Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz label founded in 1956 by producer Norman Granz, created to record his managed star Ella Fitzgerald (Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book was its first release); under Granz and later Creed Taylor it absorbed Granz's Clef/Norgran catalogues and now claims the world's largest jazz catalogue, owned by Universal Music Group.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-verve-records.md]
Why it matters to the Hammond story
When Jimmy Smith left Blue Note in 1964, Verve was the label that carried him to mass popularity — The Cat (1964, with Lalo Schifrin's big-band arrangements), Orgelblues, Got My Mojo Workin' and the strutting singles era of The Cat/Peter Gunn LPs turned Smith into an international concert attraction and pushed the B-3 into crossover pop territory.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-jimmy-smith.md]
Verve and its international imprint network also documented the European organ tradition — most famously French organist Eddy Louiss, whose 1971 quartet record with Stan Getz (Dedicace lineage) remains a reference of French Hammond jazz, released through Verve's catalogue lineage in France.^[raw/articles/wikipedia-eddy-louiss.md]