Ahmet Ertegun - R.I.P.

[Lois Gilbert]

Ahmet Ertegun has serious head injury
NEW YORK, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of Atlantic
Records, was in a coma after falling backstage at former President
Bill Clinton's birthday party in New York.

Ertegun slipped and hit his head as the Rolling Stones were going
onstage to perform Sunday, Oct. 29, The Daily Mail reported.

"Mick was terribly upset," an aide to the band said, referring to
lead singer Mick Jagger. "Ahmet was unconscious in the intensive
care unit and the doctors at first didn't give him much of a chance.
But they are now listing him as stable."

Ertegun, son of a Turkish diplomat, founded Atlantic in 1947 with
his brother, using money borrowed from their dentist. The label's
roster has included luminaries of jazz, R&B and rock ranging from
Ray Charles and Duke Ellington to Led Zeppelin and the Stones.

[Ron Thorne]

Wow, what a bummer!



Sure hope that he recovers fully, and soon.

He's a treasure.

ps: Here's a lesser known fact concerning this intriguing pioneer in the music industry:

Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa (born May 15, 1974 in Los Angeles, California) is the third of four children born to American musician Frank Zappa and Gail Sloatman. Ahmet Zappa was named after Ahmet Ertegun, who played an important role in Frank Zappa's early career.

[Lois Gilbert]

Ahmet and Neshui played an important part in so many people early careers mainly in Jazz and R&B.

I once went to a party at Ahmet's apt everyone from Aretha to Jagger to Les McCann was there. It was amazing!

[jazzy mary]

Oh my God, I hope he recovers fully! I'm sending prayers to him & his family.

[Valerie]

this is absolutely horrible news!! i am also sending my prayers out for his complete recovery! indeed, this man is a treasure!

[Cem]

I wish him well. He really is a treasure. It was a rare thing, I think, that many great musicians of yesteryear really liked & trusted Ahmet &, the sadly departed, Nesuhi. Both were serious music fans, who happened to be in the biz. I've always wanted to meet the man & find out what he's about. The fact that he's an interesting Turkish icon is also a part of it, of course. So, I wish him a speedy recovery, then Lois can introduce us, right Lois?

[Pete C]

I used to work in the same building that Atlantic was in. I'd often see him coming in, as dapper as could be in what must be $5k suits.

[Gentle Giant]

Damn. Definitely offering up prayers for his recovery. Singularly important figure with big-ass ears, and, by all accounts, a truly decent human being.

[hornplayer]

that's such bad news!

any update on his condition?

[Gentle Giant]

Call it the Curse of Filming the Rolling Stones. Check it out:

In other Rolling Stones news, director Martin Scorsese has been given the go-ahead by the band to direct a new Stones concert movie. Scorsese is expected to use footage of the band at their recent appearance at former U.S. president Bill Clinton's 60th birthday party and other upcoming concerts that have been rescheduled due to Jagger's laryngitis. Scorsese has enlisted the help of fellow filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, who directed the classic 1969 Stones documentary Gimme Shelter. - Uncut.co.uk/NME.....

[Cem]

Music world legend Ahmet Ertegun on life-support in NYC

Ahmet Ertegun, a legend in the music world, is reportedly very close to death in a New York hospital, following an accident he had a month and a half ago. Doctors treating Ertegun say it will be a "miracle" if the founder of Atlantic Records is able to recover, and that at this point, his existance depends on a variety of life-support machines surrounding him.

The accident responsible for Ertegun's current state took place October 29 at a Rolling Stones concert on Broadway in New York City; Ertegun, who is 83, slipped while coming out of a rest room, and fell down a flight of stairs. He has been in an intensive care unit ever since.
Ertegun's surgeon, Dr. Howard Riina, said "His situation is very critical....His recovery, speaking medically, does not look possible. He may be able to live for a while on support units. But his will does clarify that he does not want to live this way. The final decision, however, will have to be made by his wife Mica." Mice Ertegun, meanwhile, has said that when her husband dies, she wants to bury him in Istanbul's Uskudar neighborhood, where his family already has a large plot in a cemetary there.


