and others. By the early 1960s, Mercury was releasing jazz under the flagship label. Highlights of the early and mid-1960s included albums by Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, Cannonball Adderley, Charles (then called Charlie) Mingus, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Max Roach and others. In the early 1950s, Norman Granz founded his own record company, Norgran Records, which later became Verve. In the mid to late 1960s, Verve was an imprint of MGM Records. Both Mercury and Verve are now owned by Universal Music Group and Mercury's jazz library falls under the Verve division. Since the early 1990s, Verve has reissued many Mercury jazz titles on CD. In addition, Mosaic Records in Stamford CT has issued several box sets spotlighting the Mercury and Verve recordings of various artists including Max Roach, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Buddy Rich. Later history In 1961, Philips, a Dutch electronics company and owner of Philips Records, which had lost its distribution deal with Columbia Records outside North America, played a key role in Mercury's future by signing an exchange agreement with the American Record Company. A year later, Mercury was sold to Consolidated Electronics Industries Corp. (a.k.a. Conelco) which is an affiliate of Philips under its U.S. Trust division; and in 1963, Mercury switched British distribution from EMI to Philips. In 1962, Mercury began marketing a line of phonographs made by Philips bearing the Mercury brand name. In July 1967, Mercury Records became the first U.S. record label to release cassette music tapes (Musicassettes). In 1969, Mercury changed its corporate name to Mercury Record Productions Inc. while its parent Conelco became North American Philips Corp (N.A.P.C.) after Philips brought control of the company. Philips and German Electronics giant Siemens reorganized their joint-ventured record operations, Grammophon-Philips Group, home of Deutsche Grammophon, Philips Records and Polydor to become PolyGram in 1972. That year PolyGram brought Mercury from N.A.P.C. Mercury's corporate name was changed to Phonogram Inc. to match a related company in the UK that operated the Mercury label there. From late 1974 to early 1983, the company's label design featured a painting of three famous Chicago buildings: Marina City, John Hancock Center and One IBM Plaza which was Mercury headquarters during that period, having moved from its long-time address at 35 East Wacker Drive in Chicago. In 1980, Phonogram moved its headquarters from Chicago to New York City. In 1981, Mercury, along with other U.S. PolyGram-owned labels, which included Polydor, RSO Records, and Casablanca, consolidated under the new name PolyGram Records, Inc. Under PolyGram, Mercury absorbed the artists and catalogue of Casablanca Records (also home to the 20th Century Records back catalogue), which consisted of hard rockers Kiss and disco stars Donna Summer and the Village People, and primarily became a rock/pop label with Kiss, Scorpions, Rush, John Cougar Mellencamp, Kurtis Blow, Tears for Fears, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Treat, Candy, and Def Leppard. Mercury, by having Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Def Leppard, Kiss, Candy, and Scorpions on their roster, was a premiere label for glam metal. Most of these bands were on Vertigo Records in Europe (that label specialized in progressive rock and hard rock including subgenres like glam metal). In late 1998, PolyGram was bought by Seagram, which then absorbed the company into its Universal Music Group unit. Under the reorganization, Mercury Records was folded into the newly formed The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG). Mercury's pop roster was predominantly taken over by Island Records, while its hip hop artists found a new home at Def Jam Recordings, and some of Mercury's R&B acts were moved to the newly created Def Soul Records roster. Mercury's former