Verve Records was originally the product of the vision of Norman Granz. He formed Verve Records in 1956 and moved all of his recordings to the Verve catalog.

In late 1960 Granz sold the label to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which sold its record labels to Polydor (Germany) in 1972. That brought Verve into PolyGram's international family of labels.

With the merger of PolyGram with the Universal Music Group, Verve Records became the hub of the Verve Music Group, which also encompasses the influential labels GRP, Impulse! and Blue Thumb labels, and oversees the jazz catalogs of several other Universal-owned labels, including Commodore, Chess, Brunswick, Argo, Cadet, Dot, Coral, Decca, ABC-Paramount, A&M, Mercury, Philips and Polydor.