Ahmet Ertegun is the son of former Turkish Ambassador to Washington, DC, Munir Ertegun. Born in Istanbul in 1923, Ahmet Ertegun formed Atlantic Records with his brother, Nesuhi Ertegun in 1947, borrowing 10 thousand dollars from a family friend. With a reknowned talent for selecting performers who would become famous, Ertegun worked with names like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Herbie Mann, the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Eric Clapton, Bette Midler, John Coltrane, Tori Amos, and many many others.

Hürriyet - December 7, 2006


Anyone with such good instincts & good will deserves a miraculous recovery, imo. My thoughts are with him & his loved ones.

Ahmet Bey, çok yaşa!

[Valerie]

i was just thinking today that i hadn't heard any updates on his condition for quite awhile which i felt wasn't a good sign.

i am so sad about this "freak accident" happening to this brilliant, accomplished man. i will hope for a miracle.

[Ron Thorne]

Add me to the list, Cem and Valerie.

[hornplayer]

Me, too....

[kedoane]

Praying for a miracle.

[Lois Gilbert]

Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, the son of a Turkish diplomat who helped make Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin stars, is in a coma after injuring his brain in a fall, his doctor said Monday (Dec. 12).
Dr. Howard Riina, his neurosurgeon, told Reuters in a telephone interview
that the music industry legend "sustained a severe brain injury after a
fall. He's in a deep coma and in critical condition. His chance of a
meaningful recovery is small." Riina said Ertegun, 83, was on life support
in a neurological intensive care unit at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Asked
when a decision might bemade about continuing to provide life support to Ertegun, Riina said, "It's not clear at this point. He remains critically ill. He's still very sick." Atlantic Records said Ertegun fell on October 29 while attending a Rolling Stones concert and was hospitalized with a head injury.
‹Reuters

[Dennis Gonzalez]

From MSN:

Music Pioneer Ahmet Ertegun Dies at 83
Dec 14, 6:55 PM EST

Ahmet Ertegun, who helped define American music as the founder of Atlantic Records, a label that popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones, died Tuesday at 83, his spokesman said.

Ertegun remained connected to the music scene until his last days — it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell, suffered a head injury and was hospitalized. He later slipped into a coma.

"He was in a coma and expired today with his family at his bedside," said Dr. Howard A. Riina, Ertegun's neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Ertegun will be buried in a private ceremony in his native Turkey, said Bob Kaus, a spokesman for Ertegun and Atlantic Records. A memorial service will be conducted in New York after New Year's.

Ertegun, a Turkish ambassador's son, started collecting records for fun, but would later became one of the music industry's most powerful figures with Atlantic, which he founded in 1947.

The label first made its name with rhythm and blues by Charles and Big Joe Turner, but later diversified, making Franklin the Queen of Soul as well as carrying the banner of British rock (with the Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin) and American pop (with Sonny and Cher, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and others).

Today, the company, part of Warner Music Group, is the home to artists including Kid Rock, James Blunt, T.I., and Missy Elliott.

Ertegun's love of music began with jazz, back when he and his late brother Nesuhi (an esteemed producer of such jazz acts as Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman) used to hang around with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in the clubs of Washington, D.C.

"My father was a diplomat who was ambassador to Switzerland, France and England before he became ambassador to the United States, and we lived in all those countries and we always had music in the house, and a lot of it was a kind of popular music, and we heard a lot of jazz," Ertegun recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

"By the time we came to Washington, we were collecting records and we amassed a collection of some 25,000 blues and jazz records."

Ertegun parlayed his love of music into a career when he founded Atlantic with partner Herb Abramson and a $10,000 loan. When the label first started, it made its name with blues-edged recordings by acts such as Ruth Brown.

Despite his privileged background, which included attending prep school and socializing with Washington's elite, Ertegun was able to mix with all kinds of people — an attribute that made him not just a marketer of black music, but a part of it, said Jerry Wexler.

