Stanley Dance

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Stanley Dance (born September 15, 1910 in Braintree, Essex; died February 23, 1999 in Escondido, California) was a noted writer and biographer in jazz. He began writing about the jazz scene for the French magazine Jazz Hot in 1935. In 1937, he visited New York City's jazz scene for three weeks with Helen Oakley, whom he married in 1946, and resided in England until moving to Connecticut in 1959. He wrote for Jazz Journal from 1948 until his death in 1999. In the 1950s he coined the term mainstream to describe those in between revivalist and modern, or alternatively between Dixieland and bebop. He is credited with helping lead to a rediscovery of Earl Hines in 1964.

He also contributed liner notes for a variety of musicians including Duke Ellington and Count Basie. In 1964 he was co-winner of the first Grammy Award for Best Album Notes. He was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999, the year of his death, and posthumously received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Journalist Association.

His distaste for bebop, and most innovations in jazz after it, made him controversial. That said, he is admired for having been a champion of what he did like, as well as a significant biographer of early jazz greats.

[edit] Partial Bibliography

• Jazz Era the Forties (The Roots of jazz) (Da Capo Press, 1961) ISBN 0-306-76191-2
• The World of Count Basie (Da Capo Press, 1985) ISBN 0-306-80245-7
• The World of Duke Ellington (Da Capo Press) ISBN 0-306-81015-8
• The World of Earl Hines with Earl Hines (Da Capo Paperback, March 1983) ISBN 0-306-80182-5
• The World of Swing: An Oral History of Big Band Jazz with introduction by Dan Morgenstern (Da Capo Press; Diane Publishing Company re-edition 2003) ISBN 0-7567-6672-9

[edit] External links

• Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
• Jazz House article