Though Granz goes unmentioned in the standard histories of the civil-rights movement, his contribution to the cause of racial justice in America was considerable.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

Granz was notorious in the world of jazz for his arrogance.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

Granz is now the subject of a much-needed biography by Tad Hershorn called "Norman Granz: The Man Who Used Jazz for Justice" (University of California Press).

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

The "songbook" albums in which Ella Fitzgerald recorded her interpretations of the collected works of such classic songwriters as Harold Arlen, George Gershwin and Johnny Mercer were Granz's idea.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

Carnegie was outbid on a limited-edition series of jazz recordings signed by impresario Norman Granz and outbid twice on a flier heralding a lecture on spiritualism by Arthur Conan Doyle.

WSJ: Saving Carnegie Hall | Gino Francesconi | Cultural Conversation by Joanne Kaufman

All Jazz at the Philharmonic contracts contained ironclad antisegregation clauses, and Granz would cancel a show whenever those clauses were violated, no matter what it cost him at the box office.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

"I insisted that my musicians were to be treated with the same respect as Leonard Bernstein or Jascha Heifetz because they were just as good, both as men and musicians, " Granz said.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

So was Jazz at the Philharmonic, the now-legendary series of concert tours in which Granz brought together such illustrious artists as Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich and Lester Young.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout

Nowadays the name of Norman Granz, who died in 2001, is known only to gray-headed jazz buffs, but there's a fair chance that you own at least one of the hundreds of albums that he produced for Verve, the record label that he founded in 1956.

WSJ: The Forgotten Man of Jazz | Sightings by Terry Teachout