Ted Gioia


Ted Gioia is an American jazz critic and music historian. He is author of 12 books, including Music: A Subversive History, The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, The History of Jazz and Delta Blues. He is also a jazz musician and one of the founders of Stanford University's jazz studies program.

Early life and education

Gioia grew up in an Italian-Mexican household in Hawthorne, California, and later earned degrees from Stanford University and the University of Oxford, as well as a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Career

After graduating, Gioia served for a period as an adviser to Fortune 500 companies while with the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company. When Gioia worked amidst Silicon Valley's venture capital community on Sand Hill Road, he was known as the "guy with the piano in his office." Gioia is also owner of one of the largest collections of research materials on jazz and ethnic music in the Western United States.
Gioia is the author of several books on music, including Music: A Subversive History, West Coast Jazz, The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, and The Birth of the Cool. A second updated and expanded edition of The History of Jazz was published by Oxford University Press in 2011, and a third revised edition was issued in 2021. Love Songs: The Hidden History, published by Oxford University Press in 2015, is a survey of the music of courtship, romance, and sexuality; it completes a trilogy of books on the social history of music that includes Work Songs and Healing Songs. All three books have been honored with ASCAP's Deems Taylor Award. In his study of love songs, Gioia contends that innovations in the history of this music came from Africa and the Middle East.
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 the website jazz.com in December 2007 and served as president and editor until 2010.
Gioia is also a jazz pianist and composer. He has produced recordings featuring Bobby Hutcherson, John Handy, and Buddy Montgomery.

Books

  • Music: A Subversive History, Basic Books
  • The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire
  • The History of Jazz, Oxford University Press
  • How to Listen to Jazz
  • The Birth of the Cool
  • Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music
  • West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945–1960
  • The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture
  • Love Songs: The Hidden History
  • Work Songs
  • ''Healing Songs''

    Selected discography

  • The End of the Open Road, Ted Gioia Trio, Quartet Records Q1001 ;
  • Tango Cool, Ted Gioia Trio, Quartet Record QCD1006 ;
  • ''The City is a Chinese Vase''

    Awards and honors

Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz Journalism, Jazz Journalists Association, 2017.
The Dallas Morning News has called Ted Gioia "one of the outstanding music historians in America." His concept of "post-cool" described in his book The Birth of the Cool, was selected as one of the Big Ideas of 2012 by Adbusters magazine.
ASCAP Deems Taylor Award: The Imperfect Art, Work Songs, Healing Songs, Love Songs: The Hidden History.

Personal life

Gioia is the brother of poet Dana Gioia.