Orrin Keepnews above left pictured with pianist McCoy Tyner in 2010. Keepnews produced several albums by Tyner including Atlantis and Horizon

Jazz record producer Orrin Keepnews has died, his passing reported in the New York Times. Keepnews was 91.

Keepnews produced albums by Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans among others in a long and distinguished career.

A graduate of Columbia University with a degree in English he returned to Columbia for graduate studies after wartime service. He was editor of The Record Changer jazz magazine, and with Bill Grauer became owner of the magazine the pair later setting up Riverside Records in the 1950s, signing Randy Weston to the label and then Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and other artists.

Keepnews produced Bill Evans Trio album Sunday At The Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby. ‘Re: Person I Knew’, the Bill Evans tune, is an anagram of Keepnews' name.

Riverside went bust in 1964 and Keepnews later founded Milestone Records with pianist Dick Katz and in the 1970s became a jazz A&R at Fantasy who now owned Riverside’s masters and would also later own Milestone. He stayed with Fantasy until the early-1980s then founding Landmark Records later in the decade.

Keepnews won several Grammys and was given a Trustees Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Academy also becoming the recipient of a NEA Jazz Masters lifetime achievement award. Albums among the dozens produced by Keepnews besides those mentioned already include classics Brilliant Corners (Monk), and Ezz-thetics (George Russell).