About this item

Histories of jazz slight record producers. They are invisible generally unknown and seldom acknowledged. And yet, we have a jazz canon those recordings that define an artform because of the contributions of producers: such as Milt Gabler, George Avakian, Bob Weinstock, Lester Koenig, Orrin Keepnews, Esmond Edwards, Creed Taylor, Don Schlitten, Teo Macero, Bob Thiele, Ed Michel, Joel Dorn, Tommy LiPuma, Michael Cuscuna, John Snyder, and Bill Laswell. Starting from in-the-moment creations of musicians, they envisioned and fashioned albums that enrich our lives. For this oral history, all of the above and many other producers were interviewed and asked about the roles they played in making great recordings. What exactly does a jazz producer do, anyway? Clustered around specific records ordered chronologically, their comments tell the story of the jazz album and grant rare behind-the-scene glimpses of how recordings were fashioned.