"The transition between these two worlds is one of Ahmet's most distinguishing characteristics," Wexler said.

Black music was the backbone of the label for years — it was Atlantic, under Wexler's production genius, that helped make Franklin the top black female singer of her day.

"We had some pop music — we had Bobby Darin ... and we developed other pop artists such as Sonny and Cher and Bette Midler and so on," said Ertegun. "But we had been most effective that set a style as purveyors of African-American music. And we were the kings of that until the arrival of Motown Records, which was long after we started."

But once music tastes changed, Ertegun switched gears and helped bring on the British invasion in the '60s.

"If Atlantic had restricted itself to R&B music, I have no doubt that it would be extinct today," Wexler said.

Instead, it became even bigger.

In later years, Ertegun signed Midler, Roberta Flack and ABBA. He had a gift for being able to pick out what would be a commercial smash, said the late producer Arif Mardin, who remembered one session where he was working with the Bee Gees on an album — but was unsure of what he had produced.

"Then Ahmet came and listened to it, and said, `You've got hits here, you've got dance hits,'" Mardin once told the AP. "I was involved in such a way that I didn't see the forest for the trees. ... He was like the steadying influence."

One strength of the company was Ertegun's close relationships with many of the artists — relationships that continued even after they left his label. Midler still called for advice, and he visited Franklin's home when he dropped into Detroit.

His friendships extended to the younger generation, too, including Kid Rock and Lil' Kim.

Besides his love of music, Ertegun was also known for his love of art, and socializing. It was not uncommon to find him at a party with his wife, Mica, hanging out until all hours with friends.

Although he was slowed by triple-bypass surgery in 2001, he still went into his office almost daily to listen for his next hit.

Finding those hits were among the most wonderful moments in his life, he said.

"I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging ... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit — and what you're working on suddenly has magic," he said. "That's the biggest."



Copyright 2006 Associated Press.

[Mike Schwartz]

I'm wondering if Cem, or any other poster who knows would be so kind as to phonetically pronounce the name. Thanks in advance......RIP

[Mike Schwartz]

[statement from Atlantic Records]

NEW YORK, NY, Dec 14, 2006 -- Ahmet Ertegun, Founding Chairman of Atlantic Records, passed away today in New York City at the age of 83. He had been hospitalized with a head injury since October 29, when he fell backstage at a Rolling Stones concert at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan.

Dr. Howard A Riina, Mr. Ertegun's neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center said, "Mr. Ertegun suffered a severe brain injury after he fell in October. He was in a coma and passed away today with his family at his bedside."

Mr. Ertegun will be buried in a private ceremony in his native Turkey. A memorial service will be conducted in New York after the New Year.

"All of us at Atlantic Records are profoundly saddened by the loss of our founder and mentor," said Atlantic Chairman/CEO Craig Kallman. "The music community has lost a pioneer and an icon, and we have lost our father. Ahmet changed the course of modern music and culture, and he will live on through the timeless legacy of work that was created under his direction and care. Musicians loved him, because he truly loved them and spoke their language. The essence of Ahmet Ertegun is the essence of Atlantic Records. His passion for music and his devotion to the artists who make it have been at the very heart of this company for six decades. The soul of Ahmet Ertegun will forever be our guiding spirit, and as long as there is an Atlantic Records, it will be Ahmet Ertegun's company. Our thoughts and prayers are with Ahmet's wife, Mica, and his family during this very difficult time."

"Ahmet never stopped working, because for him, it was never work, it was life," said Atlantic President Julie Greenwald. "He started Atlantic with a fan's enthusiasm, an independent spirit, and a deep understanding of the music. Ahmet touched the lives of artists, producers, songwriters, and countless others who were blessed by his creativity, wisdom, and humor. He changed the music and he changed the music business, and he is the inspiration to an entire new generation of music people who will strive to follow in his amazing footsteps. Equally at home in New Orleans juke joints and foreign embassies, Ahmet was a human being of rare character, style, and humility. He was the real deal, and the world will be a far lesser place without him."

