Ted Gioia

Who is Ted Gioia?

Ted Gioia 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, Healing Songs, Work Songs and The Birth of the Cool. His most recent book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, published by Oxford University Press in July 2012. A second fully updated and expanded edition of The History of Jazz was published by Oxford University Press in 2011. He is currently writing a book on the history of love songs.

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. His concept of "post-cool," originally described in his book The Birth of the Cool, was selected as one of the "Big Ideas of 2012" by Adbusters magazine. 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 Conceptual Fiction, Great Books Guide, The New Canon, Postmodern Mystery, and Fractious Fiction.