Val azzoli biography

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Class sizes were small, helping create a family-like, conversational atmosphere that really appealed to Val.

“King felt like a boarding school and everybody was a part of everyone else’s life,” he says. I’m listening to music everyday and I’m really digging it. It was very special.”

From King’s first cohort, a music business rebel emerged

Val Azzoli

VAL AZZOLI LOVES MUSIC. Loves what it says, its cultural power and how it makes him feel.

Like very few, he had the courage to make his passion his career, and what a career he has made: Val has managed hall-of-fame rock bands like the Rolling Stones and Rush, eventually becoming CEO and Co-Chairman of Atlantic Records, where he signed artists including Aaliyah, Lil’ Kim, Jewel and LeAnn Rimes.

Azzoli spent most of his days working selling suits while getting his associate degree for Business Administration from Seneca College in Toronto, all while developing an undying love for music. However, Atlantic Records founder and co-chairman Ahmet Ertegun knew his company needed someone with a bright vision who would reignite the label back to it’s success and he knew just the name.

In 1990 Azzoli became CEO and Co-Chairman of Atlantic Records, where he stayed working for 14 years.

But 20 years later, I’m in a board meeting at Atlantic Records and they are talking about balance sheets. He related to them because, like him, they were “rogues,” willing to buck the mainstream and conventional teaching structures, instead drawing on their life experiences. He is teaching a music course called “Rock to Rap as a Social Phenomenon.” No surprise, it has a waiting list.

Val is quick to tell you that none of his accomplishments would have been possible without Seneca.

He has also served as Director of the Apollo Theater Foundation.

Today, retired from the industry, when he’s not playing tennis (his other passion), Val is a professor at Rutgers and Montclair State University. It was unique, because we were all pioneers, without knowing that we were pioneers. Azzoli knew he didn’t want to be a music publisher so he grasped the opportunity as quick as he could.

Azzoli and Rush achieved global success together selling millions of albums and playing sold out stadiums all over the world.

When I said that, a 16 ton weight was lifted off my back.”

Charity Brown never reached much popularity or commercial success, however managing the band led Azzoli a job at ATV Music, the company responsible for handling and publishing The Beatles’ music in Canada.

After working several years for ATV, Azzoli was asked by Canadian management company SRO’s president Rick Daniels to manage the rock band Rush.

Garriock Hall had yet to be built, so classes were held in majestic Eaton Hall. “We’d have lunch with our professors, we would play Ping-Pong with the janitors and the kitchen staff. I never at Atlantic Records signed a band because I thought I could make money from them, I signed them because they were good and because we didn’t have a band like that on the label.” states Azzoli.

Azzoli left Atlantic in 2004, where he finally took a break from the music industry and focused his time at home with his wife and two daughters.

Azzoli currently lives in Montclair and when he’s not teaching students about the magical world of music he spends his time playing and coaching tennis along with keeping up with the latest music in the air.

“I like music now more than I’ve ever have in my life.

Some of Azzoli’s biggest accomplishments at Atlantic involved discovering and signing artists such as Aaliyah, Lil Kim, and Fleetwood Mac.

Achieving success and getting big paychecks however never made Azzoli go over his head, as he stayed humble through all those years.

“All your decisions aren’t being based on money, they’re based on passion.

I used to listen to music differently, always critiquing it, now I listen to the music for the sake of itself” finalizes Azzoli.