"Ahmet's visionary talents as a businessman and as a recording industry pioneer are the stuff of legend, but it is his lifelong pursuit of truth -- as distilled into music -- that I find most inspiring," said Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music Group Chairman and CEO. "For all of us at Warner Music, it has been an honor to work with Ahmet. He showed us all how to live life with passion, integrity, generosity, and joy, and we will miss him deeply."

"I feel so privileged to be able to say that Ahmet Ertegun was a mentor," said Lyor Cohen, Chairman and CEO, U.S. Recorded Music, Warner Music Group. "Here was a man who combined substance and style like no one else. Who affected millions upon millions of people through the music his artists created. Who nurtured those artists under his watchful eye. We were blessed to have him. There will never be another Ahmet Ertegun. His life was simply too incredible to ever be matched by a single human being."

Ahmet M. Ertegun

One of the most important figures in the history of modern music, Ahmet Ertegun was born in Istanbul, Turkey on July 31, 1923. The son of the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Ahmet was raised and educated in Switzerland, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C. A passionate music fan and collector, Ertegun borrowed $10,000 from his dentist and founded Atlantic Records in New York City in the fall of 1947. He signed artists, produced records, wrote songs, and supervised the fledgling label. As he said, "We started Atlantic simply because we wanted to sign a few artists whose music we liked, and make the kind of records that we would want to buy."

Under Ahmet's direction, Atlantic evolved from a groundbreaking, independent R&B and jazz label into one of the world's preeminent music companies. The artists Ahmet discovered and the music he pioneered led a revolution in R&B, soul, and rock music that reshaped the modern cultural landscape -- forming a legacy that includes such seminal artists as Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker, The Clovers, The Drifters, John Coltrane, Ben E. King, Bobby Darin, Sonny & Cher, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, The Rolling Stones, Bette Midler, Roberta Flack, Phil Collins, and many others.

Ahmet was founder and Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In recognition of his pioneering contributions to contemporary music and culture, he was himself elected to the Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Museum's main exhibition hall in Cleveland bears his name. In 1991, Ahmet received an honorary doctorate in music from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and in 1993 he was presented with a Trustees Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. In 2000, he was honored as a "Living Legend" by the United States Library of Congress, on the occasion of the Library's Bicentennial. In June 2006, he was honored with the opening night concert at the 40th Montreux Jazz Festival. He never retired and remained active at Atlantic until his death, serving as Founding Chairman of the company he started six decades ago.

[Lois Gilbert]

Originally Posted by Mike Schwartz

I'm wondering if Cem, or any other poster who knows would be so kind as to phonetically pronounce the name. Thanks in advance......RIP

ah met ert a gun

[Monte Smith]

Rest in peace, Mr Ertegun. On the other hand, how cool is it that an 83 year old man should meet his maker at a Rolling Stones show? The Rolling Stones, who were first making music when Mr Ertegun was a mere lad.

[Ron Thorne]

What a shame.

He was, unquestionably, a pioneer and an inspired man. Thankfully, we can remember him through his remarkable musical vision and touch.


Ahmet and Mica Ertegun

R.I.P., Ahmet Ertegun

[Dr Dave]

Listen up, my fellow Americans: The man behind a thousand great R&B recordings was a Turk, a distant echo of the Ottoman Empire...Reality is so amazing some times...

[hornplayer]

the love of music is a great equalizer.

Thanks for all the music, Mr Ertegun! Rest in Peace.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

Listen up, my fellow Americans: The man behind a thousand great R&B recordings was a Turk, a distant echo of the Ottoman Empire...Reality is so amazing some times...

Why is that amazing? The distant echo of the Ottoman Empire was itself a distant echo when the man emmigrated with his father and siblings to the US decades and decades ago. It's not like "Turk" screams anti-RB, esp. then, like "Muslim" screams anti-so much these days. Muslims these days, not Turks, are scary. You wanna make music? Good luck! Beware.

[Cem]

I'm really sorry that he's gone, having led a rich, fulfilling life, no doubt. My condolences to his loved ones. As I said, I really would love to have met him.

His name is pronounced: ah(as in honey)-met e(h)r-teh-guen

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Sad news. He was a great judge of talent who led a great label, and the musicians who worked for him loved him. An extraordinary man who has enriched us all. R.I.P.

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

Muslims these days, not Turks, are scary.

Will I ever stop objecting to your conflation of "Muslims" with, for example, "Salafists"? Probably not.

[Lois Gilbert]

Music pioneer, visionary, record label founder, jazz and R&B collector and producer, Ahmet Ertegun has passed away at age 83 from a head injury. A rock and roll fan until the very end, he slipped and fell at a Rolling Stones concert in October, and later slipped into a coma.

He was a giant in the music business. He and a friend Herb Abramson founded Atlantic Records in 1947 and was instrumental in the careers of early R&B artists Ruth Brown, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and later on helped usher in the British Invasion with Cream, Led Zeppelin, Yes and the Rolling Stones.

Ahmet Ertegun has signed, produced and worked with other such notable artists as Wilson Pickett, The Drifters, Roberta Flack, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Vanilla Fudge, Eric Clapton, Bad Company,The Allman Brothers, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Bette Midler and Iron Butterfly.

Ahmet was honored this past June at the 40th Montreux Jazz Festival with an all star concert featuring many of the artists he has worked with over the years. Ahmet and his brother Nesuhi Ertegun were both recognized for their outstanding efforts both in the music industry and with the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Ertegun also helped create the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, and received the Grammy Trustees Award in 1993. In 2000 he was named a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress.

http://www.cybersmusic.com/2006/12/m...1923-2006.html

[Lois Gilbert]

Ahmet Ertegun, Founder of Atlantic Records, Dies

From: NYTimes:
By TIM WEINER
Published: December 14, 2006
Ahmet Ertegun, the music magnate who founded Atlantic Records and shaped the careers of John Coltrane, Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and many others, died today in Manhattan. He was 83.

A spokesman for Atlantic Records said the death was the result of a brain injury suffered when Mr. Ertegun fell backstage at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Oct. 29 as the Rolling Stones prepared to play a concert to mark former President Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday. He had been in a coma since then.

“Few people have had a bigger impact on the record industry than Ahmet,” David Geffen, the entertainment mogul, said today in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, “and no one loved American music more than he did.”

Mr. Geffen said that Mr. Ertegun “started me in the record business” in 1970 by helping to finance his own record company, Asylum, “just as he gave many independent entrepreneurs the chance to start their own companies.”

Mr. Ertegun was the dapper son of a Turkish diplomatic family. He was equally at home at a high-society soiree or a rhythm and blues club, the kind of place where, in the 1950s, he found the performers who went on to make hits for Atlantic Records, one of the most successful American independent music labels.

He was an astute judge of both musical talent and business potential, surrounding himself with skillful producers and remaking rhythm and blues for the pop mainstream. As Atlantic Records grew from a small independent label into a major national music company, it became a stronghold both of soul, with Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding, and of rock, with the Stones, Led Zeppelin and Yes.

Ever conscious of the music’s roots, Mr. Ertegun was also a prime mover in starting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Mr. Ertegun said he fell in love with music when he was 9. In 1932, his older brother, Nesuhi, took him to see the Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway orchestras at the Palladium Theater in London. The beauty of the jazz, the power of the beat and the elegance of the musicians made a lasting impression.

His instincts were not impeccable. He lost out on chances to sign the Beatles and Elvis Presley. But in an industry in which backstabbing is commonplace, Mr. Ertegun was admired as a shrewd businessman with a passion for the creative artists and the music he nurtured.

Along with a partner, Herb Abramson, Mr. Ertegun founded Atlantic Records in 1947 in an office in a derelict hotel on West 56th Street in Manhattan. His initial investment of $10,000 was borrowed from his family dentist.

