Creed Taylor

American producer and label manager
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Born: 13th May 1929 Lynchburg, Virginia, USA
Died: 22nd Aug 2022 Winkelhaid, Bavaria, Germany
Jazz producer and the founder of two legendary labels: Impulse! (as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount) and CTI Records an independent production company, initially an imprint and distributed by A&M Records. After August 1969 CTI Records became wholly independent. CTI’s subsidiaries Kudu, and Three Brothers Records. He also founded Greene Street Records and several publishing companies, among them Char-Liz Music, Inc. and Three Brothers Music. Creed Taylor has been a huge influence in many producers such as Esmond Edwards, Tommy LiPuma, Dave Grusin, Arnaldo DeSouteiro and Dave Matthews. He started his career as a trumpet player influenced by Ernie Royal, and became a record producer when working in the ’50s for Bethlehem Records and, later, ABC-Paramount.

He was hired by ABC-Paramount in December 1955 to set up a jazz department for the label. Later on, he went on to produce jazz albums for Verve and in July 1967 started producing records for A&M’s New York operation. Taylor produced a number of albums credited to the The Creed Taylor Orchestra. This was in effect , Kenyon Hopkins was under contract at the time. Taylor did not play on any of the albums.