Nesuhi Ertegun
Encyclopedia
Nesuhi Ertegun was a Turkish
record producer and executive of Atlantic Records
and WEA International
.
, Turkey
, Nesuhi and his family, including younger brother Ahmet
, moved to Washington, D.C.
in 1935 with their father Münir Ertegün
, who was appointed the Turkish
Ambassador to the United States
in that year.
From an early age, Nesuhi’s primary musical interest was jazz. He had attended concerts in Europe before his family moved to the USA. While living at the Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C., he promoted jazz concerts during 1941-44.
revival recordings in 1944 and 1945 plus other recordings by Pete Daily and Turk Murphy. For details on this seminal period in Ertegun's career, see Cary Ginell's "Hot Jazz for Sale: Hollywood's Jazz Man Record Shop."
Although his main interest was initially New Orleans jazz, which he also wrote about while serving as the editor of Record Changer magazine, Ertegün was open to more modern styles. He sold the Jazz Man label in 1952 and worked for Lester Koenig at Contemporary Records. While there, he taught the first history of jazz course ever given for academic credit at a major American university at UCLA.
In 1955, he was preparing to work for Imperial Records to develop their jazz record line and develop a catalog of LPs. However, Ahmet Ertegün and Jerry Wexler
persuaded him instead to join their company, Atlantic Records, where he was made a partner. He became vice-president in charge of the jazz and LP
department at Atlantic, building up the label’s extensive catalog of jazz LPs. He was responsible for investing in the album market, improving the quality of recordings and sleeve formats.
As a producer at Atlantic he worked with John Coltrane
, Charles Mingus
, Ornette Coleman
, the Modern Jazz Quartet
and many others. Nesuhi also became involved with the label’s rhythm & blues and rock and roll roster, first recruiting songwriters and producers Leiber and Stoller, with whom he had worked in California, and producing several hit records for Ray Charles
, Chris Connor
, the Drifters
, Bobby Darin
and Roberta Flack
.
With Ahmet, he also co-founded the New York Cosmos
soccer team of the North American Soccer League
. They were instrumental in bringing in soccer legends like Giorgio Chinaglia
, Pelé
, Carlos Alberto
and Franz Beckenbauer
to the club.
In 1971, Nesuhi founded WEA International, now Warner Music International. While at WEA International, Nesuhi demonstrated tremendous independence and character, often going against the wishes of his U.S. counterparts. In the 1980s Neshui released the single "Girls, Girls, Girls" by then unknown Latin-American rockers Renegade
forcing a domestic release of their debut album Rock N' Roll Crazy!. The domestic label had demanded the band members change their names to "less ethnic" sounding names. Nesuhi was incensed by the demand, and set out to break the record and the act internationally with the band's given names. He remained head of the Warner Records International Division until he retired in 1987.
He died on July 15, 1989, at the age of 71, due to complications following cancer surgery at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City
.
Nesuhi was an avid collector of Surrealist art. His collection (along with that of his friend's, Daniel Filipacchi
) was exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York in 1999 in “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, the Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections”--an event described by The New York Times
as: “a gourmet banquet,” large enough to “pack the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
from ceiling to lobby with a powerful exhibition.” http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D91F30F937A35755C0A96F958260
Nesuhi Ertegün was inducted posthumously into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. He was posthumously awarded the Grammy Trustees Award
for lifetime achievements in 1995. For his contributions to the sport of soccer, he and Ahmet were inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame
in 2003. The Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame at Jazz at Lincoln Center
was dedicated to him in 2004.
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
record producer and executive of Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
and WEA International
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
.
Background
Born in IstanbulIstanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Nesuhi and his family, including younger brother Ahmet
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegün was a Turkish American musician and businessman, best known as the founder and president of Atlantic Records. He also wrote classic blues and pop songs and served as Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum...
, moved to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
in 1935 with their father Münir Ertegün
Münir Ertegün
Mehmet Münir Ertegün was a Turkish legal counsel in international law to the "Sublime Porte" of the late Ottoman Empire and a diplomat of the Turkish Republic during its early years...
, who was appointed the Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
Ambassador to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in that year.
From an early age, Nesuhi’s primary musical interest was jazz. He had attended concerts in Europe before his family moved to the USA. While living at the Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C., he promoted jazz concerts during 1941-44.
Career
When his father died in 1944, and most of the rest of his family returned to Turkey, Nesuhi decided to stay in the USA and moved to California. He married Jazz Man Record Shop owner Marili Morden and helped run the shop as well as establishing the Crescent record label. After purchasing Jazz Man Records, he discontinued Crescent and issued traditional jazz recordings on Jazz Man until 1952. At Jazz Man, Nesuhi produced classic Kid OryKid Ory
Edward "Kid" Ory was a jazz trombonist and bandleader. He was born in Woodland Plantation near LaPlace, Louisiana.-Biography:...
revival recordings in 1944 and 1945 plus other recordings by Pete Daily and Turk Murphy. For details on this seminal period in Ertegun's career, see Cary Ginell's "Hot Jazz for Sale: Hollywood's Jazz Man Record Shop."
Although his main interest was initially New Orleans jazz, which he also wrote about while serving as the editor of Record Changer magazine, Ertegün was open to more modern styles. He sold the Jazz Man label in 1952 and worked for Lester Koenig at Contemporary Records. While there, he taught the first history of jazz course ever given for academic credit at a major American university at UCLA.