By the 1950s, Atlantic’s records had developed a unique sound, best described as the mixed and polygamous marriage of Mr. Ertegun’s musical loves. He and his producers mingled blues and jazz with the mambo of New Orleans, the urban blues of Chicago, the swing of Kansas City and the sophisticated rhythms and arrangements of New York.

Mr. Ertegun often signed musicians who had been seasoned on the R&B circuit, and pushed them toward perfecting their performances in the recording studio. Every so often, with his name spelled in reverse as Nugetre, Mr. Ertegun appeared as the songwriter on R&B hits like “Chains of Love” and “Sweet Sixteen.”

In 1954, Atlantic released both “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Joe Turner. (Mr. Ertegun was a backup singer on “Shake, Rattle and Roll”). The songs had a good beat, and people danced to them. They were among the strongest roots of rock ’n’ roll.

After his brother Nesuhi joined Atlantic in 1956, the label attracted many of the most inventive jazz musicians of the era, including Coltrane, Charles Mingus, the Modern Jazz Quartet and Ornette Coleman. In 1957, Atlantic was among the first labels to record in stereo.

By the 1960s, often in partnerships with local labels like Stax in Memphis, Mr. Ertegun was selling millions of recordings by the leading soul musicians of the day, among them Ms. Franklin and Mr. Redding. Ms. Franklin had recorded previously for Columbia Records, but her hits for Atlantic — which merged her gospel roots with an earthy strength and sensuality — were the ones that made her the Queen of Soul.

Mr. Ertegun’s music partnerships, he sometimes pointed out, were often culturally triangular. He was Turkish and a Muslim by birth. Many of his fellow executives, like the producer Jerry Wexler, were Jewish. The artists they produced, particularly when the label began, were black. Together they helped move rhythm and blues to the center of American popular music.

Mr. Ertegun and Ioana Maria Banu were married on April 6, 1961. Known as Mica, she became a prominent interior designer. She survives him, as does a sister.

The Ertegun brothers and their partner, Mr. Wexler, sold the Atlantic label to Warner Brothers-Seven Arts in 1967 for $17 million in stock. Four years later, the brothers took some of the money and founded the New York Cosmos soccer team.

But Mr. Ertegun kept making records. When the Kinney Corporation — a conglomerate of parking lots, funeral parlors, rental cars and other unmusical enterprises — completed the acquisition of Warner Brothers-Seven Arts in 1969, he and his label kept going.

Mr. Ertegun was now a rock mogul. Atlantic Records signed the Stones, Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills and Nash, who became Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young after Mr. Ertegun persuaded Neil Young to join the group. The corporations changed — Kinney turned into Warner Communications, which became Time Warner — but Atlantic and its founder still flourished.

It remained one of the only record labels of the 1940s to survive the multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions of the 1990s in more than name only, with its founder still in charge. Mr. Ertegun reduced his daily corporate duties in 1996 but remained an inveterate night-clubber, avid concertgoer and insatiable music maven well into his 80s.

Ahmet Ertegun was born in Istanbul on July 31, 1923. His father, Mehmet Munir, was the legal counselor to Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

In 1925, Ataturk sent the elder Ertegun to serve as the Turkish representative to the League of Nations. Over the next 20 years, he was the Turkish ambassador to Switzerland, to France, to the Court of St. James under King George V and finally to the United States during the Roosevelt administration. The young Ahmet Ertegun grew up in that worldly realm. His father, then the dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington, died in 1944.

That year, at 21, having earned a bachelor’s degree at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., Mr. Ertegun was taking graduate courses in medieval philosophy at Georgetown University.

“In between, I spent hours in a rhythm and blues record shop in the black ghetto in Washington,” he told the graduates of Berklee College of Music in Boston on receiving an honorary degree in May 1991. “And almost every night, I went to the Howard Theater and to various jazz and blues clubs.”

“I had to decide whether I would go into a scholastic life or go back to Turkey in the diplomatic service, or do something else,” he said. “What I really loved was music, jazz, blues, and hanging out.” And so, he told the students, he did what he loved.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/ar...es&oref=slogin