Larry Rosen was born in the Bronx on May 25, 1940, and raised in New Jersey, starting his career as a drummer, including a turn with the Newport Jazz Festival Youth Band in 1959. He met pianist Dave Grusin while both were working with singer Andy Williams, and by 1972 the two had formed Grusin/Rosen Productions, a freelance production team whose clients included Earl Klugh, Lee Ritenour, and Patti Austin. Dave Grusin's own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile.

A decade later, the pair took a genuine risk: in 1982, against the advice of their own financial advisers and lawyers, Rosen and Grusin mortgaged their homes to launch GRP Records as an independent label, pioneering digital recording and releasing their entire catalog on the then-emerging compact disc format. GRP was recognized as Billboard's number one Contemporary Jazz label for five consecutive years, and its artists collected more than 80 Grammy nominations, winning 33.

Rosen kept working in jazz well after GRP's own run ended, creating Jazz Roots in 2008, a concert series with an education and mentoring program for music students, based at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami and later expanded to performing arts centers in Atlanta, Dallas, and Las Vegas, presenting artists including Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, and Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Rosen died of brain cancer on October 9, 2015, at age 75.

Rosen's contribution to crossover jazz was almost entirely as a businessman and producer rather than a performer: the willingness to personally finance an independent label at genuine financial risk, and to build it around cutting-edge digital and CD technology, shaped an entire commercial era of the genre.