George Avakian

American record producer, artist manager, writer, educator and executive of Armenian heritage.
Born March 15, 1919 in Armavir, Russia.
Died November 22, 2017 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.

In 1940, Avakian produced the first jazz album, a collection of six 78RPM discs titled "Chicago Jazz" for Decca (Decca 121) featuring Eddie Condon and his associates with the package including a 12 page booklet, one of the first examples of liner notes. Soon afterwards, he was hired at Columbia for a reissue anthology series ("Hot Jazz Classics") and uncovered some significant unissued Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith masters from years earlier. After war service in the army, he rejoined Columbia in 1946 and was involved in the transition of the company's releases to the LP format. In 1950, he issued the first double-LP containing the recording of Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert performed on January 16, 1938. He placed Dave Brubeck and Johnny Mathis (then in his late teens) under contract and produced Armstrong's albums including the W. C. Handy tribute and persuaded Armstrong to record "Mack the Knife". After hearing Miles Davis at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed the trumpeter, and convinced the owner of the Prestige label Bob Weinstock (to whom Davis was under contract) to stockpile recordings for the four remaining albums of his contract; the albums Columbia would release would effectively serve as cross-promotion. A little later, Avakian reunited Davis with Gil Evans for "Miles Ahead" beginning their sequence of LP collaborations, In this period, Avakian was head of Columbia's Popular Album Department' (which included Jazz) and the International section. In the later role, he issued Edith Piaf's recording of "La Vie en Rose" in the United States. He left Columbia in late 1957. After a brief period at World Pacific Records, he joined Warner Bros. Records (where he signed the Everly Brothers, the comedian Bob Newhart and Chico Hamilton) and then RCA Victor in 1962, contracting both Sonny Rollins and Paul Desmond, but ended his association with the label by the end of 1963 having tired of working for large companies. He ended his main career in the music industry as a manager of Charles Lloyd (from 1964), as well as Keith Jarrett (from 1967, negotiating his original contract with ECM Records), and as a freelance producer. He returned to Columbia in the 1990s to reissue some of the recordings he had produced decades earlier.

Avakian was married to the violinist Anahid Ajemian for 68 years.