Norman Granz created Verve to produce new recordings by
Ella Fitzgerald, whom he managed; the first album the label released was
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book. The catalog grew throughout the 1950s and 1960s to include
Charlie Parker,
Bill Evans,
Stan Getz,
Billie Holiday,
Oscar Peterson,
Ben Webster, and
Lester Young. By 1960 Milton Rudin, Granz' attorney, represented
Frank Sinatra and knew that Sinatra wanted his own label. Sinatra and Granz made a handshake deal, but negotiations broke down over price and Sinatra's desire that Granz remain head of the label. Granz sold Verve to
MGM in 1960. Sinatra established
Reprise Records and hired
Mo Ostin, an executive at Verve, to run it. At Verve,
Creed Taylor was made head producer. Taylor adopted a more commercial approach, terminating several contracts. He brought
bossa nova to America with the release of
Jazz Samba by
Stan Getz and
Charlie Byrd,
Getz/Gilberto, and
Rain Forest by
Walter Wanderley. Verve's arrangers included
Claus Ogerman and
Oliver Nelson. According to Ogerman in
Jazzletter, he arranged 60–70 albums for Verve from 1963 to 1967. In 1964, Taylor supervised the creation of a
folk music subsidiary named Verve Folkways which was later renamed
Verve Forecast. Taylor left Verve in 1967 to form
CTI Records. Aside from jazz, Verve's catalogue included
the Righteous Brothers,
the Velvet Underground,
Frank Zappa &
the Mothers of Invention,
Rare Earth, and
the Blues Project, as well as a series of "Sound Impressions of an American on Tour" records which was produced in cooperation with
Esquire Magazine. The late 1960s relationship between Verve and other MGM labels is illustrated in the promotional "Music Factory" radio series for college stations hosted by A&R man
Tom Wilson, with studio guests from a variety of MGM labels:
Janis Ian,
Dave Van Ronk,
Richie Havens,
the Cowsills,
Lovin' Spoonful and more. Meanwhile, the program's conversations and advertisements pitched everything from
Nico and the
Velvet Underground (produced by Wilson) and the
Bosstown Sound bands (
Beacon Street Union,
Ultimate Spinach and
Orpheus), to MGM movie-soundtrack LPs such as
Gone with the Wind. While the Velvet Underground's first records did not initially sell well, the band became a major influence in independent rock music. See
The Velvet Underground & Nico and their second album,
White Light/White Heat. In the 1970s, Verve became part of
PolyGram, incorporating the
Mercury/
EmArcy jazz catalog, which
Philips, part-owners of PolyGram, had earlier acquired. Verve Records became the Verve Music Group after PolyGram was merged with
Seagram's
Universal Music Group in 1999. The jazz holdings from the merged companies were folded into this sub-group. In 1990, British group
Talk Talk signed to Polydor after conflicts with their previous label
EMI regarding a lack of commercial allure on their fourth album,
Spirit of Eden. Their fifth and final album,
Laughing Stock, was released through Verve on September 16, 1991 and, while being slightly divisive at the time, has since been reconsidered by critics and fans as their masterpiece and a precursor to the
post-rock movement. In the 1990s, as part of PolyGram Classics and Jazz, Verve signed
Herbie Hancock,
Wayne Shorter,
Joe Henderson,
Roy Hargrove,
John Scofield,
Shirley Horn,
Betty Carter,
Abbey Lincoln,
Chris Botti,
Jeff Lorber,
Gino Vannelli,
Art Porter,
Will Downing,
Christian McBride and
Incognito. When Universal and PolyGram merged in 1998, Verve's holdings were merged with Universal's
GRP Recording Company to become Verve Music Group. Verve was corporately aligned with Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) in 2006 and was no longer a stand-alone label within UMG during that time. Under this regime, led by UMe's President, Bruce Resnikoff, Verve won the
Grammy for album of the year, the first time a jazz record had garnered this award since another Verve album, Stan Getz's Getz/Gilberto, won in 1965. Verve Records went through several other leadership changes in the aughts (including stints by Danny Bennett and David Foster) before Jamie Krents took over with a revamped label team in 2019. Notable moments during this period include the signing of
Jon Batiste,
Samara Joy,
Kurt Vile and
Arooj Aftab. Verve has had particularly strong showings at the Grammy Awards since 2019 with
Jon Batiste leading the music industry in 2022 with 11 nominations and 5 wins, including album of the year, as well as a win for Aftab in Best Global Performance, and
Samara Joy winning Best New Artist in 2023, a first in the label's 67-year history. The Verve imprint itself manages much of the jazz catalog that once belonged to PolyGram (not including recordings by
Herb Alpert for his
A&M Records label which Alpert acquired in a legal settlement with Universal Music and are licensed to
Shout! Factory), while the
Impulse! Records imprint manages the portion of Universal's catalog that was acquired from
ABC Records, which itself includes the jazz catalog of the
Famous Music Group, which was once owned by
Paramount Pictures/
Gulf+Western, but which was sold to ABC in 1974. Meanwhile, GRP manages the rest of MCA/Universal's jazz catalog, including some releases once issued on the
Decca and
Chess labels. ==Verve Label Group==