Orrin Keepnews
Orrin Keepnews (March 2, 1923 – March 1, 2015) was an American jazz writer and record producer known for his work for Riverside Records and other labels.
Biography
Early life
Keepnews was born in the Bronx on March 2, 1923. He 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 & Schuster, Keepnews moonlighted as editor of The Record Changer, a small jazz magazine, after fellow Columbia graduate Bill Grauer became its owner in 1948. Keepnews wrote one of the earliest profiles of Thelonious Monk, then little known, for the publication.
In 1952 Grauer and Keepnews produced a series of reissues on RCA Victor's Label "X".
Riverside Records
The following year Grauer and Keepnews founded Riverside Records, which was initially devoted to reissue projects in the traditional and swing jazz idioms. "It was an act of more than moderate lunacy, to start a business on nothing but enthusiasm", he once said years later. "We had the arrogance of ignorance."
Podcasts:
