Carl Jefferson was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

, and was the founder of the Concord Records

Concord Records

Concord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...

 label.

Prior to entering the music business, Jefferson sold used cars. In 1969, he organized a jazz festival in Concord, California

Concord, California

Concord is the largest city in Contra Costa County, California, USA. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 122,067. Originally founded in 1869 as the community of Todos Santos by Salvio Pacheco, the name was changed to Concord within months...

, the Concord Summer Festival; several years later it was renamed the Concord Jazz Festival

Concord Jazz Festival

The Concord Jazz Festival is an annual event that was established in 1969 in Concord, California.The festival was launched by Carl Jefferson, a car dealer and jazz enthusiast, who managed to get a group of friends to support the concept. The city agreed to pay for half the cost...

. He founded Concord Records in 1972 to offer many of his favorite musicians an outlet for recording; the label initially specialized in guitarists (Herb Ellis

Herb Ellis

Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...

, Charlie Byrd

Charlie Byrd

Charlie Lee Byrd was a famous and versatile American guitarist born in Suffolk, Virginia. His earliest and strongest musical influence was Django Reinhardt, the famous gypsy guitarist. Byrd became the American guitarist who best understood and played Brazilian music, especially the Bossa Nova genre...

, Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel

Barney Kessel was an American jazz guitarist born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. Generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century, he was noted in particular for his vast knowledge of chords and inversions and chord-based melodies...

) but soon branched out into swing (Scott Hamilton

Scott Hamilton (musician)

Scott Hamilton is a jazz tenor saxophonist, born in 1954 and associated with swing and mainstream jazz.-Biography:He emerged in the 1970s and at the time he was considered to be one of the few musicians of real talent who carried the tradition of the classic jazz tenor saxophone in the style of...

, Warren Vache

Warren Vache

Warren Vaché is a jazz trumpeter, cornetist and flugelhornist born in Rahway, New Jersey. He came from a musical family as his father was a bassist. In 1976 he released his first album...

, Dan Barrett, Howard Alden

Howard Alden

Howard Alden is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. He has recorded a long series of albums for Concord Records. His performances were dubbed over Sean Penn as 'Emmet Ray' in the 1999 Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown...

, Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski

Ken Peplowski is a jazz clarinetist born in Cleveland, Ohio, known primarily for playing in the swing music idiom. He is sometimes compared to Benny Goodman in terms of tone and virtuosity...

), Great American Songbook

Great American Songbook

The Great American Songbook is a hypothetical construct that seeks to represent the best American songs of the 20th century principally from Broadway theatre, musical theatre, and Hollywood musicals, from the 1920s to 1960, including dozens of songs of enduring popularity...

 (Carmen McRae

Carmen McRae

Carmen Mercedes McRae was an American jazz singer, composer, pianist, and actress. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics that made her memorable...

, Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...

, Mel Tormé

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

, Marty Paich

Marty Paich

Martin Louis "Marty" Paich was an American pianist, composer, arranger, producer, music director and conductor....

), and latin jazz

Latin jazz

Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

 (Cal Tjader

Cal Tjader

Callen Radcliffe Tjader, Jr. a.k.a. Cal Tjader was a Latin jazz musician, though he also explored various other jazz idioms. Unlike other American jazz musicians who experimented with the music from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he never abandoned it, performing it until his...

, Tito Puente

Tito Puente

Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...

, Mongo Santamaría

Mongo Santamaría

Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950 he moved to New York where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All...

, Poncho Sanchez

Poncho Sanchez

Poncho Sanchez , a Mexican-American, is a conguero , Latin jazz band leader, and salsa singer. In 2000, Sanchez and his ensemble won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album for their work on the Concord Picante album Latin Soul...

). Jefferson acted as producer for well over 500 recording sessions.

External links

• [ Carl Jefferson] at Allmusic.com
• Concord Records at All About Jazz