Hal Gaba, a veteran entertainment industry executive who was chairman and co-owner of Concord Music Group, one of the world's largest independent record companies, has died. He was 63.
Gaba, who also was co-chairman of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group and chief executive of ACT III Communications, died Monday at his home in Los Angeles of a rare form of prostate cancer called small cell cancer, said Concord Music Group spokesman Joel Amsterdam.
“They make Hal Gabas three times a century. I have yet to meet the other two," TV producer Norman Lear, Gaba's longtime friend and business partner, told The Times on Thursday. He was brilliant and kind and generous and open to a fault," Lear said. “There wasn't anybody in the building, from the parking attendant with whom he spoke fluent Spanish, to everybody involved in any department, who didn't enjoy bumping into Hal."
Gaba launched his longtime association with Lear in 1974 when he joined Lear, Bud Yorkin and A. Jerrold Perenchio at Tandem Productions as an acquisitions consultant.
In partnership with Lear in 1990, Gaba became president and chief executive of ACT III Communications, a multimedia holding company with interests in broadcasting, exhibition theater, publishing, motion pictures and music.
At one point near the end of the '90s, while Lear and Gaba were discussing what to do next, Lear said that they had been following his bliss with ACT III. What, Lear asked Gaba, was his passion?
“Music," Gaba replied.
In 1999, Lear and Gaba became co-owners of Concord Records, which was founded as a small jazz label in Concord, Calif., in 1973. Now based in Beverly Hills and called the Concord Music Group, it has grown to encompass many genres of music, including jazz, pop, rock, Latin and classical.
The company's growth is a reflection of Gaba's vision, Lear said. “In a sense, Hal was the growth of Concord: It was his bliss, his passion," he said. “If you wanted to hear Sinatra any time day or night, you walked into his office. He was always playing great music. That was his love."
