According to Creed Taylor,1 Herb Alpert (b. 1935) and Jerry Moss (1935-2023) – the A and M of A&M Records – approached the producer as early as 1965, at that year’s Grammy Awards dinner ceremony. Alpert and Moss wanted Taylor to produce records for their recently launched label, home to Alpert’s hugely successful Tijuana Brass. Calls went back and forth for many months.
Finally, in June 1967, Billboard magazine reported that A&M Records had reached an agreement with Creed Taylor to produce a branded line of jazz records, marking A&M’s entrée into the higher-priced ($5.79 at the time) gatefold album line.2 The records would reportedly bear the A&M logo as well as Taylor’s imprint, “Tayco Sound.” Obviously, “CTI” had not yet been decided.
The deal, reported to be worth “$1 million over five years,” was negotiated between A&M president Jerry Moss and Taylor’s agent, Clarence Avant (1931-2023). Recalling the deal years later, Avant said he told A&M he could deliver Taylor, who was making $35,000 a year at MGM (Verve’s parent company), but only if they could promise him $150,000 a year (about $1.5 million in current dollars) for three years at A&M. The daring Avant held firm. After more than a year of negotiations, Alpert and Moss finally agreed. 3
When an announcement of Taylor’s “long term contract” with A&M appeared the following month in DownBeat magazine, it was reported the producer would “continue to supervise sessions for Verve until the expiration of his commitment.”4 But by that time Taylor had already wrapped up his Verve obligations with the previous month’s recordings of Jimmy Smith’s Respect (surprisingly their last collaboration), Walter Wanderley’s exceptional Batucada (Wanderley would join Taylor at A&M for two records) and Astrud Gilberto’s Beach Samba (all 1967).
Initial reports indicated that Taylor had signed Antonio Carlos Jobim and Wes Montgomery5 – both major coups. This was the reason Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss wanted Creed Taylor in the first place: Taylor knew how to attract and present the best jazz had to offer. But he knew he had the latitude to ask for – and get – the best himself. “I am enormously impressed with Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss,” said Taylor at the time. “Of course, it’s partly because of the fantastic success they’ve achieved in four years. But it’s primarily because their approach to the whole recording business has shown such remarkable selectivity and creative conviction.”6
That may well be sincere flattery or a form of self-aggrandizement, but Taylor’s success was rewarded by A&M Records giving him carte blanche to achieve his vision.
Interestingly, A&M did not initially see Taylor’s jazz productions as a separate entity; that is, as CTI records: “We haven’t found it necessary to develop a separate label for jazz as a special product,” noted A&M’s then General Manager (and later President) Gil Friesen (1937-2012). “We are building the A&M name.” Most people confine jazz to jazz radio stations, Friesen claimed. “A&M intends to promote its jazz product on a scale.”7
(It may be worth considering that Friesen’s comment about “scale” might have somehow influenced Taylor’s thinking about the record business, particularly in regard to his later deals with Motown and Columbia.)
But right from the very beginning, Taylor planned on making his productions look and sound as distinctive from every other jazz record as well as those coming out on A&M. After all, these records were the result of his vision, his singular skills and understanding and, above all, they bore his signature, an affirmation, assurance and guarantee of what you’re getting. First class all the way.
Creed Taylor, Inc., which also served as A&M’s first East Coast office, was initially located at 36 East 57th St., in Midtown Manhattan’s prestigious (and pricey) Plaza District, while A&M maintained its principal office at 1416 North La Brea Avenue, Hollywood, Calif.8
Endnotes:
- Creed Taylor, “Interview: Creed Taylor (Part 14),” interview by Marc Myers, Jazzwax.com, November 7, 2008. ↩︎
- Claude Hall, “A&M, Taylor $1 Mil. Deal,” Billboard, June 10, 1967, p. 1. ↩︎
- Clarence Avant, “I Became This Cat Making Crazy Deals,” interview by Gail Mitchell, Billboard, February 11, 2006, p. 62. ↩︎
- “Potpourri,” DownBeat, July 27, 1967, p. 13. Also, Record World, July 22, 1967, p. 116. ↩︎
- Montgomery’s signing to A&M was announced in May 1967, the same month that Montgomery’s Taylor-produced Verve date, The Dynamic Duo, was released, and several weeks before Creed Taylor’s move to the label (Billboard, May 24, 1967, p. 22). Other sources indicate Montgomery was signed to the label earlier in the year, before Taylor’s deal was finalized. ↩︎
- Hall, 1967, p. 10. ↩︎
- Billboard, June 24, 1967, p. 12. ↩︎
- Record World, June 10, 1967, pp. 4-12. ↩︎