Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Dan Morgenstern was born October 24, 1929 in Munich, Germany and was raised in Vienna, Austria and Copenhagen, Netherlands before arriving in the United States in 1947. He wrote for Jazz Journal from 1958–1961, then edited several jazz magazines: Metronome in 1961, Jazz from 1962–1963, and Down Beat from 1967-1973.
In 1976, he was named director of Rutgers–Newark’s Institute of Jazz Studies, where he continued the work of Marshall Stearns and made the Institute the world’s largest collection of jazz documents, recordings, and memorabilia.
Over the course of his career, Morgenstern has arranged concerts including the Jazz in the Garden series at the Museum of Modern Art, produced and hosted television and radio programs, taught jazz history at universities and conservatories, and served as a panelist for jazz festivals and awards across the U.S. and Europe.
Widely known as a prolific writer of comprehensive, authoritative liner notes, he has received eight Grammy Awards for Best Album Notes since 1973 for Art Tatum’s God Is in the House, Coleman Hawkins’ The Hawk Flies, Savoy Records Collection The Changing Face of Harlem, Erroll Garner: Master of the Keyboard, Clifford Brown, Brownie: The Complete Emarcy Recordings of Clifford Brown, Louis Armstrong, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Fats Waller, If You Got to Ask, You Ain’t Got It!, and The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions.
He has authored two books that have won ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award: Jazz People in 1976 and Living with Jazz in 2004. In 2007, he received the A.B. Spellman Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy from the National Endowment for the Arts. Writer, editor, archivist and producer Dan Morgenstern continues his career at 87 years of age.
