GNP Crescendo Record Co. is an

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

founded in 1954 by Gene Norman ''(né'' Eugene Abraham Nabatoff; 1922–2015). It started as a producer of jazz, then expanded into many other genres, including comedy, rock, and ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' soundtracks. Currently GNP Cresendo is run by Gene Norman's son, Neil Norman.

History

After hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles, Norman promoted concerts at the

Shrine Auditorium The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in Los Angeles, California. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 139) in 1975, and ...

The Hollywood Bowl The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018. The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...

and the Pasadena Civic Center, hosted popular radio shows on

KFWB KFWB (980 AM) is a commercial radio station in Los Angeles, California. It airs a classic Regional Mexican music format. KFWB is owned by Lotus Communications. The station has a colorful history, being the radio voice of Warner Bros. Studios i ...

and

KLAC KLAC (570 AM) is a commercial sports radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, serving Greater Los Angeles and much of surrounding Southern California. Owned by a joint venture between iHeartMedia, Inc. and the Los Angeles Dodgers bas ...

, and opened his own nightclubs, the Crescendo and The Interlude, on the Sunset Strip. The Crescendo hosted a wide swath of jazz legends and comedians, from

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

and

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop si ...

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

Mort Sahl Morton Lyon Sahl (May 11, 1927 – October 26, 2021) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, and social satirist, considered the first modern comedian. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current event t ...

Don Rickles Donald Jay Rickles (May 8, 1926 – April 6, 2017) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known primarily for his insult comedy. His film roles include ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958) with Clark Gable, Carl Reiner's '' Enter La ...

Dick Gregory Richard Claxton Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, civil rights leader, business owner and entrepreneur, and vegetarian activist. His writings were best sellers. Gregory became popular among the Afric ...

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

and

Bob Newhart George Robert Newhart (born September 5, 1929) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery style. Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his album of comedic monologues, ''The Button-Down Mi ...

. Norman often paid acts their weekly rate for a single night's engagement. The inspiration for the label was to issue live recordings made at concerts promoted and organized by Norman, under the umbrella of "Gene Norman Presents". GNP's releases included

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but addi ...

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

Lionel Hampton Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles M ...

Stan Kenton Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades. Though K ...

Gerry Mulligan Gerald Joseph Mulligan (April 6, 1927 – January 20, 1996), also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing the instrum ...

Frank Morgan Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound ...

(musician),

Max Roach Maxwell Lemuel Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was an American jazz Jazz drumming, drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in h ...

Charlie Ventura Charlie Ventura (born Charles Venturo; December 2, 1916 – January 17, 1992) was an American tenor saxophonist and bandleader from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Career During the 1940s, Ventura played saxophone for the bands o ...

and

Teddy Buckner Teddy Buckner (July 16, 1909 in Sherman, Texas – September 22, 1994 in Los Angeles, California) was an American jazz trumpeter associated with Dixieland music. Early in his career Buckner played with Sonny Clay. He worked with Buck Clayton ...

. GNP expanded beyond jazz. In the 1960s, it recorded

Billy Strange William Everett Strange (September 29, 1930 – February 22, 2012) was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and an actor. He was a session musician with the famed Wrecking Crew, and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and M ...

, the surf band The Challengers and the rock group

The Seeds The Seeds were an American psychedelic garage rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965, best known for their highest charting single " Pushin' Too Hard". The band's classic line-up featured frontman Sky Saxon, guitarist Jan Savag ...

, which landed four singles in the

Billboard Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming ...

chart. In the 1980s, GNP gave

Robin Trower Robin Leonard Trower (born 9 March 1945) is an English rock guitarist who achieved success with Procol Harum throughout 1967–1971, and then again as the bandleader of his own power trio known as the Robin Trower Band. Biography Robin Trowe ...

and

Savoy Brown Savoy Brown (originally Savoy Brown Blues Band) were an English blues rock band formed in Battersea, south west London, in 1965. Part of the late 1960s blues rock movement, Savoy Brown primarily achieved success in the United States, where t ...

comebacks. In 1982

zydeco Zydeco ( or , french: Zarico) is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Al ...

musician

Queen Ida Ida Lewis "Queen Ida" Guillory (born January 15, 1929) is a Louisiana Creole accordionist. She was the first female accordion player to lead a zydeco band. Queen Ida's music is an eclectic mix of R&B, Caribbean, and Cajun, though the presence of ...

won the label its first and only

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

out of multiple nominations. Gene Norman's son Neil, a fan of science fiction, secured a licensing deal from Paramount to release soundtracks of ''Star Trek'', both in its TV and movie incarnations. This led to a new area of concentration for the label. Neil Norman is also a musician who has released many albums on GNP (including numerous albums of themes from science fiction film and television). He also directed feature length films about GNP artists

and

Rusty Warren Rusty Warren (March 20, 1930 – May 25, 2021) was an American comedian and singer, specializing in sex-related themes and such songs as "Bounce Your Boobies" and " Knockers Up!". Early life Warren was born in New York City in 1930 and adopted s ...

. Currently, he is president of the label having started in the mail room and eventually producing many albums.

References

External links

*
The GNP-Crescendo Story
{{Authority control American independent record labels Jazz record labels Record labels established in 1954 IFPI members Companies based in Los Angeles