Ira Gitler

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Jazz historian [1] Ira Gitler was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 18, 1928. He grew up listening to Swing bands in the late 1930s and 1940s before discovering the new music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.[2] He is widely known as the author of hundreds upon hundreds of liner notes of Jazz recordings since the early 1950s. [3]

He coined the term "sheets of sound" to describe the playing of John Coltrane in the late 1950's.[4]

Gitler was the New York editor of DownBeat magazine during the 1960's and has written for Metronome, JazzTimes, Jazz Improv, Modern Drummer, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Village Voice, Vibe, Playboy, World Monitor, and New York magazine. Internationally he has contributed to the magazines Swing Journal (Japan), Musica Jazz (Italy) and Jazz Magazine (France). [5]. [6] [7]