Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia (born October 21, 1957) is a noted jazz critic and music historian, best known for his books The History of Jazz and Delta Blues, both selected as notable books of the year by The New York Times. He is one of the editors in chief of the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. He is also a jazz musician and one of the founders of Stanford University's jazz studies program. He is the author of several other books on music, including West Coast Jazz (1992), Healing Songs (2006) and Work Songs (2006). His most recent book, a work of cultural criticism, is The Birth (and Death) of the Cool (2009, Speck Press). A second fully updated edition of The History of Jazz has been published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

The Dallas Morning News has called Ted Gioia "one of the outstanding music historians in America." Three of his books have been honored with the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award. In 2006, Gioia was the first to expose, in an article in the Los Angeles Times, the FBI files on folk and roots music icon Alan Lomax. He founded www.jazz.com, a music portal launched in December 2007, and served as President and Editor until 2010. He has also created a series of web sites that focus on various aspects of contemporary fiction, including Great Books Guide, The New Canon, Postmodern Mystery, and Conceptual Fiction.

Gioia is a jazz pianist and composer whose recordings include The End of the Open Road (1988), Tango Cool (1990) and The City is a Chinese Vase (1998). He has also produced recordings featuring Bobby Hutcherson, John Handy, Buddy Montgomery and others.

Gioia holds degrees from Stanford University and Oxford University, as well as an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, and served for a period as an adviser to Fortune 500 companies while with the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Co. He is also the owner of one of the largest collections of research materials on jazz and ethnic music in the Western United States.

Ted Gioia is the brother of Dana Gioia, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.[1]

Sources

• Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Spanish translation (Historia del Jazz) published in 2002 by Fondo de Cultura Económica.
• Gioia, Ted. West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Revised edition published by University of California Press, 1998.
• Gioia, Ted. The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). Portable Stanford edition published in 1988.
• Gioia, Ted. Work Songs. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).
• Gioia, Ted. Healing Songs. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).
• Gioia, Ted. “The Red Rumor Blues: Newly Released Files Reveal A Long-Running FBI Probe Into Music Chronicler Alan Lomax,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2006.
• Haven, Cynthia. "Changing His Tune: A Jazz Expert Turns to Simpler Songs" -- an interview with Ted Gioia (Stanford Magazine, March / April 2007) [2]
• Sohmer, Jack. Review of Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz (Jazz Notes, 1999)[3]
• Yardley, Jonathan. "All the Right Notes." The Washington Post (Sunday, November 30, 1997; Page X03) [4]

External links

• www.tedgioia.com
• Video: Ted Gioia discusses his book Delta Blues
• http://blogcritics.org/writer/ted_gioia
• http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=7050
• Interview with Ted Gioia on National Public Radio [5]
• Interview with Ted Gioia on JazzWax