The Jazz Business

Two thousand Swedish fans turned out in Stockholm last week to hear a rocking sample of the best brand of U.S. jazz, beaten out and bellowed by some of the best U.S. practitioners. First, half a dozen instrumentalists gave them a round of modern combo numbers, including C-Jam Blues and Perdido. Then Songstress Ella Fitzgerald stepped forward, let fly with Why Don't You Do Right? and St. Louis Blues. Finally, the stage was darkened and Gene Krupa, his face spotlighted from below, flailed away on the drums.

Between numbers the packed hall resounded to roars and whistles of approval and the stamping of teen-age feet. Afterward, it took the performers 45 minutes to fight their way through the ecstatic crowd outside. For U.S. Jazz Impresario Norman Granz, it was a comfortably reassuring beginning for his second annual invasion of Europe with his package show, "Jazz at the Philharmonic." In the next ten weeks, he and his musical tourists expect to put on much the same kind of program -- and get the same kind of flat tering attention -- in such cities as Oslo, Brussels, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Milan and Turin.

Impresario Granz, an indisputably successful music merchant at 34, finds that his richest field of operation is the U.S. From tours last year, his troupes grossed close to $1,000,000. Granz's business philosophy: "If I didn't make $100,000 take-home pay a year, I'd quit." But his current European tour, like last year's, is to "establish 'Jazz at the Philharmonic,' not make money--not right off."

No musician himself, Granz became a jazz fan while a philosophy major at U.C.L.A. After his junior year, he rounded up a group of little-known musicians who are now famed in their fields--Pianist Nat King Cole, Saxophonist Lester Young and Singer Billie Holliday--and held his first concert. "I felt there was something lacking," he says. "Nobody was bringing together the great musicians."

After a stint in Army Special Services, Granz put on another concert in 1944. The posters were supposed to read "Jazz Concert at the Philharmonic Auditorium," but there was too little space. The cards read "Jazz at the Philharmonic," and the name stuck.

Since 1946 Granz has run successful nationwide tours (up to 57 cities) every year. One reason for his success, as Granz sees it: "I give to people in Des Moines and El Paso the kind of jazz they could otherwise never see or hear." He also believes that he has learned as much as any living man about scaling a house, i.e., deciding how many seats to price at $4.80, etc. "You can't get piggish," he says. "On the other hand, you can't be easy. I've got a sixth sense about it."

Granz keeps his stable happy by giving them plenty of work, including recordings (released through Mercury), and by putting them up in the best hotels. Furthermore, he pays them well (up to $50,000 a year for such stars as Fitzgerald). "I figure you can live a lot longer with yourself if you share the gains with your people," he says. "I don't dig getting too hungry."

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