Verve Records

Verve Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Jon Batiste, and Diana Krall, among other notable artists, as well as a diverse mix of recordings that fall outside the jazz category, with albums from such disparate artists as the Velvet Underground, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and many more. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records.

The label has continued to be the home to an eclectic mix of modern artists, including Kurt Vile, Everything But the Girl, Samara Joy and Arooj Aftab. The restructured Verve Records is now part of the Verve Label Group (VLG), a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. This company is also home to historic imprints including Verve Forecast, Impulse! and Decca Records.

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.