Over the course of seven many years, Morgenstern helmed main jazz magazines, wrote two books, produced live shows, gained a number of Grammys, taught faculty and oversaw one of many largest jazz archives.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Gosh, I am sorry to see this information. The jazz critic and historian Dan Morgenstern has died. Over seven many years, Morgenstern edited main jazz magazines, wrote books, produced live shows, gained Grammys. He oversaw one of many largest jazz archives on the planet. And I bumped into him generally after I was working, many, a few years in the past, at WBGO, an attractive jazz station in New Jersey. Dan Morgenstern was 94, and Tom Vitale has this appreciation.
TOM VITALE, BYLINE: When he was 87 years previous, Dan Morgenstern recalled a turning level in his life greater than 60 years earlier. He was out of the military, attending Brandeis College on the GI Invoice, when he produced a solo piano live performance by virtuoso Artwork Tatum.
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DAN MORGENSTERN: Then, on the way in which again, I thanked him. After which he stated, I ought to thanks, as a result of that is the primary time I’ve ever executed a solo live performance all on my own.
(SOUNDBITE OF ART TATUM’S “TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS”)
MORGENSTERN: However that struck me. And that is after I determined that I needed to do one thing for the music that might make it inconceivable for anyone like that genius to not be acknowledged.
VITALE: So he went to work, proper out of faculty, as a jazz critic on the New York Publish. Within the Sixties, he edited the 2 most influential jazz magazines of the day – Metronome and Downbeat. In 1973, he gained the primary of his eight Grammy awards for his liner notes to an anthology of Artwork Tatum recordings.
TAD HERSHORN: He would hear issues, subtleties, that can all the time be past me. And he’s not a musician, however his ear was so nice.
(SOUNDBITE OF ART TATUM’S “TOO MARVELOUS FOR WORDS”)
VITALE: Tad Hershorn is a journalist and archivist on the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Research, one of many world’s largest collections of jazz paperwork and recordings. Dan Morgenstern grew to become director of the institute in 1976. Hershorn says Morgenstern’s perspective was distinctive.
HERSHORN: He was there, and also you’d take into consideration mythic issues. When Bud Powell returned from France in, like, 1964 or one thing, Dan was there to satisfy him on the airport. You wish to ask about Billie Vacation’s funeral? These are individuals who meant a lot to him.
VITALE: Hershorn says that affinity had rather a lot to do with Morgenstern’s background. He was born in Munich in 1929, the son of two Jewish authors who needed to flee from the Nazis. He and his mom made it to Denmark.
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MORGENSTERN: The Danish Underground bought my mom and me to Sweden. My father had every kind of adventures. He did not make it to Denmark. He was in France, however he got here right here in 1941. I got here right here in 1947.
VITALE: By the point he bought right here, he’d already heard Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington on his mom’s phonograph.
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MORGENSTERN: After I got here to America, after I got here to New York – you already know, lots of people wish to see the Statue of Liberty. I needed to see 52nd Avenue, and that is true (laughter). I used to be solely 17, however I managed to sneak in. And Charlie Parker on one facet of the road, Sidney Bechet on the opposite, you already know, Billie Vacation down the street a chunk – superb. Superb. So I bought hooked.
VITALE: And as he wrote about them, he bought to know them as individuals.
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MORGENSTERN: Jazz musicians who got here up in the course of the interval when the music was actually coming into its personal, with the swing period and all that, had been a outstanding group of people that needed to undergo loads of hardship. They got here out of that with their humanity and their artistry intact, they usually’re simply nice individuals.
VITALE: When he was 87, Dan Morgenstern stated he had a terrific life as a result of he was in a position to do some good for jazz.
For NPR Information, I am Tom Vitale in New York.
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