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CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Dan Morgenstern in 2012
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…..The influential jazz critic, author, scholar, and advocate for the music Dan Morgenstern died on September 7, at the age of 94.
…..The critic Gary Giddins once told me that Morgenstern has the “best ears in the business.” Morgenstern’s work as editor of Down Beat during the 1960’s and 70’s (when it was jazz music’s premier magazine) and as the director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers, according to writer Sheldon Mayer helped direct “a generation of jazz scholars and broadened the discussion and range of the discipline.”
…..In addition to his work at Down Beat and the Institute, I associate Morgenstern’s career with his defense of the latter-day Louis Armstrong, and for the many great liner notes he penned. In the introduction to my 2005 interview with Morgenstern (at the time of the release of his book Living With Music), I wrote: “Dan Morgenstern was the Hemingway of his business. Along with his work as editor of Down Beat during much of this period, his liner notes made the music understandable to those who wouldn’t know a valve trombone from a Wankel rotary engine, and enticed us to make celebrated jazz musicians our charismatic, lifelong companions through an unpretentious and charming writing style.”
…..In honor of his amazing life story – which began as a young boy having to flee Vienna with his family in 1938, in the wake of Hitler’s arrival – I invite you to check out my interview with him. You can do so by clicking here.
…..In addition to that interview, in 2020 I spoke with Morgenstern and the pianist Christian Sands their appreciation for and legacy of the pianist Errol Garner. You can read that by clicking here.
Joe Maita
Editor/Publisher
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