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'Notorious' band manager Jazz Summers has died at 71

Jazz Summers, who managed some of Britain’s most successful bands including Wham!, Snow Patrol and The Verve, has died, his spokesman has confirmed.

The 71-year-old – who helped shaped the careers of the Scissor Sisters, Badly Drawn Boy and Klaxons – had been battling lung cancer for the last two years.

A spokesman for Big Life Management, which Summers co-founded 29 years ago, said: “The music industry has lost one of its most vibrant, most notorious and most brilliant characters. A champion of new music, a non-conformist and a visionary, Jazz Summers will be greatly missed.

Summers’s artists sold more than 60 million albums and 72 million singles around the world – including more than 100 Top 40 hits, Big Life Management said.

His catalogue of artists also included Lisa Stansfield, Soul II Soul, La Roux and London Grammar.

In 1985, along with with manager Simon Napier-Bell, Jazz helped Wham! break America and become the first western pop group to tour China.

Summers formed his own management company, Big Life, with Tim Parry in 1986. They also ran Big Life Records, which featured hundreds of releases from artists including The Orb, Yazz – Summers’s former wife – Coldcut, De La Soul and The Soup Dragons.

Summers was an active campaigner for artists’ rights and, as chairman of the Music Managers’ Forum (MMF), he was vocal on issues including the extension of copyright.

Source: www.msn.com
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