John Mehegan

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John Mehegan (June 6, 19201984) was a jazz pianist, lecturer and critic.

He was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and began playing the piano at the age of five. In 1946 he was appointed head of the jazz department at the Metropolitan Music School in New York. He later held posts at the Juilliard School of Music and Yale University.

He authored numerous books in jazz, including the Jazz Improvisation series, which sets out the basic principles of jazz.

The American composer Leonard Bernstein dedicated a piano composition to Mehegan in his Four Anniversaries collection published in 1948. Marked agitato: scherzando, the piece, For Johnny Mehegan, commemorates Mehegan's birthday, June 6, 1920.