In 1955, he was preparing to work for Imperial Records to develop their jazz record line and develop a catalog of LPs. However, Ahmet Ertegün and Jerry Wexler
Jerry Wexler
Gerald "Jerry" Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was regarded as one of the major record industry players behind music from the 1950s through the 1980s...
persuaded him instead to join their company, Atlantic Records, where he was made a partner. He became vice-president in charge of the jazz and LP
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
department at Atlantic, building up the label’s extensive catalog of jazz LPs. He was responsible for investing in the album market, improving the quality of recordings and sleeve formats.
As a producer at Atlantic he worked with John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
, Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
, the Modern Jazz Quartet
Modern Jazz Quartet
The Modern Jazz Quartet was established in 1952 by Milt Jackson , John Lewis , Percy Heath , and Kenny Clarke . Connie Kay replaced Clarke in 1955...
and many others. Nesuhi also became involved with the label’s rhythm & blues and rock and roll roster, first recruiting songwriters and producers Leiber and Stoller, with whom he had worked in California, and producing several hit records for Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Chris Connor
Chris Connor
Chris Connor was an American jazz singer.-Biography:She was born as Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Missouri to Clyde and Mabel Loutsenhizer. She studied and became proficient on the clarinet, having studied for 8 years throughout junior high and high school...
, the Drifters
The Drifters
The Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953...
, Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
and Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack
Roberta Flack is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music...
.
With Ahmet, he also co-founded the New York Cosmos
New York Cosmos
The New York Cosmos were an American soccer club based in New York City, New York and its suburbs. The team played home games in three stadiums around New York before moving in 1977 to Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey, where it remained for the rest of its history...
soccer team of the North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League
North American Soccer League was a professional soccer league with teams in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984.-History:...
. They were instrumental in bringing in soccer legends like Giorgio Chinaglia
Giorgio Chinaglia
Giorgio Chinaglia is a former football striker from Italy. He grew up and played his early football in Cardiff, Wales and began his career with Swansea Town in 1964. A year later at age 19, Chinaglia returned to Italy to play for Massese, and then Internapoli, before joining S.S. Lazio in 1969...
, Pelé
Pelé
However, Pelé has always maintained that those are mistakes, that he was actually named Edson and that he was born on 23 October 1940.), best known by his nickname Pelé , is a retired Brazilian footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time...
, Carlos Alberto
Carlos Alberto Torres
Carlos Alberto Torres is a former Brazilian footballer, one of the most highly regarded defenders of all time. He captained Brazil to victory in the 1970 World Cup and is a member of the World Team of the 20th Century, as well as the U.S...
and Franz Beckenbauer
Franz Beckenbauer
Franz Anton Beckenbauer is a German football coach, manager, and former player, nicknamed Der Kaiser because of his elegant style, his leadership, his first name "Franz" , and his dominance on the football pitch...
to the club.
In 1971, Nesuhi founded WEA International, now Warner Music International. While at WEA International, Nesuhi demonstrated tremendous independence and character, often going against the wishes of his U.S. counterparts. In the 1980s Neshui released the single "Girls, Girls, Girls" by then unknown Latin-American rockers Renegade
Renegade (band)
Renegade is an American rock n' roll band composed of Luis Cardenas, Kenny Marquez and Tony De La Rosa. Although each member hails from the United States, the band is widely recognized as being the first Hispanic or "Chicano rock" band to gain acceptance in the United States. Throughout Latin...
forcing a domestic release of their debut album Rock N' Roll Crazy!. The domestic label had demanded the band members change their names to "less ethnic" sounding names. Nesuhi was incensed by the demand, and set out to break the record and the act internationally with the band's given names. He remained head of the Warner Records International Division until he retired in 1987.
He died on July 15, 1989, at the age of 71, due to complications following cancer surgery at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Nesuhi was an avid collector of Surrealist art. His collection (along with that of his friend's, Daniel Filipacchi
Daniel Filipacchi
Daniel Filipacchi is the Chairman Emeritus of Hachette Filipacchi Médias.His life and career have been noted for his passionate involvement in art collecting, photography, and jazz...
) was exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York in 1999 in “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, the Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections”--an event described by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as: “a gourmet banquet,” large enough to “pack the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
from ceiling to lobby with a powerful exhibition.” http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D91F30F937A35755C0A96F958260
Nesuhi Ertegün was inducted posthumously into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. He was posthumously awarded the Grammy Trustees Award
Grammy Trustees Award
The Grammy Trustees Award is awarded by the Recording Academy to "individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording". Through 1983, performers could also receive this award...
for lifetime achievements in 1995. For his contributions to the sport of soccer, he and Ahmet were inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame
National Soccer Hall of Fame
The National Soccer Hall of Fame is a private, non-profit institution established in 1979 that honors soccer achievements in the United States.-History:...
in 2003. The Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame at Jazz at Lincoln Center
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. JALC's performing arts complex, Frederick P. Rose Hall, is located at West 60th Street and Broadway in New York City, slightly south of the main Lincoln Center campus and directly adjacent to Columbus Circle. Frederick P....
was dedicated to him in 2004.