Denis Preston

British jazz critic and record producer. He was born Sidney Denis Prechner on 16 November 1916 in Stoke Newington, London. In the early 1950s, Preston founded Record Supervision/Record Supervision Ltd., a production company which licensed recordings to major labels. Often described as "Europe's first independent record producer", Preston established the influential Lansdowne Studios in West London in 1956. He worked with EMI's label Columbia to release many well-known British jazz releases and also branched-out with his production expertise into other genres. (Cousin of the historian, intellectual, and sometime jazz critic Eric Hobsbawm). Born: 1916. Died: 1979 (aged 63).