GRP Records

GRP Records is an American jazz record company, owned by Universal Music Group and operates through its Verve Music Group. The company's name has had different meanings. In its early days, it stood for "Grusin/Rosen Productions," after the founders. By the middle 1990s, after Grusin and Rosen left the company, GRP used the marketing slogan "Great Records Period."

History

1978-1987

GRP Records was founded in New York by Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen in 1978. Previously, the duo had formed Grusin/Rosen Productions as a freelance production team in 1972, producing records for labels such as RCA, Blue Note and CTI with artists like Jon Lucien, Noel Pointer, Earl Klugh and Patti Austin. Between 1978 and 1982, Grusin/Rosen Productions operated under a label agreement with Clive Davis at Arista, which was known as '"Arista/GRP." They achieved success with a number of artists during this period, most notably trumpeter Tom Browne and his jazz-funk hit 'Funkin' for Jamaica'. Embracing an all-digital recording philosophy, GRP made early use of Soundstream's digital recording technology, resulting in Dave Grusin's 'Mountain Dance' (1979), one of the earliest all-digital recordings outside of classical music. Dave Valentin was the first act signed to the label.

In 1982, GRP broke away from the Arista umbrella and began operating as an independent label. They quickly became one of the first U.S. labels to release all of their...
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