George Butler (record producer)

George Tucker Butler Jr. ( born September 2, 1931 in Charlotte ( North Carolina), † April 9, 2008 in Castro Valley, California ) was an American jazz producer.

Butler grew up in Charlotte, attended Howard University and Columbia University, where he received his master's degree in music education. Butler stayed in New York and worked for United Artists Records and from 1972 for their sub - label Blue Note Records. As sales dwindled in the 1970s in the field of jazz, he tried to counteract with crossover projects, among others, the fusion musicians Earl Klugh, Ronnie Laws, Bobbi Humphrey. In addition, he produced jazz greats as Horace Silver, Donald Byrd, Bobby Hutcherson, Elvin Jones, whose sales figures have also been increased by Butler's words through his success with crossover projects. From the late 1970s he was at Columbia Records as "Vice President for jazz and progressive artists and repertory " (A & R ). There, he produced, among others Grover Washington and Billy Cobham, but most of all I managed to persuade him Miles Davis after five -year break in 1980 back to recordings. He also discovered the early 1980s, Wynton Marsalis, whom he brought to Columbia and with whom he recorded there in classical music environment. He also produced a number of other " Young Lions " as Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison. Also, the singer Harry Connick was produced by him. Butler was also located around the outer appearance of his musicians, trying, as he said in an interview in 1993 to introduce a " dress code " with a suit and tie as in the bebop era in the 1980s. Mid-1990s, he left Columbia. He died of complications of Alzheimer 's disease.

He was an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His daughter Bethany Butler is an actress.