Keepnews, Orrin (New York, 2 March 1923)

Record producer

After graduating from Columbia University (1943) he worked for a publishing company and from 1948 wrote for the Record Changer, published by his former classmate Bill Grauer. In 1952 he and Grauer initiated for RCA-Victor's X label a series of 10-inch albums of reissues of important recordings by such artists as Johnny Dodds, Jelly Roll Morton, Bennie Moten, and King Oliver. In the following year they founded the record company and label Riverside, which at first offered a similar series of reissues, but soon made many important new recordings in bop and related styles, including seminal albums by Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans; Keepnews acted as producer for most of these sessions himself. After a period doing freelance work he ran the company and record label Milestone (1966-72) before moving to San Francisco to direct jazz productions for Fantasy; Fantasy acquired the catalogues of Prestige (in 1971), Riverside (in 1972), and Milestone (in 1973), and Keepnews reissued items from these three catalogues on an acclaimed series of double and triple albums. He resigned as a vice-president of Fantasy in 1980 to devote more time to producing albums for that company and others, then in 1985 established a new company and label, Landmark. Throughout his career he has also been a prolific writer.