Eric Miller (September 28, 1941 – February 25, 2017) was an American jazz record producer.

Professional career

Born in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, Miller was raised in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. He began his career as a tape archivist for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

's recording studios in Hollywood. A protégé of

Norman Granz Norman Granz (August 6, 1918 – November 22, 2001) was an American jazz record producer and concert promoter. He founded the record labels Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve, and Pablo and the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert series. Gra ...

, Miller assisted him in launching

Pablo Records Pablo Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Norman Granz in 1973, more than a decade after he had sold his earlier catalog (including Verve Records) to MGM Records. Pablo initially featured recordings by acts that Granz managed ...

in 1972. He continued to work with Pablo as a producer and artists-and-repertoire man, after

Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

acquired the label from Granz in 1987. Miller, a jazz fanatic, began his career in the music business in the mid 1960s working as a tape archivist at MGM’s recording studios in Hollywood. In the late 60’s, he was hired as an assistant by celebrated jazz producer and empresario Norman Granz, founder of Verve Records and promoter of the Jazz at the Philharmonic tours. Miller soon became a close friend and protégé of Granz, working with him on various concert tours and recording projects and helping him launch Pablo Records in 1972. Miller was Pablo’s head of artists & repertoire, and oversaw numerous album projects for Pablo, producing new recordings, and previously unreleased sessions for a who’s who of artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Jimmy Smith, John Coltrane, Count Basie, Joe Pass, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, and many more. When Granz sold Pablo to Fantasy Records in 1987, Miller continued to work with the label as a producer and head of artist & repertoire until the early 2000s. Miller’s extensive archive of unreleased jazz master tapes has been used for numerous reissue projects, most recently Verve’s 2-CD sets The Complete Charlie Parker With Strings (2015) and Unheard Bird: The Unissued Takes (2016).

Death

He died from a heart attack at home in Los Angeles on February 25, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Eric 1940s births 2017 deaths Record producers from Ohio People from Cleveland