Matthew Katz
Music manager and producer
Matthew Katz (December 20, 1929 – September 30, 2023) was an American music manager and producer, most notably as the manager of Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and It's a Beautiful Day. He was the owner of the record label San Francisco Sound, and the owner of Matthew Katz Productions.
Career
Katz started his career in music in the 1960s, as the manager of three San Francisco-based bands, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and It's A Beautiful Day. He is known for controversial practices that were criticized for not being in the best interest of the artists he managed. In October 1966, when CBS Records offered a contract to Moby Grape, Katz coerced the band into giving up ownership of their name and all of their publishing rights or else he would block them from signing with the label. Moby Grape fired Katz in late 1967.
His acrimonious relationship with the band would continue to deteriorate for decades as Katz continued to collect all of their royalties for himself. In 2005, the Superior Court Of California decreed that all ownership rights relating to recordings and songs prior to 1973 are the sole property of Moby Grape. It also stipulated that Katz was to pay back royalties, and that the band members now owned the Moby Grape name. Katz appealed, but the Court Of Appeal upheld the original verdict in 2006.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Matthew Katz” is music manager and producer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Matthew, Katz and Music, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “music manager and producer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16730639. VIAF identifies the subject as 79154258009124152624. The Library of Congress control number is no2018153135. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 2023, 1966 and 1967.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Matthew Katz”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Matthew Katz primary sources, Matthew Katz archive and Matthew research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Matthew Katz”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Matthew Katz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.