jubilee concerts. The previous included performers such as for example Teddy Buckner as the last mentioned featured performers of the best calibre, included in this Dinah Washington, Jimmy Witherspoon, Helen Humes and ‘Big’ Joe Turner. A few of Norman’s Simply Jazz periods and his Dixieland and Blues concerts had been released by himself label, Gene Norman Presents (GNP), a few of which were afterwards reissued on Contemporary Records. Through the 50s, Norman’s label documented other leading performers, including Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Bley as well as the Max Roach-Clifford Dark brown Quintet.